First, some California parkrun history
Six months ago, California, the most populous state in the US, had one parkrun - Byxbee parkrun in Palo Alto. Idaho, the 37th most populous state and famous for potatoes and a reptile-filled river for jumping motorcycles over, had more parkruns.
In November of last year, the Ryan Bonaminio parkrun in Riverside opened. Idaho was getting a bit nervous. In April of this year, Brea Reservoir parkrun in Fullerton opened. Idaho shook its head and brought up the jumping motorcycle thing again.
And now there is a fourth parkrun in California - the Mace Ranch parkrun in Davis! California has passed DC, Pennsylvania, Maine (!), and Minnesota, each with three parkruns, and joined Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Illinois, and Massachusetts as the states with four parkruns! (The two states with five, Ohio and Michigan, are getting a bit nervous. Florida and Texas (with six each) and Washington (with eight) claim to be cool with all this going on in California, but secretly worry that their days of supremacy are numbered.)
(Note: A certain group of you, you know who you are, have already started writing nasty comments on this post, reminding me about the Crissy Field parkrun - the OG of California parkruns - that was unable to restart after the pandemic shutdown. Below is a graphic showing a timeline of the California parkruns.)
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| You should be able to click/tap this to see it bigger. |
Now, the star of this post, Mace Ranch parkrun!
Getting a parkrun started in Davis has been in the works for a long time. After a false start or two, it's finally real, all due to the persistence of Event Director Lesley. As a city, Davis has long embraced adding bicycle and hiking paths, making it a natural for a 5K event - all it took was someone willing and able to jump through all the necessary hoops to get it done.
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| Mrs Notthat and Event Director Lesley talking about ice cream. Probably. |
The course is a single out-and-back that starts/ends in Mace Ranch* park. The first and last quarter is on paved trails that are well shaded (that will be more important later this summer). The middle half is all on a gravel trail that has scattered shade, but also has many entertaining bunnies.
*I know I know, it's hard not to try to make a joke about how only in California would a parkrun be named after a ranch that raised fields of self-defense products. I've been assured that Horatio Mace's ranch (I made up that first name since I couldn't find out his real name) was a very normal ranch back in the old days. Probably had lots of cows, chickens, and a small herd of tofu as required by California law.
The course is essentially flat - the only time you notice going up or down is on the two underpasses. It's worth noting that the gravel bit has a number of small potential tripping hazards - in general they won't cause much of an issue except maybe when you're getting a bit tired and aren't lifting your feet like normal, or are getting distracted by the bunny antics.
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| A bit of detail about the start/finish area. |
There is a fair amount of parking at the next door Early Learning Center. You can't park in the street in the area of the park, but you can if you go past the park into the neighborhood. A cool thing is that a number of locals rode their bikes to the event - seriously; Davis is great for getting around on a bike!
There are two flush toilets with running water in the start/finish festival area. There is also a basketball court in case you want to warm up/cool down with a game of hoops!
Pictures from the first Mace Ranch parkrun event
Mrs Notthat and I, along with about 20 others from the Byxbee parkrun event, headed up to Davis for the inaugural Mace Ranch event.
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| Most of the Byxbee people that showed up at Mace Ranch. |
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| Sadly, I missed the first bit of Lesley's pre-race briefing since I was sitting on a toilet, but there was laughing indicating it was going well. Also, note all the shade! |
There were an amazing 118 finishers at this first event, including an astonishing 73 (62%) that finished their very first parkrun!
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| The chalk markings were amazing! |
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| Entering the first underpass! |
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| I believe those cones had nothing to do with parkrun, but were there to keep people from getting bonked by a rogue pine cone. |
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| This first quarter of the course is all paved and very shaded - a total delight! You also went past a playground - it was hard to resist taking a timeout to go down a slide or two. |
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| Approaching the second underpass. (Note, I saw two people wearing stocking caps on the course. There was zero chance of snow. Maybe Mike Nesmith [a reference for you old people] is revered here.) |
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| "Hi Brooklyn! Which way do I go?" Shortly after that underpass, you curve around then make a turn onto the gravel part of the course. |
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| There were several shady bits on the gravel section of the trail. |
A fun thing about out-and-back courses is that there is a point where you start seeing the faster runners coming back.
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| This is a Robert… |
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| … and this is a Robert. The fun thing about these two Roberts is that I believe they are the only people to have run all five parkruns that have ever operated in California! (Being named Robert is not a requirement though. Probably.) |
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| Dorothy and Mrs Notthat heading back. Attentive readers may note that Mrs Notthat's left knee became one with the trail at some point on the way out. (The trail won.) |
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| A fun bridge to cross! |
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| "Which way do I go?" Gillian at the turnaround! With an umbrella! (Probably for shade - there was almost as little chance of rain as there was of snow.) |
After the turnaround point, it was just a matter of retracing our steps. Over the bridge, back onto pavement, under the two underpasses, and across the finish line and into all the fame and glory!
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| Brian the Wonder Dog and his two minions. |
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| Most of the bunnies wisely chose to hide from us, sadly. This guy was brave though! |
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| "Which way do I go this time?" These trails are popular, and a number of people were pretty curious about what was going on. |
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| Eventually I managed to make it back to the finish line! |
Once I was done, I walked back out a bit to meet Lucie the tailwalker coming in.
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| Marshal Brooklyn was thrilled to have found her way back! |
One kind of funny thing about this spot - this is just after you come out of that last tunnel. There were chalk arrows (granted, they were all pointing out) and cones set up to direct the finishers, but people still seemed determined to go straight here.
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| Mrs Notthat pointing out that this should really be a bi-directional arrow. (Also pointing out that it was still an amazing arrow!) |
And that's about it!
It was a fun course with enough variety and shade (and bunnies) to make it a blast. Now that the opening day glory has passed, it will be interesting to see how many of the locals will keep coming back. Everyone I talked to from there seemed extremely thrilled to have a local parkrun - I suspect this event will end up doing very well.
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| ED Lesley getting interviewed by what I believe was the local media! |
It's so great to see new parkruns opening up in California! There are plans in the works for several more - the process can be pretty overwhelming, and you never know when some weird little thing will derail the whole thing, but with people like Lesley and our regional parkrun manager Robert working tirelessly, success is very possible!
Ohio and Michigan are right to be nervous about California catching up to them!
That's it - move along…
PS: Here are links to the things I've written about the three other active California parkruns:
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