The Lighter Side of … California Local

Yesterday, Sac Running Week got off the starting block. This weeklong event culminates on 9/16 with a celebration of the 916 running community at Bike Dog Brewing in West Sacramento. But no worries if you don’t have time to unleash your inner sprinter right away. California Local’s Tamara Warta has a rundown of events, clubs, trails and specialty stores of interest to runners in the Capital region, stretching from the Yolo Bypass to Lake Tahoe.

To further inspire feats of athletic prowess, check out Graham Womack’s list of ten top California athletes. Because even if you don’t include legends like Willie Mays or Magic Johnson, who were born elsewhere but became stars here, many of the greats grew up in our state.

California breeds superstars in many fields of human endeavor, including, of course, show business. Writer Libby Molyneaux takes a closer look at one specific corner of the entertainment industry and finds that California isn’t just the state that launched a thousand quips. We also nurture our own home-grown comedians, from San Francisco’s Margaret Cho to San Diego’s Gabriel Iglesias.

In addition to writing about our state’s cultural strengths, we also celebrate the accomplishments of local communities. In a recent piece, writer Richard von Busack compiled a short but wide-ranging list of arts institutions in Monterey County. It’s a history that goes back decades, nurtured by natural beauty. “The visual drama of this peninsula, on the brink of the vast blue depths of the bay, has attracted the artist and the artsy alike,” he writes.