194581615 runwashington magazine january february 2014

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LETTERS / CONTRIBUTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4OFF THE BEATEN PATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8MILITARY RUNNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10HOW DID YOU START RUNNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15SHUTDOWN PALACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20UPCOMING RACES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28AGING RACEFULLY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31A 5K BY ANY OTHER NAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36RXUNNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40GOT HER NUMBER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45CUPID WEARS RUNNING SHOES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48HIGH SCHOOL ALL STARS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51QUICK STUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54CELEBRATE RUNNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

2 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | JANUARY FEBRUARY 2014

COVER PHOTO : JOHN MULLEN adjusts his new running legs. RUNWASHINGTON PHOTOS BY SARA ALEPIN PHOTOS FROM THE HARTY

JANUARY FEBRUARY 2013 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 3

PUblisheRKathy DalbyRunWashington LLC

editoR iN ChiefCharlie [email protected]

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bRANdiNgORANGEHAT LLC

The entire contents of RunWashington are copyright ©2014 by RunWashington, LLC. All rights reserved, and may not be reproduced in any manner, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher. Unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, results, or other materials are welcome but are not returnable and are preferred via electronic communication to [email protected]. Please inform yourself of applicable copyright and privacy laws before submitting for publication; if we decide to publish your submitted material we conduct no such checks and you alone will ultimately be responsible for any violations of any laws including infringement and copyright. Views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher, advertiser, or sponsors.

Back issues are available for $5.00 for each copy to cover postage and handling. RunWashington is published six times yearly by RunWashington, 4544 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22304. Complimentary copies are mailed to subscribers, area businesses and events.

Be advised that running is a strenuous sport and you should seek the guidance of a medical professional before beginning an exercise regimen.

JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2014

/runwashington

@runwashington

I’m writing this in mid-December, and with the holiday season is upon us like a cat who’s heard the can opener, I’ve gotten more than a few inquiries from friends- what should I get the runner in my life? I could say any number of pieces of clothing or gadgets, but the best overall answer I can give is “an audience.”

Just yesterday, I was running a race a few hours away from the Washington area, and nobody there had a reason to know me. In fact one of the race organizers remarked that people in the closely-knit running community referred to me as the “mystery man.” Somehow someone recognized me, though, and I heard a few “go, Charlie”s that I didn’t expect, but after I got over the surprise, I really enjoyed it. Coming out to support your friends, family or coworkers during a race is a simple gesture that means a lot to someone who might want encouragement but not enough to ask.

Or even more unexpected, offering to handle some support during a long run during marathon training season. Especially during the summer, knowing someone is waiting a few miles up the road with some ice water can make a rough workout seem a lot more bearable.

On the other side, if you’re a runner and you know someone who is interested in getting into the sport, offering your guidance and experience can go a long way to making their orientation more fun and less a matter of trial and error. Find a friend or acquaintance to mentor and share what you know.

The best part is, these gifts are good year-round.Mentoring did a lot for Bethany Sachtleben. The George Mason junior came to

school with no formal running background, but within 14 months she was a cross country conference champion (page 54).

Five local runners share their introductions to running and how it has led them to occupy different parts of the community—as a race director, a nonprofit volunteer, a representative for a shoe company, a passionate neophyte and someone whose running completes her life (page 15).

Once you start running, you have to be able to keep going and some of our fellow runners have taken that background in the sport to bring insight to their sports medicine practices. Turning roadside manner into bedside manner (page 40).

With the passage of a two-year budget heading to the Senate as I write, we should dodge another government shutdown for a while, but man, those were some stressful few weeks! Read about it starting on page 20.

See you out there,

Charlie

RUNWASHINGTON Photo bY islANd PhotogRAPhY

Sara alepin (Cover, Military Running) teaches at the Washington School of Photography and in Montgomery County Public Schools, in addition to her work as an audio visual technician at the Phillips Collection and her own photography business, Photos from the Harty (www.photosfromtheharty.com).

Karl DuSen (Off the Beaten Path) ran cross country and track at Columbia University and qualified for the 2008 Olympic Marathon Trials. He lives in Ashburn with his wife, Emily, who has also written for RunWashington.

erin MaSterSon (A 5k by Any Other Name) is the secretary and social media coordinator for the Northern Virginia Running Club- NOVA. She grew up in Annapolis and was Anne Arundel County Athlete of the Year three times, and went on to run at the College of William and Mary. She lives in Alexandria and is a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers and in addition to RunWashington, has written about running for HepsTrack.com and Track & Field News.

RunWashington regrets the following errors in its November/December 2013 issue:

Page 4 - Joanna Russo’s contributor bio should read as following:

Joanna Russo manages Pacers’ Arlington location. A Washington resident, she considers herself your average endurance sports and outdoor junkie. She began her love affair with running while running cross country in high school. You can follow her on twitter @jotoriousDC and on Instagram @JotoriousLIB.

- The photo should be credited to Joe Castleman.

Page 54 - The photo should be credited to Ed Lull.

4 | runWASHINGTON | runWASHINGTON.COM | JANUARY FEBRUARY 2014

CHARLIE,

the articles on runner safety and sharing the trails were great. Most of my training runs for my past Marathon were on the W&oD near Vienna. these training runs would usually start in the late afternoon and end at dusk. i was always amazed at the number of women (men as well) running solo with headphones that could not hear me when i would call out that i was passing.

also, i’ve come to the conclusion that only 1 in every 5 cyclists uses a bell or calls out when passing. not a big deal to me if the trail is not too busy. My biggest problem has been with cyclists coming head on into my lane as they try to pass other cyclists or pedestrians. equally frustrating has been those runners doing a group run shoulder to shoulder across a whole lane making it difficult for cyclists to get by without having to go into the other lane.

thanks for reporting on these topics!Keith Freeburn

Centreville

THANK YOU, KEITH!

Since getting involved with runWASHINgTON, I have wanted to make sure it can serve as a resource for runner safety — advice, alerts, discussion. I encourage anyone who has had a concern about their safety while running to contact [email protected] so we can do our best to compile reports. Please report all incidents to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.

Feedback helps this become a better magazine!

Please send letters to the editor to [email protected]. Otherwise,

we’re have no idea if readers like what we’re doing.

Sponsors

Anthem Health Plans of Virginia, Inc. trades as Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Virginia, and its service area is all of Virginia except for the City of Fairfax, the Town of Vienna, and the area east of State Route 123. Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. ® ANTHEM is a registered trademark of Anthem Insurance Companies, Inc. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield names and symbols are registered marks of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

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MAY 3-4, 2014

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Sprint: 750M / 13.5MI / 5K

Olympic: 1500M / 24.5MI / 10K

Half: 1.2MI / 56MI / 13.1MI

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SOLD OUT 2013

BY KARL DUSEN


There is a hidden gem for Washington-area runners in the heart of Loudoun country -- Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve. Over

20 miles of well-groomed grass trails traverse the 725 acres of grassy fields, hardwood forests, wetlands, and creeks. It’s a wonderful cross-section of the beautiful landscape that can be found in Northern Virginia. The picturesque scenery is an ideal backdrop for logging miles on soft trails. If you’re the type of runner that likes to connect with nature, this place is worth the trip no matter where in the metro area you live.

The first thing that may stand out to you is the odd name, the origin of which goes back to the early 19th century. Once you experience this place, the second word of the name makes sense, given “reeks” is a Gaelic word referring to hills and dales, which are abundant. The term “banshee,” Gaelic for female spirit, begs for further explanation. A local farmer, likely resulting from an intoxicating visit to a local saloon, came back home one windy night and claimed he heard a banshee on the reeks. The farm animals and wind were the likely culprits for the sounds, but over the years the story was repeated, and the area became known as Banshee Reeks.

Even better than the colorful name is the experience you’ll get from visiting southern Leesburg for a run at Banshee Reeks Nature Preserve. The preserve is approximately 40 miles west of Washington, D.C., and lies between Route 7 and Route 50 and just west of Route 15. Before you make the trek out there be sure to note the hours: weekends only from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Truly located off the beaten path, you’ll need to travel the last couple of miles of your ride out there via a dirt road. Drive slowly as two-way traffic on the road can be a bit tricky. Follow the sign on The Woods Road to the visitor center parking area. The visitor center is only staffed the third weekend of every month, but the parking lot is open every weekend and is equipped with a portable bathroom and water fountain. You can also get trail maps there, which can come in handy to plan your run or to take with you to guide you back to your car when the end of your run nears.

Banshee Reeks is also a great place just to lose yourself in your run and enjoy the views. The marked trails are mostly well-groomed paths of grass about 5- to

10-feet wide, reminiscent of some cross country courses. Start out on any trail and be prepared for soft ground, lots of rolling hills, and plenty of great panoramas of wildlife and gorgeous habitats. The property is bordered on one side by Goose Creek and contains several ponds. You’ll also see forests of oak and hickory, meadows, and wetlands.

You may also observe other residents of the preserve as you run: beaver, deer, foxes, and bats. As you head out over hill and dale on the scenic trails with names like Springhouse and Raspberry, you’ll notice the varied landscapes can change rapidly. One moment you can be in a forest with branches forming a canopy over your head and soft moss under your shoes; just a few minutes later you’ll be in a meadow with tall natural grass surrounding you, watching a hawk fly through the sky. Whether you’re running 20 miles or just a few, there will be plenty to see and delight in along your way.

With over 20 miles of trails, you may worry about getting lost, but the trails intersect often and you’ll have plenty of chances to locate landmarks. To be safe, you can always carry your trail map.

Enjoy running across the stunning landscape, but do be courteous while doing so. Runners are the minorities here and most visitors to the park are birdwatchers, hikers or photographers, so enjoy the sights and sounds of Banshee Reeks without disrupting others from doing the same. Additionally, due to the ecological studies occurring through the preserve, stick to the trails. Other park policies include not intruding upon the wildlife and to leash your pets at all times. No bikes or horses are allowed on the trails.

Bansee Reeks Nature Preserve is for you if you love running on grass, you like to take in some pleasant views on your runs, you like reliving your cross country days, or you want a nice quiet place to run a hilly long run on soft surface. It’s also an ideal place to cross-train with a hike on your own or with friends and family to take in the beauty of the preserve.

Banshee Reeks is a trash-free preserve and encourages visitors to take only photographs and leave only footprints. Please do leave many footprints and enjoy a long run here. �

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RUNWASHINGTON PHOTOS BY SARA ALEPIN PHOTOS FROM THE HARTY

by RACHEL b ECKMANN


They’re often the first ones out of the gate at races, cranking wheelchairs along courses and chasing the thrill. No matter what was taken from them, they won’t relent in their pursuit of happiness.

John Mullen tried that - hand-cranking the Army Ten-Miler - but he wanted more. He was wounded in Afghanistan while serving in the United States Army. It was there he began his journey from the perils of the combat zone, to learning how to walk again, and then learning to run as a double amputee. Prevailing over adversity, picking the harder road.

Mullen grew up playing football, basketball, running track and field and competing in Olympic weightlifting. When he enlisted in the Army in July 2009, he displayed such strength and endurance during his first day of physical training that he was tabbed to be a 240 Machine Gunner, a routine that would involve carrying more than 100 pounds in gear. After completing the required training, he joined the 10th Mountain Division, which deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan in May 2011.

“My division monitored a village that had seen increased Taliban activity,” he said.

They worked in 72-hour cycles, with a one-mile trek between the posting and command outpost. For three months, Mullen worked this routine without incident. But the Taliban had been monitoring the duty patterns.

The Taliban opened fire while Mullen’s shift was en route. Once the relieving platoon got the situation under control, Mullen’s platoon headed back to the command outpost.

Suddenly he fell to the ground. “I was engulfed in a world of white,” he said. “I was unable to comprehend what had happened.”

Mullen had stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED). The explosion tore off his legs a few inches below the knee, removed part of his thumb, and damaged nerves in both of his arms. Sensory overload prevented him from being able to pinpoint what was injured. Through


two shots of morphine, he heard the words “double amputation” over the radio transmission.

The medic and radioman applied tourniquets to both of his legs and tended to his wounded arms, saving his life from blood loss. One month later that same medic who was instrumental in saving John’s life was killed in action.

Mullen was transported to Kandahar AFB and then on to Bagram AFB, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, then to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. After surviving this ordeal, he faced the physical and emotional reality of recovering from his injuries and answering the question, “what now?”

Mullen spent his early time in Bethesda looking at photographs he had taken while in Afghanistan.

“Every picture told a story,” he said. “They bring me back to that exact moment in time.”

He realized his passion for photography and decided to pursue it professionally. They were his first mental steps, but his first physical steps still remained.

He had to learn how to walk with two prosthetic legs. In October 2011, four months after being injured, he received his first prosthetics. But an infection in his leg required surgery and delayed his return to walking for a few more months.

The prosthetic process is complicated. “It’s like taking myself to the auto-body shop,” he said. The casts of his legs were taken to create molds for his leg sockets.

Adjustable plastic sockets were made from the molds and fitted over the leg so that small changes could be made to the socket to reduce hot spots, pain, rubbing, and discomfort. Once the plastic sockets were fitted, the carbon sockets are made to connect to the prosthetics. Finally, a prosthetist helped determine what type of legs and feet he should use based on how his body naturally moved as he walked with the prosthetics.

Changes in muscle size, bone growth, sore spots and chafing in the amputated limb required a “return to the shop” every few months.

“I felt limited in how much and how fast I could move,” he said. “I wanted to do everything I used to do, including run.”

In September 2013, he was fitted for running legs, a process just as time consuming as getting fit for walking legs. Learning to use running legs, however, was even more challenging than learning to walk. His stiff, predictable limbs and feet were replaced with two flexible blades with a narrow ground contact area.

For amputees, going running is not a simple process. Switching leg braces to running legs takes 10 minutes. Once standing in running legs, there is no rest position; Mullen must keep moving to maintain balance. The first week with running legs Mullen could do a five-minute running interval followed by a five-minute rest interval for approximately 30 minutes. In little more than a month, Mullen increased his run interval time to 15-plus minutes, but struggled with increased soreness from the impact of running on the amputated limb and the new movements associated with the running legs.

“I haven’t reached a point of enjoyment with running,” he said.But he has no intention of stopping. No matter how long it takes,

he’ll make it to the starting line, he said. In addition to achieving his physical goals of walking and running,

Mullen achieved a goal he set in his hospital bed in Bethesda. In August 2013, he earned a B.A. in Photography from the Boston University Center for Digital Imaging Arts. He now works as a professional photographer, and enjoys taking portraits of the elderly.

“I can see the life stories in the faces of my subjects,” he said. As he says this I can’t help but look into his face to see his story.

What I see are the clear determined eyes of a man who is undeterred by any challenge. A man who selflessly served his country, overcame the loss of both legs, and continues to pursue everything in life with a fervor and passion unmatched by most. n

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TRS_PHI_14_Run_Washington_Jan_ad.pdf 1 12/10/13 3:29 PM

Courtenay BrinCkerhoff

alexandria

After Courtenay Brinckerhoff logs miles on the road, she heads online and logs her achievements on her running blog, “Running with Perseverance.”

She started running in 2001 to lose weight after spending a lot of sedentary time in college and law school. Like many people, once she started, she got hooked for all the other benefits, like getting outside, exploring cities on vacation and meeting friends through running groups, she said.

When she first started, Brinckerhoff struggled with injuries from doing too much too soon while training for her first Army Ten-Miler.

“I did it all wrong,” she said. “I figured since I did an exercise class for an hour, I could run for an hour, so I just ran. I ended up with a bad injury, I could barely walk.”

Her other advice for beginners is to find a good pair of running shoes that fits your foot type. She started her blog more than three years ago as a way to stay motivated during training.

“Part of it was personal accountability, even if only a handful of people are reading my blog,” she said. “As I continued blogging and met more people in this blogging community, you hear about other people doing things, try things you wouldn’t have tried on your own. You inspire each other to try new things.”

Her blog, available at Got2Run4Me.com, gets about 10,000 hits a month. She writes race recaps, product reviews and recipes in addition to logging her workouts.

Courtenay BrinCkerhoff finishes the 2011 GW Parkway Classic.

runWASHInGTon Photo Courtesy of BrinCkerhoff

JANUARY FEBRUARY 2014 | runWASHINGTON.COM | runWASHINGTON | 15

BY JACQUEL INE KL IMAS


CedRiC CheRRySilveR SpRiNg

Cedric Cherry started running in 2011 to lose some weight and could barely run for 10 minutes without stopping on his first try. Forty-seven pounds, three marathons and a triathlon later, it’s about way more than fitness for him.

“It’s an awesome feeling to conquer that, especially as an adult,” he said. “You feel like a kid again.”

When he first started, he said he had a lot of questions and no one to turn to for answers. His wife looked to the Internet and suggested he try a run-walk-run method, which helped him build up his stamina.

Even as he was improving, other runners flew by him on the running paths. He learned, however, that running isn’t about drawing comparisons to others.

“Do it for you, don’t do it for other people,” he said. “Don’t worry about what other people can do, you’re in a race against yourself. Don’t try to race other people, just work within you. It just all came together for me.”

Cherry ran the Marine Corps Marathon 10k the same year he started running, and after his first race experience, he was totally hooked and felt he could officially call himself a runner.

“I think when you get into that first race and you’re around all these people – short, tall, skinny, slow, fast -- and you’re like, ‘this is awesome,’” he said. “I think that first race kind of clicked for me.”

Following that race, he told his wife he wanted to finish a half marathon, which he did just a few months later in December. At the finish line of the half, he had a goal to finish a marathon, and crossed the finish of the Flying Pig Marathon in Cincinnati, Ohio in 2012. He’s also run two Marine Corps Marathons, most recently in 2013.

Since then, running has led to more accomplishments and crushing more goals. Cherry learned how to swim as an adult and completed his first triathlon earlier this year. He’s aiming for a half ironman next year.

“I think getting started is the hardest thing,” he said. “The whole saying goes, ‘It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.’ I actually believe it’s how you start, you just have to start. Starting is winning, once you start it you’ve won because with me I feel healthier … I would tell people be yourself and have fun.”

CedRiC CheRRy after the 2013 Marine Corps Marathon.

photo by MaRathoNFoto


Katie SheedyWaShiNgtoN

Katie Sheedy first turned to running on the indoor track team as a way to stay in shape during the off-season in high school. The soccer player, however, soon started to love running as a sport in its own right.

“I started out as a sprinter, which is funny now because it seems like every year I ran I got longer and longer and now I do marathons,” she said. “I ended up really falling in love with the sport itself; it definitely was so much more than keeping in shape.”

While she first gravitated to speed workouts, Sheedy grew to enjoy catching up with friends during longer runs in high school. The Logan Circle resident now shares her runs with the greater D.C.-area running community and trains with the Capital Area Runners a few times a week.

The former sprinter became a bona fide distance runner with a 2:52:52 at the 2013 Chicago Marathon. She also volunteers with Teens Run DC, an organization that pairs middle and high school students with adult mentors for a weekly run on Saturdays. The students also train during the week with teachers.

“We use running as a vehicle to help them set goals for themselves and feel positively about certain aspects of their lives,” she said. “It’s fun seeing how they grow as young adults and also as runners. A lot of them don’t enjoy the running aspect when they first join the program, but some of the kids can run pretty competitively in their age group. It’s really exciting to see them feel proud of themselves and excited about running.”

Katie Sheedy runs along the Tidal Basin.

Photo by CheRyl yoUNg


JasoN LeviNeWashiNgtoN

For Capitol Hill Classic race director Jason Levine, running is and always has been a family affair. He began running in 2009 as a way to get in shape and spend time with his daughter, then only a year old.

“I was overweight and I recognized that I had fallen out of shape and I decided to do something that could involve my kid. As luck would have it within a day of that revelation someone on a parenting listserv wanted to give away a jogging stroller. I’d never run before in my life, but thought I can try to do this,” he said. “I’d go out two or three times a week in the morning, she’d wave happily at all the people out exercising in the morning and it got to be fun.”

Four years later, Levine has been “bitten by the bug” and completed marathons and 200-mile relays with friends.

His daughter, 5, has also run several fun runs.He struggled with injuries when he first

started, going out too hard and too fast as an inexperienced runner. He also had a hard time finding the time to log miles and balance his job and family time with running.

Though he regularly runs about 25 miles per week and organizes the Capitol Hill Classic 10k, which benefits his daughter’s school, there are days when Levine still wonders if he can really call himself a runner.

“You look out there on the roads and say that person is going out seven days a week, running seven-minute miles, you think, ‘How do I compare to that person?’” he said.

It was the running community, however, that made him feel like he’d earned the title during his first year in the sport.

“When I was going out there, I was paying attention to other runners: they were acknowledging me and I them; it just clicked that, yeah, I’m part of this running community,” he said. “Anybody who goes out there and puts one foot in front of another is a runner.”

JasoN LeviNe with his daughter aNNabeLLe at the North Face Endurance Challenge.

Photo by shaNNoN CULbeRtsoN


Nikeya GReeNFaiRFax

Nikeya Green began running when she was just 5, tagging along on her father’s runs to get in shape for his Army physical fitness tests.

“Whenever he would train to get in shape, he would take me out for some of his runs,” she said. “I used to have a bad habit of wanting to start out at a full-out sprint and then I’d be tired, but my dad taught me how to pace myself.”

Green continued running and joined the track team at Hayfield High School in Alexandria. She went on to run in college at Wake Forest, then ran professionally for six years, during which she followed a regimented training schedule.

The Fairfax County resident now works as a running specialty rep for Nike and says her training has taken a backseat to her job, though she is working to get back into more regular training and find a way to balance work and fitness.

“I laugh; that’s my fitness schedule right now,” she said. “When I made the transition, started working for Nike in 2011, that became my priority, and I put running on the back burner … I’ve done things that keep me accountable throughout the year, but in general I don’t have a locked in training schedule now.”

Nikeya GReeN shows off some shoes at Potomac River Running’s Tysons Corner store.

Photo by DUstiN WhitloW


BY CHARL IE BAN

Runners run, elected offi cials legislate and besides the dozens of honorary congressional chairman for the Cherry Blossom Ten Mile, never the twain shall meet.

Until October 2013. The fi rst federal government shutdown in 17 years threw the running community into uncertainty as runners were ostensibly banned from National Parks Service property and race permits for that land disintegrated, putting the region’s marquee race in doubt.

On one hand, despite signs warning that parks were closed, runners fl ocked to the C&O Canal Towpath, Rock Creek Park and the National Mall. Beach Drive, normally closed on weekends and holidays, was a free-for-all. Parks Service Police offi cers cruised past runners in East Potomac Park who dodged the gate past Buckeye Drive with nothing more than a polite wave, though after a few days a patrol car sat at the intersection. During the shutdown, the parks service issued 97 warnings to people to encourage them to leave closed park lands, and one citation was issued to a jogger in the greater Washington area- in Turkey Run Park Oct. 2, according to NPS Acting Chief Spokesman Jeffrey Olson.

“The mission of the National (Parks) Service is twofold — to protect the resources of the parks and provide for their enjoyment by the American people,” Olson said. “With no, or extremely curtailed, staff on hand due to the lapse in appropriations, we would be unable to adequately protect the park resources, nor the people who came to attend such events.”

Furloughed workers found themselves, with the relief of knowing they’d eventually get back pay, able to train like the pros. Hit some doubles, take a nap, make use of free time for strength training.

But anyone signed up for some of the region’s big races, though, was left wondering

When the government shutdown

nearly ruined a marathon


Rock Creek Parkway during the Marine Corps Marathon.

RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY JIMMY DALY

just how long the shutdown would last and if it would affect their schedules.

They found out quickly. On Oct. 2, Steve Nearman postponed the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Half Marathon, scheduled for four days later. Why? Eight miles of the race traveled the George Washington Memorial Parkway, a NPS-maintained road.

“I had to balance giving (budget) talks a chance, because I didn’t want to make a decision too early and wind up being able to hold the race,” he said. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from friends in the business who dealt with the New York and Boston marathons this year, you don’t want to wait too long (to communicate), so I decided that we’d give people a little time to change their weekend plans.”

His race moved to Nov. 10, one of the few weekends Nearman could work around the various police departments that come together to make the race possible. The rescheduling likely cost him half the field.

“It’s a shame, because Nov. 10 was a beautiful day,” he said. “The make-up date ended up being on the back side of a lot of marathons — Marine Corps, New York — and just a week before Richmond, so that took it off of a lot of people’s calendars.”

Nearman started worrying around Labor Day that the race could be affected by a government shutdown.

“It was a short month for Congress to get its (budget) resolution together and the Syrian (chemical weapons) situation took attention from that,” he said. “I knew it wasn’t going to end well, but you have to live in hope things can be worked out.”

Supply vendors cut him a break and let him move his rental back five weeks.

“They knew the postponement wasn’t because we weren’t prepared or committed to the event,” Nearman said.

Other races had to adapt, too. Oct. 13’s Boo! Run for Life 10k ended up becoming a 5k and sharing a course with the Run to Remember. Runners scheduled for three legs of the Ragnar Relay starting in Cumberland, Md. and following the C&O Canal Towpath for some time found themselves running with teammates on later segments. The Mount Vernon Trail race moved to Mount Vernon District Park from Fort Hunt Park. The Run! Geek! Run! 8k rescheduled to mid-November and races, like the Stokes School 5k and Take a Sick Day Run a 5k, were cancelled outright.

The Monster Mask 5k, scheduled for Oct. 13, went on as planned on the C&O Canal Towpath. Race director Elizabeth McClure contacted the National Parks Service for clarification and received no response.

“We parked everyone off site, we had them walk to the start and finish line and did a thorough job cleaning up,” she said. “There were other runners outside of our race on the towpath.”

Nevie Brooks blogged about the race, “We engaged in full-on civil disobedience, running along the C&O Canal on National Park Property. The whole event was kept pretty quiet… And save for the national anthem played quietly, no pump-up music.”

The big oneAs the days wore on and the debate over the congressional impasse sputtered, the calendar drew closer and closer to Oct. 27. The Marine Corps Marathon. As one of the most popular marathons in the country, it attracts tens of thousands of runners and spectators, making in an annual economic presence. In 2010, the race attracted nearly 69,000 people from outside of the Washington area, who spent $38 million in connection with the trip, according to a study by the George Washington University International Institute of Tourism Studies. That generated more than $2.7 million in tax revenue for state and local governments.

All of that was in jeopardy because 15 miles of the course was on NPS roads, with another three on D.C. roads. The George Washington Memorial Parkway – roughly 1.5 miles. Rock Creek Parkway, East Potomac Park and the National Mall— 13.5 miles. More than half of the course would be unusable.

“This was probably more of a challenge than any other race because you were removed from the influence of fixing the problem,” said race director Rick Nealis. “In years past, it’s been construction, or a problem with the permit, or even running past a crime scene after 9/11, but every year there’s someone you can reach out to and try to influence the decision process. Not this year.”

The race staff was fine, all paid with non-appropriated funding, but even before the government closed Oct. 1, there was some pressure. Contract specialists had already been affected by sequestration furloughs. It was one-day-a-week for the most part, Nealis said, but the backlog was going from annoying to worrisome.

“A one-day delay isn’t as serious, but once you start getting close to October, you don’t have the luxury to lose a day because there aren’t that many days left,” Nealis said.

The meaning of the government shutdown took a while to sink in.

“We didn’t really understand the scope of the National Parks coming to a complete close,” Nealis said of Oct. 1. “None of that was shared even from their standpoint-- what does closure even mean? There was some word that some monuments would be left open.”

A day later, the Wilson Bridge Half announcement cleared it up, the canary in the coal mine.

“I think that was the eye opener,” Nealis said. “They were cancelling permits and they’re not going to be allowing us to do certain things. It sunk in, going to the Marine Corps War Memorial and seeing the barricade blocking the Iwo Jima statue.”

now whaT?While his staff worked, as full-steam ahead as possible, Nealis looked at the options. The situation could be resolved any time, so the team had to be ready.

Setting an alternate date for the race, already close to the end of fall marathon


ARLINGTONNATIONALCEMETERY

NATIONALAIRPORT

WHITE HOUSE

CAPITOL

PENTAGON


season, wasn’t an option. Too many out-of-towners composed the field.

What about a different race course?The race’s date complicated things.

Though Congress controls the District of Columbia’s budget until this coming January, the city had a surplus that would keep local services operating until Oct. 17. But the marathon was 10 days later.

“If you had a non-park property event in D.C. those first 17 days, chances are you were alright,” Nealis said. “If this was the (Rock ‘n’ Roll USA) marathon, we might have been able to pull it off, D.C. was basically working.”

If there was to be a second route, it would be restricted to Virginia.

“We reached out to Arlington County to see if they had 18 miles where we could run a marathon,” Nealis said. “What we heard back wasn’t encouraging.”

There was nowhere to go that would not be a disappointment for the runners and a headache for residents. The most reasonable alternate route followed the first few miles of the course and continued to Glebe Road, then down to Alexandria and back.

“You look at the course and realize, ‘That’s a nice course you got, but didn’t we just encircle this whole neighborhood? Do you have any idea how many churches are in there? And hospitals?’” Nealis said. “We’d have to win the hearts and minds of our runners. But the running community’s not going to be happy, they’re going to want to see the (Marine Corps War Memorial) statue. ‘I ran this race to see Washington D.C., not Glebe Road.’”

So, on an intellectual level, it was looking like a loser.

“Even after we pull this off, they’re not going to appreciate that they just had some rotten course we made them run through,” Nealis said.

Practically, the fallback course became exponentially more complicated as it went on. The limited number of police officers worked on the long stretches of Rock Creek Parkway, which has few intersections and needs only light staffing. Taking the course through heavily-populated parts of Arlington County and Alexandria would require much more manpower. Officers from neighboring jurisdictions were already spoken for, supporting Arlington County officers working on the race.

Nealis also refused to cut security staffing on the course, which in this case would have meant reducing staffing levels the race dictated for traffic control. Wooden barricades alone wouldn’t suffice.

Traveling up Route 1 though Crystal City, blocking access to Ronald Reagan National Airport, was also a non-starter.

“When you look at the map of the area, it looks like there are plenty of options, Nealis said. “But you look closely and realize ‘oh, that’s the GW Parkway’ and all of a sudden a second course is a lot harder.”

Another possibility, running in the HOV lane on I-66, was shot down almost immediately. So was a series of laps around the Pentagon. But those possibilities were considered.

MCM Race Director RICk NEAlIS.

RunWASHINGTON photo by Rebekah hanoveR pettit

“We really wanted to make this race happen,” Nealis said. “Nobody wanted to have to cancel.”

With miles of open roads in Prince William County, Va., the race could be run at the U.S. Marine Corps Base Quantico, 36 miles south of the marathon start line. But that would involve bussing runners back and forth, leaving many spectators out and straining to reach the course.

“New York busses its runners, but just one way,” Nealis said.

The race management team was sure from the beginning if they pulled off the race with an alternate course, it would not be certified.

“We’d call up the BAA and see about getting an exception for people who’d hit the mark here,” Nealis said.

CanCellation stationSo cancellation became the most likely option if Congress didn’t agree to a deal.

Two weeks before the race, the parks service kept Verizon from installing a data line to the finish area. That served as a practical reminder that time was running out and eventually milestones were passing, making catchup much harder.

The Marine Corps hierarchy gave Nealis until Oct. 18 to make a decision, yes or no.

“We knew we didn’t want to be another New York Marathon,” he said. “Once we made a decision, we were going to stick with it. If we cancelled and they opened up the parks the next Tuesday, sure people would Monday Morning Quarterback it.”

“Legal review of the registration (agreement) said ‘no refunds,’ but we wanted to give people a refund- at least 50 percent maybe 100,” Nealis said. “But from a runner’s standpoint, they don’t want a partial refund or a full refund, they want to run.”

And when would they run? With a registration lottery due to debut in 2014, guaranteeing spots to 2013 registrants would drastically cut the number of new registrants.

At roughly $100 per entry, refunding most of 30,000 entries would cost the race $3 million. More than $1 million was going toward law enforcement, which as a simple line item could take the race’s losses down to less than $2 million. Deliveries of supplies hadn’t arrived. Could they be cancelled?

“Our contract people, the legal representatives of the government, were furloughed,” Nealis said. “Rick Nealis can’t pick up the phone and say, ‘stop the banana shipment.’ Somebody’s either got to make the contracting guy essential and have him come to work or every contract we had was going to be deliverable and we’d have to pay for it.”

Among the floating legal issues: what cancellation would mean for sponsorships that help defray the cost of holding a massive race.

Word gets outWhile Nealis and his staff adjusted with a steadily shrinking calendar, a few days before

the deadline, the restless public got frantic when a news report justified their fears.

On Oct. 15, Arlington County news website ARLnow reported that the Army 10 Miler, which used part of Rock Creek Parkway and was scheduled for Oct. 20, would be rerouted. Lt. Dave Green, of the Arlington County Police Department Special Operations Section, elaborated about the marathon.

“I don’t want to put people in panic mode, but if as of Friday evening the government is still closed, it’s probably not going to happen,” ARLnow quoted him as saying.

It was a big scoop for ARLnow editor Scott Brodbeck (profiled in November/December 2013’s RunWashington), who was motivated even more to find out because he was registered to run the marathon.

The mark on the calendar was now public.“That was probably the best thing that

could have happened,” Nealis said. “It forced us to confront the issue. We had just been treading water about when to announce our plans.”

Marketing and communication staffers had been dealing with a steady line of questions about the race, answering that the race would go on, without details to prove it. At that point, they were going on faith that the race would happen, the government reopened and everything back to normal.

“The immediacy of social media made this a challenge,” said Marc Goldman, the race’s marketing director. “In years past, you could put out an announcement and you might get a few phone calls, but now you get dozens of questions and comments a minute on Facebook. Since it was a situation we weren’t in control of, we had to focus on being decisive. We looked a lot to New York in 2012 and knew being on-again-off-again in regards to cancellation wouldn’t work. The fallout would be less that it was cancelled and more about uncertainty.”

Nearman agrees on the importance of social media.

“I wish I had someone watching it all day, turning the tide with openness,” he said. “If you can’t stop the bleeding, you’re going to get slaughtered, because social media can be like a gun to your head. The important thing is that you can’t make decisions to placate people on Facebook.”

Those people on Facebook were angry.Accusations flew that race organizers

were misleading runners, but most understood the federal government situation’s was to blame. Many wrote encouraging the race committee. Hundreds made declarations that people would gather to run the route anyway on Oct. 27 at 7:55 a.m. Some came with offers of help. Matthew Reimer of Jacksonville owns a small race timing business and half jokingly offered to bring his equipment with him and time a replacement race.

“I was half joking, but the truth is there were so many people on Facebook willing to contribute that we could have pulled something off,” he said. “Maybe not the same route, but somewhere in the city. Maybe loops around the Mall.”


Most advocates for a potluck race expressed confidence that the authorities couldn’t possibly stop all of the runners who would mob the streets.

What Reimer was serious about was making something of the marathon season this year. In 2012, he and his wife deferred their Marine Corps spots so they could run New York. As they were walking to their gate at the Jacksonville airport, they saw the alert that they race had been cancelled. They left the airport, hopped in the car and drove north, looking for a race. They found the Rock ‘n’ Roll Savannah Marathon two-and-a-half hours away and next day ran a race Reimer described as “awful.”

“When the news came out that the Marine Corps race could be cancelled, our first thoughts were, ‘Not again,’” he said. “We were about a day away from pulling the plug on the race and just taking the trip to sightsee when it was back on.”

Others expressed regret that a cancellation would disappoint many first-time runners whose triumphs would be denied, or at least deferred. Twinsburg, Ohio resident Tricia Cusma had four friends training with her for Marine Corps, one because she wanted to run a marathon after turning 40. They trained every week on the Ohio and Erie Canal Towpath Trail in Cuyahoga National Park. After the government closed, runners continued to use the trail, until reports of $100 citations scared them away.

Loss of the park and trail impacted the Towpath Marathon, scheduled for Oct. 12, which was pushed back to Nov. 2. It got Cusma and her friends nervous.

“We supported each other through it,” she said. “The first-timers, especially, needed some encouragement. We were also going to lose what we put into airline tickets, hotel rooms, all of those things that go with taking a trip.”

“There was also the point that Marine Corps is what we planned to do,” she said. “If it came to that, we could stay home and run the Towpath Marathon a week later, but it was a backup plan.”

For runners outside of the Washington area who didn’t see government employees every day, the shutdown was starting manifesting itself in their lives.

What’s the matter With Utah?Eleven days into the shutdown, the state

of Utah paid to open five national parks and four national monuments in an effort to save the already-damaged tourist season. That deal paid roughly $167,000 per day to open those parks.

Could that work for the Marine Corps Marathon? Even if opening the GW Parkway, Rock Creek Parkway, and the Marine Corps War Memorial cost as much as Arches, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, and Zion national parks, split among the 30,000 registered runners, the cost would come out

to less than $6. A more realistic estimate, given the difference in size and staffing between the parks in the Washington area and Utah, would have been much less.

The problem, however, was political.“Utah had a governor willing to step up

and take the lead,” Nealis said. “We didn’t have the governor of Virginia or the mayor of D.C. championing our race. Their names weren’t on it; It wasn’t the Virginia Marathon or the D.C. Marathon.”

The proximity to the problem also undermined that plan.

“You can get away with opening a park in the west, but if you’re talking about opening up the grass in front of the Capitol — the center of all of this — you lose political muscle and populist appeal,” Nealis said. “We approached Virginia’s congressional delegation but didn’t get a good feeling about it.

“If we just had to open up the (Iwo Jima) memorial, that might have had a chance.”

But there was no ace in the hole, congressional rescue. Just as in running, there was no short cut. Work had to be done to get results and it was entirely up to Congress.

“We are so on” – rick nealisMost, if not all of the contingency planning, the worrying, and the frustrations evaporated when a budget compromise was announced late Oct. 16 and approved Oct. 17.

Out of the process came the sense that there was no backup for the Marine Corps Marathon. It exists as a relatively inexpensive race in an expensive city that draws massive crowds because of what more people now realize is a careful balance. There are long, meandering parkways that are great for running and require less traffic control than in almost any other city, but if conditions aren’t right in the legislature, they could be gone.

In marathoning, a good day might just be holding steady, finishing in one piece, let alone setting a PR. In marathon management, the same might be said for getting the race off – superlatives like course records and finisher number high-water marks becoming secondary.

The Cherry Blossom race is entirely on NPS land. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, two weeks before the race, word was that if the terrorism threat level was high enough, the parks service could rescind permits.

“We started looking at other places to have the race, mainly in Montgomery County,” said race director Phil Stewart. “Losing permits is a hazard any time you’re on federal property and in D.C. that’s a lot of places.”

Stewart also directs the Race for Every Child 5k at Freedom Plaza, which was held on Oct. 5 and had to adjust because of the shutdown.

“Freedom Plaza itself is NPS, so we had to move the staging area onto Pennsylvania Avenue, which is D.C.,” he said.

Stewart saw the 2012 cancellation of the New York Marathon as changing runners’ attitudes, demonstrating that no race was sacred.


“That really sent the message to the running community, any race can be cancelled,” he said. “I think runners are more accepting of that risk –weather, terrorism related, its’ a societal thing.”

It’s a different change from the 1970s, when New York Marathon founder Fred Lebow said the race would always go on.

“There was definitely a macho feeling back then, but the races were not nearly so interwoven with municipalities,” Stewart said, noting that Lebow probably made that declaration before New York became the five-borough race it is today. “Races want to use higher profile real estate in cities and that makes things more complicated.”

SucceSS StoryWhere Marine Corps faced a growing list of problems as organizers considered alternate courses but had a few weeks’ cushion, up the Potomac River in Shepherdstown, W.Va., Mark Cucuzzella was able to pull off a save.

The fifth-year Freedom’s Run Marathon was due to start Oct. 12 in Harpers Ferry and follow the C&O Canal Towpath to the Antietam Battlefield, both of which would be unusable, on the way to Shepherdstown. Eighteen miles, out of bounds.

“I started looking at alternatives the week before the shutdown,” said Cucuzzella, the race director. “The parks [service] made it clear it was a no-go, so that made it an easy decision.”

Cucuzzella had an idea. His favorite running route - River Road - outside of Shepherdstown. As far as shutting down long stretches of road went, it didn’t inconvenience too many residents. It was close to the finish area, which also doubled as the start for the half marathon, 10k, 5k and kids’ race. Most importantly, it was far removed from any closed national park land.

“It wasn’t a course I’d want to use every year - a lot of people come to run in the parks,” he said. “But I got the sense people were so pissed at the government situation, you could sense they were going to show up to spite it all.”

The race ended up boasting 358 marathon finishers and 656 half marathon finishers, more than its 2012 totals.

Reorganizing the course on the fly, compressing two months of preparatory work into two weeks, renewed Cucuzzella’s faith in people.

“There was a Norfolk-Southern rail line I was worried about having to cross,” he said. “Turns out a dispatcher showed up (unannounced) and offered to manage the trains’ logistics so they wouldn’t interrupt the race.”

Like Nealis down the river, Cucuzzella learned the most disruptive possibility wasn’t even a consideration before this year.

“You plan for all your contingencies, but this isn’t one I put on the radar,” he said. “I feel fortunate we were able to pull it off without anyone saying they felt like it was a waste.” n


Spectators expressed their disgust with Congress during Marine Corps the best way they knew how- with witty signs.

RUNWASHINgTON photo by Jimmy Daly


2013: Veteran’s Day 10K & Tidal Basin Walk, November 2013.

RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY SWIMBIKERUN PHOTOGRAPHY

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ALAN PEMBERTON, wining his age group at the 2013 Marine Corps Marathon. PHOTO BY MARATHONFOTO

BY D ICKSON MERCER

For local masters, new decades

mean new beginnings


In college, Jack McMahon ran a personal best of 4:34 in the mile.

It was the 1950s. And after graduating with his engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh, McMahon - like most college runners of the era - promptly quit the sport.

McMahon started a career. He and his wife had 10 children.

McMahon’s second running life started in his 40s when he began coaching and training with a high school team. He then connected with a DC Road Runners program called Run For Your Life, he said, and has been racing ever since.

On Dec. 1, McMahon was ranked second in the men’s 80-and-up division of RunWashington’s runner rankings, having run eight local races between 5k and 10k.

He’s 83 and lives with his wife in a retirement home in Montgomery County.

“I’m running more towards the back now,” he said, “but I’m racing.”

In the world at large, birthdays after a certain age are both celebrated and feared.

But in the running world, 40 - the year one can start competing as a master - is worth getting excited about. A new decade - or a new five-year age division - can mark a fresh start. It can just as easily motivate a new runner to train seriously and find out what they’re capable of as it can re-focus someone who has already been running for decades.

In his late 20s and early 30s, Philippe Rolly, of McLean, Va., broke 2:20 in the marathon and 66 minutes in the half marathon. His goal was to break 2:15.

This happened shortly after Rolly moved to the United States from his native France. He had recently married Joanne Moak, and worked part time while earning a license in physical therapy. “Back then,” Rolly said, “I had plenty of time to train.”

He had less time, though, after starting a full-time job at Medstar Georgetown University Hospital - and even less after he and Moak had their first of three children, who are now 10, eight and six.

“I certainly lost motivation to train hard for several years,” Rolly, now 41 years old, said of his break from competitive racing and a few years during which he squeezed in roughly five runs per week.

At the end of his 30s, Rolly - intent on reinventing himself as a master - re-focused his training.

In August, he finished second in the one-mile national masters championships, clocking 4:30. This fall, he was top master at

the Rock ‘n’ Roll Philadelphia Half Marathon in 1:08:59 and second master at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon in 2:27:59.

“Now my goal is to be one of the best masters (runners) in the U.S.,” he said.

There are times, and then are performances.

Mick Slonaker, for example, ran his best 10k time in his late 40s. Now 64, the Cumberland, Md., runner recently won his age group at the Veterans Day 10k in Washington, D.C., in 39:18, a time nearly three minutes slower than his personal best.

But his recent performance ranks higher on an age-graded calculator.

“Age is relative, and don’t think that just because you are 45 or 62 you can’t do something,” he said. “Because once you say it, you can’t do it.”

While Slonaker recently retired from the U.S. Department of State, don’t expect to see him sneaking in extra workouts anytime soon. “I always advise people not to overtrain,” he said.

Slonaker, who has had success at everything from 5k to the marathon, advises instead to train consistently.

The longtime Howard County Striders member does track work on Tuesday, tempos on Thursday, and long runs on Saturday. For a marathon, rather than increase his base mileage, he changes his bread-and-butter workouts.

He runs a little less than he used to in his 40s and 50s; these days he logs about 40 to 45 miles per week. He’s more careful not to overdo his workouts, takes Fridays off, and is not afraid to take extra rest days when he is tired or something feels off.

Slonaker ran in high school and for one year of college before picking it back up at 42. After training alone for a year, he went to a Striders “bagel run,” he said, and started benefiting from group training.

A few years later, Slonaker broke three hours in the marathon. A decade later, he did it again. In his 60s, while stationed overseas, Slonaker ran 3:07:20 on a hot day at the Berlin Marathon.

Like Slonaker, Alan Pemberton, a lawyer and founder of a training group called the Dojo of Pain, is proof that consistent training can lead to consistently solid results.

In 2013, at age 60, Pemberton ran 3:03:29 at the Marine Corps Marathon, winning his age group by about 12 minutes. Earlier in the year, he won his age group at the Boston Marathon, running 2:57:52.

Pemberton, of Silver Spring, first tried running in the late 1970s, while in law school.


CiNdy CoNaNt at the Shooting Starr Four Mile. photo by KeN tRombatoRe

He tried to take on too much too soon, he said, and got injured. After turning 30, he started running in his neighborhood after his children went to sleep, putting in slow, easy miles that “toughened up my legs,” he said.

The Dojo, he said, started as an early-morning running group but has evolved into a marathon training group.

Putting together training plans based on the methods espoused by the Hansons Brooks elite running project, members of the Dojo take in a steady diet of marathon-specific workouts - from fast intervals at increasing distances around Hains Point to the Hansons’ 26.2k marathon simulator a month before a goal race.

“It’s a supportive group and we’ve got a sense for what each person’s goals and potential are,” Pemberton said.

And while performances might ultimately be relative, the age runners start to slow down is hardly set in stone.

Cindy Conant, 52, started running for fitness during college. In the mid-1990s, though, she and her husband moved to Kensington, Md., along the course for the town’s namesake 8k, which piqued her interest in the local racing scene.

Conant does speed work on Tuesdays, tempos on Thursdays, and races most weekends, saying she prefers low-key events organized by Montgomery County Road Runners. She runs at least two marathons a year.

In 2013, Conant ran PRs for 5k (18:57) and 8k (31:08). Six days after running 3:23 in the Boston Marathon, Conant - feeling both angry and sad after the bombing - ran a 10k personal best of 38:40 at Pikes Peek, describing it as a “redeeming race.”

Her goal in 2014 is to run faster from 5k to the marathon. “I am all about the time,” Conant said. “I don’t really care about my place.”

Leslie Minnix-Wolfe shares Conant’s competitive spirit, but started running at an earlier age.

The 52-year-old Reston resident ran cross country on the boys team at the former Lexington High School in Virginia and later at The College of William and Mary.

Minnix-Wolfe, however, was usually injured, thus unable to reach her potential.

After college, her coach, Mark Hunter, reduced her mileage, Minnix-Wolfe said, and slowly built her back up, putting her on a path to running 2:47 in the marathon and qualifying for the 1996 U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials.

On her 40th birthday, Minnix-Wolfe was not only poised to be an exceptional masters runner; she was still running personal bests.

Yet her low resting heart rate and blood pressure - related to her dedicated training - also caused her problems. At her desk, working in the computer software industry - and in other situations, too - Minnix-Wolfe would sometimes pass out.

In her early 40s, she was fitted with a pacemaker to treat an arrhythmia. Her doctor encouraged her to continue running, but Minnix-Wolfe, who is fiercely competitive, knew she had a choice to make: run for the love of running, or continue to push herself and risk injury.

She chose the latter. “I basically have gotten to a point where now it is more important for me to be able to run and stay healthy,” she said.

Minnix-Wolfe still runs upwards of 60 miles per week, she said. But she no longer does intense workouts or races, knowing that putting a 10k or marathon on the calendar would lead her to over-train.

She and her husband, Jeff Wolfe, enjoy watching their youngest daughter run cross country and track for Herndon High School and volunteering for Reston Runners’ Youth in Motion summer running program.

“It’s another way to deal with the aging process,” Minnix-Wolfe said. “I really enjoy sharing my experience, and seeing the improvement of the kids that are running now.”

It comes back, it seems, to really knowing yourself.

Even when McMahon was 40 years younger, he didn’t like running high mileage (“30-35 miles a week tops,” he said) or long races (20k was his longest).

The one time McMahon thought he wanted to run a marathon and started increasing his mileage, right away he noticed two things: he “started to dread it, and things began to hurt.”

McMahon runs about 15 miles per week, running every other day.

He has kept a record of his age-graded performances since his 70s; it presents solid proof that he’s performing best at 10k.

But McMahon’s heart remains with the distance he first contested during the Truman administration.

In March, at the US Track and Field Master’s Indoor Championships, McMahon made his move in the mile on the back stretch of the last lap, winning a national title in 8 minutes flat.

“Often towards the end of a race, I really start running hard,” he said. “The reason I can do it is because of the work I put into it - and that’s a mighty good feeling.” n


Jack McMahoN runs the Black Hills 10k. photo by keN tRoMbatoRe


2012 COLOR RUN • PHOTO BY TARYN

BY ER IN MASTERSON


Finish lines, pacing and water stops.

Colored powder, costumes and glo sticks.

How could going from point A to point B be so different?

In the end it’s simple: racing versus participating. And sometimes one can lead to the other.

In the mud. Covered in paint. Glowing in the dark. Chased by zombies. Under barbed wire. Plop down $40 and you’re in. Everyone goes home happy — the organizers make a bundle, the runners have fun and a bib to go with the story. Some events call themselves 5ks, but they’re nothing like what the typical weekend racer has seen. There are no clocks, no age group prizes, no quibbles about the course being short. But the events get people moving — at least for a while.

Diva Dash event manager Sharon Cutler said she’s seen participants use her race, held in Frederick, Md., as a “gateway drug” to the sport. With obstacles, costumes and mud pits, the women-only race has a clock, but the race is more about personal challenge than head-to-head competition.


“Not everyone out there is inclined to get PRs in every race they run,” she said, but added many women see their potential as runners and transition to more traditional races.

The same goes for the Color Run, a series of more than 170 events worldwide, in which participants are pelted with paint powder over the course of five kilometers.

“This race is not focused on competition because we try to promote camaraderie with your fellow runners and create a fun, happy atmosphere,” said Jessica Nixon, the series’ national spokeswoman.

Large parking lots, like Washington’s RFK Stadium, seem to serve as a local nexus with the traditional running world. It’s a short distance from the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, where every day joggers and runners log their miles, just for the sake of running, and in the middle of the summer dozens of elite Ethiopian runners vied for a big cash prize in a competitive 5k.

The Run or Dye 5k, similar to the Color Run, was held at RFK. Months later, revelers made their way through the Dance Party 5k course around the stadium’s parking lots. Some came to run, but most came to dance. Though organizers advertised it for both fitness and the afterparty, the aroma of booze and tobacco from participants waiting to groove meant they weren’t fretting over positive splits.

But some indeed came for the run. Bianca Johnson and Jennifer Anyaegbunam traveled from Charlottesville. Bianca signed up after losing what she described as “a lot of weight,” and ended up finishing her first 5k.

Her friend likes to punctuate fitness with fun and festive events. “Part of the fun is the preparation – buying costumes and

dressing up,” Anyaegbunam said.Though they appreciated that the race was untimed,

keeping it fun, they kept track of their own times.

Anyaegbunam was proud to report that she finished the run without stopping.

“People who take themselves too seriously here stand out,” said Washington resident Isaiah Williams, who came to the event with three friends who ran collegiately. Williams did not.

“I’m a competitive person, but I didn’t want to do a regular race,” he said. “The fanfare and spirit attracted me to this one.”

Jacqueline Fox of Alexandria got her start at the Run or Dye 5k. She considered herself unathletic while she was growing up.

“I would do anything to avoid sports — including hiding from gym class in the nurse’s office,” she said. “As I learned more about healthy nutrition, I knew that incorporating healthy physical activity into my life was important.”

To prepare for the event, Fox began running 3.1 miles a day at her local gym and loved the experience. Since then, she has completed two additional novelty races – the Color Me Rad 5k and the Electric Run – and a traditional race (the Crystal City Twilighter 5k). She plans to continue with both kinds of races.

“I have fallen in love with the supportive atmosphere at races,” she said. “There are always plenty of spectators and other runners cheering each other on and the energy just can’t be beat. Most of my races have been untimed, but I’ve been able to finish each race strong and be proud of the effort I put in.”

Arlington resident Shannon Burke has also embraced novelty races--though she is not exactly a novice to the sport. After participating in high school track, she ran only sporadically until she decided to run 13 races in 2013. When she planned her race schedule, Burke decided that these novelty races would count. She has done the Hero Rush, Color Run, Run or Dye, Louzilu, Ridiculous Obstacle Course and Electric Race. She has also participated in the Warrior Dash and the Primal Mud Run. She

10 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | JANUARY FEBRUARY 201438 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | JANUARY FEBRUARY 2014

PHOTO BY SCOOTER LOWRIMORE; COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA


mixes up novelty runs with competitive races, appreciating both for different reasons.

“It really just depends on the race,” she said. “I think the novelty races could give you a more fun time during the running. But the regular races often have better SWAG and can provide you with a better time that can build your running self-esteem.”

Mindy Mucci of Alexandria also likes to combine novelty runs with more competitive longer traditional races. She has done a Tough Mudder, Spartan Race, Glo Run, ROC Challenge, and just completed her longest race to date, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Half Marathon.

“I was a decently-fast kid growing up, but I think it’s because I equated speed with being finished more quickly. I’ve carried that philosophy with me to my current running days,” she said.

Mucci likes both novelty and traditional races, saying “I think they both serve their purposes, which for me are: giving myself incentive to keep in shape and exercise leading up to the race and to have a good time (especially when it’s over).”

The Color Run’s national spokeswoman Jessica Nixon believes the lack of a clock prevents races like hers from being intimidating.

“People from all different athletic backgrounds can participate in this event,” she said. “The Color Run is an attainable goal that novice runners can work to achieve and hopefully will act as a catalyst to inspire continual healthy living.”

She estimates that about 50 percent of Color Run participants have never run a 5k before. About 70 percent of the participants are women, mostly between 18 and 35. Since most of those runners are novices, Nixon says, “We hope that our events can be the jumping off point that some people might need to know that they can accomplish their fitness goals. A 5k fun run may not seem like a daunting task to a

seasoned runner, but many of our participants train seriously before this event and make huge changes in their lives in order to be able to complete it.”

The participation in novelty races is generally skewed toward women. Organizers from different races attribute this to the abundance of paint, tutus, costumes, feather boas and other accoutrements, but no one knows for sure. Mud runs and warrior dashes, though, tend to make up for the relative glamour of novelty races by their excess of dirt.

Diva Dash’s gender restriction helps draw participants who might not otherwise feel comfortable participating in a coed race.

“By taking men out of the equation, we remove a whole lot of the intimidation factor,” Cutler said. “Our event is much kinder and gentler – we eliminate some of the aggressiveness, and our event is all about support and encouragement.”

She believes the costumes and personalized race bibs attract women.

And the Dance Party 5k? That was open to anyone who wanted to have a good time. If they kept running, well, that’s fantastic.

“I tried this last year and actually liked running,” said Samantha Marquart of Washington. She has since done a handful of 5k races and the Nike Women’s Half Marathon. “I’m going to do the half again with my sister and our four cousins to celebrate my sister beating cancer.”

She brought along a friend who doesn’t run and doesn’t plan to after the party, but that was just fine with Samantha. She knows what the event has meant to her.

“I hated running, but I did this because it seemed fun and stupid. I like being ridiculous,” she said. “Now I’m going to do another half marathon. With grad school and work, running has become a big part of my life and helps keep me sane. I wouldn’t have started without this run.” n


RobeRt GillaNdeRs helps a patient with his physical therapy regimen. Photo coURtesy of GillaNdeRs


Committed athletes pick up a number of skills that transfer nicely into their day jobs: from managing time, to setting goals, to being willing to learn new things.

But when one’s daily duties include repairing broken bodies and bruised psychologies, doctors who can draw on their own athletic careers seem to have a competitive edge.

Supplementing many years of physical therapists’ and sports medicine physicians’ formal education: junior high basketball locker rooms; high school track meets; college club sports practices.

BY DUST IN RENWICK

Knowing how to relateSeveral area professionals who work with injured runners say being part of the running community gives them insights others might miss. For example, many physical therapists and sports medicine practitioners say that, as runners, they know to pester their patients with detailed questions. The right questions. A non-athlete in the same job could overlook mundane changes - such as the weather or new socks - that a runner would know intimately.

And despite its popularity, running still claims its own vernacular. Fluency and immersion in a native tongue will always trump learning the language in school. Sports specialists who are runners themselves know what training periodization means. They don’t need definitions for tempo runs, fartleks or intervals. Plus, runners are conscious of how small issues can morph into major damage.

Robert Gillanders, a physical therapist with Sports + Spinal Physical Therapy, says he tests people on a range of motions they use when they run, subtle movements of stability and balance that can compound into lingering injuries.

“Single-leg movement patterns are going to tell me what they’re doing when they’re running,” he says. “If they can’t do something for 10 reps, they’re not going to be able to do it for 10,000 reps. Runners come in and think their form is faulty. Most times, it’s the unglamorous parts. They’re not flexible enough or not strong enough. I’ll give people a real hard time about failing some of these tests. ‘Hey, I know you’re a marathoner, but you’re not even showing me 5k strength.’”

As someone who’s completed more than two dozen marathons and several ultra-distance events, Gillanders says one of the reasons he continues to run is because of the job.

“As a physical therapist, I’ve always embraced the idea that I need to be an example for the people I’m working with,” he says.

The most effective lessons for many sports medicine professionals come not with the good days but with injuries.

That yank. Or a twist. A surge of heat.After an injury, thoughts rush in to fight

for brain space as pain triggers cascade.Ouch. How serious? Can I run? Can I

walk? Ouch. Don’t panic. How long will this leave me on the couch? Will I still be able to race next month?

“Running is a drug,” says Lee Firestone, a podiatrist with D.C. Foot and Ankle. “I’ve had an Achilles tendon partial rupture. Plantar fasciitis. Shin splints. I’ve been through the mental anguish of being shut down. It gives me a lot more credibility.”

Someone who doesn’t run but is employed in that same profession lacks the contact with their inner self that a runner recognizes well. Firestone took time off from running as

he started his practice and a family, and he returned to the sport eight years ago on a bet with his neighbors. Everyone trained for a 10k and Firestone hasn’t stopped running since.

“Nobody knows what it’s like to be out there training for a race, and the high you get from that, and the importance of continuing that,” Firestone says.

Firsthand knowledge of tweaked muscles and fractured bones stands as one of the most important qualities athletics imparts.

Anne Rettig ran cross country and track for the University of Richmond, and she now works as a primary care sports medicine physician for MedStar Health. She too recognizes how important her athletic career has been to her professional life.

“I’ve been a runner and been surrounded by runners since eighth grade, when I joined the cross country and track teams,” she says. “I’ve either had the injury or seen in it a teammate.”

The truth about injuries, though, is that they affect both mental and physical well-being.

Running, for many people, is as much about fitness and camaraderie as it is about their sanity. Running provides a prescription for the ills of their personal worlds, and missing that movement means an imbalance, a surplus of energy and a shortage of mental clarity.

Terrel Hale focuses some of his work on what he calls “mindfulness.” He’s a sports massage therapist and the founder of Georgetown Sports Massage.

“Having an appropriate mental point of reference is huge,” he says. He’s currently dealing with an injury, and he says he notes the running distances from his residence when he passes familiar landmarks.

“My heart has broken. I understand how important identity is. What is a runner if he or she is not able to run?”

The miles or the sprints are as much the cause as the cure.

Gillanders says he avoids stopping a runner completely if any good alternatives exist.

“If it’s not possible,” he says, “I try to be very specific mapping out a plan as to how we’re going to get them back to running. One thing that’s been expressed to me: ‘I’m here to see you because if I went to see someone else, they’d tell me stop running.’ They see me because I understand that passion, the need to continue to train even if it’s on a modified scale.”

Plusses and minuses Working with runners presents challenges unique to the athletic community. Still, an insider’s mindset can provide useful information.

Rettig says treating athletes is both easier and harder than less-active patients.

“They are some of the most motivated patients we see,” she said. “It’s nice to have


that as a patient population. They want to get back to their sport, back to their team, back to competition - sometimes before they should. I was always trying to get back out there.”

Gillanders says that knowing more about the causes and preventative measures applicable to various injuries doesn’t mean the medical professionals can always avoid the fate of their patients.

“I’ll fall into the same trap as the best runners out there,” he says. “The last time I was injured, it was the typical ‘too much, too quickly.’ Just because I’m a physical therapist doesn’t mean I don’t get excited and come back too soon after a marathon.”

That willingness to push physical limits means another evaporated barrier between the athlete patient and athlete doctor. Sticking with any sport through injuries becomes a humanizing factor for a group of people who don’t jog to a hospital at the first twinge of pain.

“Most runners are pretty healthy,” Gillanders says. “They don’t have to seek out much in the way of medical care. In these rare times they do, they’re even more selective.”

That means a sports background can become a distinguishing factor in a patient’s search.

Without personal athletic experience, “it’s hard to understand truly where that patient is coming from,” says Sarah Weimer, a physical therapist with Washington Wellness Center for Physical Therapy and SportsCare.

“The mental aspect you go through after surgery definitely helps me with patients who come through the door after their first surgery. They’re scared. They don’t know what physical therapy is about. You can tell them, ‘Yeah, I’ve had this injury. I know what you’re feeling. Hang tight.’ That really helps get everyone a little more comfortable.”

Weimer was a jumper on her high school track team, but volleyball and basketball were her main sports, which she continued as intramural sports in college.

“Running was always a punishment. I was never into just running for fun. I always said I would never be a runner.”

A friend knew Weimer’s competitiveness and encouraged her to register for a race. Weimer began to train as a runner in August, but she’s already completed the Navy 5 Miler, the Army Ten-Miler and the Marine Corps Marathon 10k.

This new addiction has translated to insights in her daily work. She says she used to tell runners to cross-train, but she acknowledges the issue of training time when runners want to hit mileage counts or pace numbers, and, as a result, they slack on cross-training or rehab exercises.

“I had these runners come in and had nagging pains, but they were able to run through it. Now I understand that pain is there for a reason. They can run through it, but we need to get rid of it.” n

SaRah WeimeR, who took up running this year, cruises along at the Navy 5 Miler.

Photo by maRathoNFoto


Two runners hiT iT off

BY CHARL IE BAN


Evan was a bit nervous.He didn’t know what to wear. Are running

tights appropriate on a fi rst date? Not pants over running tights, not shorts over running tights, just running tights. This was his fi rst time with a date involving a run, let alone a fi rst date or a blind date involving a run.

Just like a race, he risked going out too hard, making too much of an impression either way, then fading later on.

“Nothing like some spandex to get things started and hiding just about nothing,” he said, committed to his attire.

The running tights would have to be okay. If anyone would understand, she would, otherwise this clearly wouldn’t work.

Laura understood. “I pretty much only like to date other runners so it’s perfect,” she said.

The two met for a run around the White House in late November to see if two people who had one thing in common —running— would hit it off.

At the very least, Evan thought, they have that to talk about.

“I think it was a great and different way to get things started,” Evan said about the run, besides “having to rely on the drinks.”

They already had a conversation piece. “It was kind of funny that we inadvertently

wore matching outfi ts to run in,” Laura said.The run was just about the right length

as to not break too much of a sweat before changing and heading to dinner without a shower.

“I was impressed with Lauren’s ability to go from running clothes to dinner clothes that easily, still looking great,” Evan said.

At Posto, in Logan Circle, he had some pasta with a beer. She had pizza with wine.

“The pasta wasn’t really a runner’s portion,” Evan said, but conversation made up for it. “Hopefully she wasn’t turned off by my bread consumption.”

Their conversation meandered—where they grew up, their families, what they do.

“It took us a while to get to talking about work,” Evan said. “It was a very nice change of pace from the more stereotypical DC conversations that I’m often in working in politics and policy.”

Evan’s a Hill staffer, Laura’s a physical therapist. They talked about his recent Achilles tendon injury, allowing her to demonstrate some of her expertise with injuries and making him sure he wouldn’t have spent so much time injured in his running career had they met earlier.

Both considered it a successful date. He got her number, she promised it didn’t go to a pizzeria. �


by Kat ie b olton

LaUReN ShaUb and JUaN SaNchez after their races at the Dover Half Marathon. Photo coURteSy of ShaUb


Twenty-two miles into the 2013 Richmond Marathon, Juan Sanchez passed Lauren Shaub. Shaub, an assistant coach with the Capital Area Runners, was long resigned to not

breaking three hours; at mile 16, she remembers CAR head coach George Buckheit telling her, “Just hang in there!” Meanwhile, CAR member Sanchez was running his third marathon after being inspired by Boston. He had started the race slow and reached a pace well above his standing PR. As he fell in alongside Shaub, Sanchez sensed that he would have to push his coach and training partner through to the end of the race. Acutely aware of Sanchez’s pace and peppiness, Shaub gave him one order: “Just go.”

That’s love.Some might find it hard to live, train, and plan a wedding with

another runner, but Shaub, 30, and Sanchez, 32, have found that a supportive partner makes all the difference. She is a longtime competitive runner who thrives on training, planning, and analyzing. He is a former wrestler who relishes racing but admits he isn’t ‘running for the sake of running’ just yet. She runs early, before spending all day on her feet as a physical therapist. He prefers to run in the afternoon. She’s trained with teams since high school; he first tried speedwork when he joined CAR this year.

Shaub and Sanchez met, of all places, in an operatory. Shaub was in a new job and observing a shoulder surgery; Sanchez was an injured wrestler mostly hidden behind a curtain. “I honestly don’t remember meeting her,” Sanchez recalls. Shaub adds, “In a shoulder surgery, all you see is the person’s arm, so I didn’t really see him much.” When he returned to the office for physical therapy, Shaub asked how his shoulder felt. They began chatting during his sessions and their casual friendship expanded to the gym where they both belonged. “He and his friend asked if I wanted to lift with them,” Shaub remembers. “He’s very romantic.”

“Are you sure?” asks Sanchez, unbelieving. Shaub reciprocated by inviting him to a spin class.

Before his 30th birthday in 2010, Sanchez began training for the Marine Corps Marathon, which is how he found out that Shaub too had been a college athlete. They ran together occasionally until Shaub invited Sanchez to happy hour. “I didn’t know the rules of engagement, to say the least. I was still going to therapy at her clinic,” he remembers.

“It wasn’t a date,” Shaub clarifies. “I thought, ‘Oh, this guy is the only young guy that comes in here; he’s the only young guy that’s single and cute. He probably has cute friends. I’m gonna ask him if he and his friends wanna meet me and my friends at Whitlow’s.”

Sanchez came alone.Nonetheless, the two became closer. Their joint training,

plus Sanchez’s long runs with Potomac Runners, paid off with a 3:27 finish at Marine Corps.

Friendship elided into a relationship. She liked his athletic and military background, which paralleled her own regimented training. “I know what he went through; he knows what I went through,” Shaub says of college athletics. As the student athletic trainer for her high school wrestling team, she knew his sport well. And the better she got to know them, the more she liked his friends. “That told me the person he was, that he kept putting fabulous people around him,” she says.

For his part, Sanchez recalls inviting Shaub to watch a wrestling meet. She agreed, “no hesitation. That was like the turning point,” Sanchez recalls: “She was hot and she liked to go to wrestling tournaments.”

“And I’m still hot and I still go to wrestling tournaments,” Shaub interjects.

They continued to train and race together throughout their relationship, getting engaged in March of 2013. In the same year, Coach Buckheit made Shaub his assistant coach and welcomed Sanchez onto the team. Shaub’s physical therapy background had helped her teammates greatly. “For quite a while, I’d been leaning on her to assist in those rare occasions when I broke somebody,” Buckheit remembers. He had taken on work with charity runners and Shaub could help instill good strengthening and stretching habits in the beginners.

Meanwhile, he watched Sanchez take to training like a fish to water. “I think this is just the first time [since college] that he had been diligent about getting on a training program and sticking with it,” says Buckheit. He often sees former athletes return to form in the warm embrace of a supportive team and a disciplined training plan. “If you know you’ve gotta meet somebody for workouts several days a week and one of them’s your [fiancee], it keeps your feet to the fire.”

As Sanchez made huge beginner’s leaps, Shaub nudged minutes off her own times. Racing together, they occasionally managed “Hollywood finishes.” At the 2013 Monster Mash Half-Marathon in Dover, Shaub’s regular training partner Kelsey Budd took second overall and finished as the first woman. Shaub followed in fourth overall, the second woman. Just 31 seconds behind her, almost before Shaub knew what was happening, Sanchez crossed the finish line, placing third in the men’s race. “I ran a PR,” Sanchez says humbly. “It was a 10-minute PR,” Shaub adds. Suddenly, a BQ seemed possible for Sanchez.

Is it all sunshine and roses to date another runner? Not entirely, they concede; someone has to walk their dog Rook, Sanchez’s American Staffordshire Terrier and their number one fan. Their training schedules don’t always leave them much time to relax together. After workouts, they sometimes fight over the bathroom. But the good outweighs the bad. They have a built-in training partner to motivate them or at least wake them up in the morning. They understand one another’s goals and intentions, and they support one another when training is difficult. Now that Sanchez is training, he tires out earlier and spends fewer late nights out. “I’ve adjusted my lifestyle. It’s good for me,” he says, and early-rising Shaub agrees.

Despite their individual commitments to running, the couple won’t be getting married mid-marathon or racing to the courthouse. Shaub promises to run that day, saying, “If I have to get up at 2 a.m. to do it, I will. Running, for me, is a stress reliever.” Sanchez hesitates. “I can’t say I’m going to [run],” he admits.

Still, no runner of their caliber could plan a spring event without taking the sport into consideration. “A lot of my friends are runners, and I didn’t want to interfere with Shamrock, Cherry Blossom, Boston…. I’ve already talked to our caterer about making sure that certain people are refreshed with more water than other tables,” Shaub says. They plan to honeymoon in Brazil for the World Cup.

When their paces converged on that fall day, Shaub remembers thinking, “He needs to qualify for Boston!” before urging him on. He’d hated spectating the year before, finding he really wanted to run what he saw as “the Big Daddy” of marathons. When Buckheit saw Sanchez crest the race’s final hill first, he quipped, “Oh boy, the wedding’s off.” Still, he’s confident that with patience and hard work, they will both break three hours soon. “They’re knocking on the door right now,” he says.

In the end, Sanchez ran a Boston-worthy 3:03:38 in Richmond and Shaub set her own new PR of 3:06:24. Despite their coach’s concern, the wedding is still on. In the finisher’s chute, Sanchez hung Shaub’s medal around her neck. As on running and wrestling teams, their individual achievements make their partnership stronger. n

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A championship with no room for error. New teams on the podium. Late season pushes for state titles. Six runners competing on the national level. In comparison to cross country, even the best football games start to look stale.

Cross country season in Washington was fierce. Each of our All-RunWashington honorees demonstrated that fierceness, especially in the post-season.

In Maryland, Bethesda-Chevy Chase’s girls strived to defend their state title without injured 2012 individual titlist Caroline Beakes, but Nora McUmber took over and led the team throughout the year, finishing first in every race until the state championship. The Barons looked strong throughout the year, but met their match in the regional meet when steadily-improving Walter Johnson struck and surprised with a win. Though it shook the Barons and provoked them to run faster at the state meet, Walter Johnson came out four points ahead, but both young teams established that the top girls teams in the state are built in Bethesda. McUmber kept rolling and qualified for the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Ore., where she finished 48th..

Meanwhile, Poolesville senior Chase Weaverling tore through his competition all year, winning the 2A state meet but coming up an excruciating .3 seconds short at the Footlocker northeast meet. Walt Whitman junior Evan Woods prevailed in a tight regional race out of a pack of five top harriers from the Maryland suburbs. A golf course in Westminster replaced the traditional state meet course at Hereford High School which was unavailable because of construction that will likely prevent the course, as runners have known it, from being used again.

Like Walter Johnson, Oakton’s Jack Stoney improved steadily in the postseason, culminating in an individual Virginia 6A state title. Behind him, Lake Braddock’s Alex Corbett lead his team to a surprise runner up finish behind defending champion Chantilly in the race in one of the tightest team races in memory. Four points separated first from fourth, with Robinson edging Battlefield on a sixth-man tiebreaker.

Individually, Edison’s Louis Colson plowed through Virginia competition and easily won the 5A state title before qualifying for the Footlocker meet with a fourth place finish. He finished 32nd at the national meet. Right behind him in Charlotte, Marshall’s Mackenzie Haight shook off a bad state meet race with a fifth place regional finish, 34th at nationals. Out at Loudoun Valley, Andrew Hunter dominated the 3A state meet, but only roughly

half as many spectators saw and would have before the state was redistricted and the championship meet was split into two days.

St. Albans senior Tai Dinger became the first D.C. resident since Sidwell’s John McGowan in 2010 to qualify for the Footlocker final, where he finished 27th. Along the way, he won the Maryland/D.C. private school championship, with Good Counsel senior Colin Crilly behind, leading his team to championship over Gonzaga, led by senior Chris Hoyle.

Sidwell Friends senior Megan Wilson brushed off a few mid-season losses, including one to Robinson (Va.) junior Amanda Swaak at the Oktoberfest Invitational, to win both D.C.’s state meet and the Maryland/D.C. private schools meet by large margins.

On the girls side of Northern Virginia, Caroline Alcorta was unbeatable, all the way up to the Footlocker south meet, where she stamped her second ticket to the finals. She finished 3rd at national’s. Lake Braddock seniors Hannah Christen (21st at nationals) and Katy Kunc (19th at nationals) also made it. Allie Kliemkiewicz didn’t make it back this year, but she and Haliey Dougherty lead their team to its first state title. Four years ago, Dougherty was the only Oakton athlete to make it to the state meet. Right behind them Washington-Lee made its first state finals appearance ever and finished second, led by senior Sarah Angell.

Though she did not make it to the state meet, Katie Kennedy, hobbled by what turned out to be a stress fracture in her ankle, managed a 20th place finish at the ultra-competitive 6A region meet.

On top of the outstanding performances from the runners, ill-timed weather made news by wreaking havoc on weekend invitationals. The Braddock Relays being contested in a deluge. The Glory Days Invitational being cancelled when Bull Run Regional Park was flooded, eliminating what was one of the best chances to get Virginia, Maryland and D.C. teams competing in the same race. That same weekend, Georgetown Prep gave its hilly course a rest and ran the races on a partial road course, so out-of-town teams wouldn’t waste their trip to Maryland.

The All-RunWashington team was chosen with a consensus of several area high school coaches: John Ausema, Gonzaga College HS, D.C.; Stephen Hays, Walt Whitman HS, Md.; Kevin Hughes, Georgetown Visitation Prep, D.C.; Mike Mangan, Lake Braddock HS, Va.; Chris Pellegrini, West Springfield HS, Va. and Scott Silverstein, Winston Churchill HS. n

BY CHARL IE BAN


Marshall’s MackeNzie HaigHt made up for a less-than stellar state meet by qualifying for the Footlocker national meet. At the Oatlands Invitational in September, he raced other All-RunWashington honorees LoUis coLsoN, cHase WeaveRLiNg (over Haight’s shoulder), aNdReW HUNteR and Jack stoNey. RUNWASHIngtOn pHoto by ed LULL


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She knew what “a lap” was, so that was a start.But how far was a lap? George Mason

cross country coach Sita Waru-Ewell had some basic terminology to go over with her new walk-on in 2012.

“She was clueless when she started,” Waru-Ewell said. “I had to pull her aside and explain everything before a workout started so she knew what she’d be doing.”

But Bethany Sachtleben would be a quick study. A little more than a year later, nobody had to tell her what “conference champion” meant.

Waru-Ewell got the email while she was getting ready for the start of George Mason University’s cross country season. Sure, she’d have a look at a transfer student from Northern Virginia Community College. But the girl hadn’t run competitively before?

Not exactly. Sachtleben had recently won the Fourth of July’s Let Freedom Run 5k a few weeks before, and had finished second in the Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Marathon in 3:11 at 20 years old. But without any structured distance training? She wasn’t on her high school team? No, she didn’t have a team. Nor a high school. While being homeschooled in Manassas, she played tennis and soccer with her sister, but her heart wasn’t in either.

“Running was just something I did, but it became a big part of who I was,” she said. “Once I got to races and felt the environment--all these people who loved what I loved--I was hooked. My family saw I had a talent for it and my dad encouraged me to call (George) Mason.”

Despite some initial skepticism as they got to know each other, Waru-Ewell’s curiosity piqued when Sachtleben came to campus to talk before the team got together for the season.

“She looked like a runner,” Waru-Ewell said. “She had the tools. The big part was going to be learning how to use them.”

That took some trial and error.“I was so scared, I had no idea what I was

getting into, what I was doing,” Sachtleben said of her first practices with the Patriots. “My coaches were so patient with me, but I was terrified my first week. I couldn’t grasp the sport. I could never imagine that workouts could be so hard, that races could hurt so bad.”

A little education eased that. Waru-Ewell got a good sense of just how feral Sachtleben’s running style was when her class schedule kept her from practice and the two met to do a workout together.

“She showed up at the track and said she was ready to start,” Waru-Ewell said. “I asked her when she warmed up and she said she hadn’t. She ran for about 20 minutes then wanted to start the workout and I had to explain she needed to stretch, do progressions to get ready to run hard. All of this was new to her.”

Though it sounds frustrating for a Division I coach to teach a remedial course on running physiology, Waru-Ewell said that was far from the case.

“She was very raw, yes, but the talent was there, and she was eager to learn,” she said. “She never questioned (coaches) she always wanted to learn. She never said she didn’t want to do anything.”

That investment of time paid off. Sachtleben led the Patriots in every race that season, with an All-Conference finish at the Colonial Athletic Association meet and a victory at one of the Eastern College Athletic Conference championship races. All the while, she wasn’t sold on the sport.

“It was hard, I wanted to quit,” she said. “It wasn’t until I got to track that things started to make sense.”

Then, everything clicked. Maybe it was the success, maybe the fact that she had measurable

by Charl ie ban

BethaNy SachtleBeN crosses the finish line in first at the 2013 Atlantic 10 Cross Country Championships.

Photo By KeIth lUcaS


goals to chase in her best times. She was a new person--who she recognizes today.

“I discovered who I was,” she said. “I didn’t have something I was so passionate about, didn’t have an identity like this until I found running. It’s changed my life and I can’t imagine it being any other way.”

Running helped her adjustment to college, too. Though she interacted with peers on soccer teams and in her home-schooling co-op, she arrived at George Mason only two years into structured educational environments. Her team helped her become more outgoing and vocal.

Her success continued that spring, with a win at the Penn Relays in the 10k and an appearance in the first round of the NCAA outdoor championships.

Despite those successes, though, and strong summer training, her cross country season started out lethargic. She still led the way for the Patriots, winning the team’s home meet by two minutes, but she wasn’t putting the kind of edge she had developed over track season into her cross country races.

“She was running fast, and doing phenomenal workouts, but in races she was just kind of hanging back behind the lead girls and not going for it,” Waru-Ewell said. “She didn’t seem to want to win as much.”

Sachtleben put an end to that at the Atlantic 10 Championships. With a new conference for the Patriots came new faces in the post-season. Sachtleben was pitted against Jill Prentice, a Richmond senior who had won the conference meet two years prior (before Sachtleben had ever put on a pair of spikes) and was running on her home course in Hanover County, Va.

The pair was inundated in the pack through a mile that seemed slow before Prentice picked it up. Sachtleben followed

and started observing, finding the things she loved about racing before.

“I like to sit back and see how other people race,” she said, both about the A-10 meet and generally. “I like to listen to their breathing. When they breathe hard, I know I’ve got them. That’s when I feel strong.”

Right before the second mile mark, Prentice’s breathing changed and Sachtleben made her break, putting as much distance between her and the Spider over the last 1.1 mile of the rolling grass course on her way to victory.

“Now I have to work on putting it in my mind that I’m good enough to do these goals. Last season, I didn’t have the experience. If girls beat me, it was okay because I didn’t know anything. Now, I belong here; I’m stronger and better. I belong here.”

In some ways, her inexperience may help her.“Nobody knows who she is, well, now

they do,” Waru-Ewell said. “She wasn’t some fantastic high school runner who made a name for herself, and that’s good because she doesn’t have long histories with girls she’s going to run against. She’s not afraid of anyone because she has no reason to be. She’s game for anything.

Sachtleben has her eyes on an NCAA championships qualifier in the indoor 5k and advancing to the finals of the outdoor 10k.

Even though she didn’t run while at NOVA, enrolling started Sachtleben’s five-year clock to use four years of athletic eligibility. As 2014 starts, she has two indoor and outdoor track seasons and one cross country season.

“We’ll see if there’s anything in the rules that will help her recover that year,” Waru-Ewell said. “It’s exciting, having an athlete that’s so new, who doesn’t know what she can do. We built a foundation last year and it’s time to build on it with volume and intensity and see what she can do.” n


No runner is an island. It’s next to impossible for Thomas Bennett to forget that after his Marine Corps Marathon experience.

He had a friend and brother-in-law, Scott Brown, willing to get him there from Auburn, Maine. Not quite far enough away that you need a passport to walk down the street, but long enough that the trip to Washington was daunting. Scott’s wife, Kelly, was running the 10k.

They left Maine Friday afternoon, stopping in New Jersey that night, reaching the expo Saturday afternoon and making it to Thomas’ brother Rich’s place in Ashburn that night. That was the easy part for Scott.

After an early wakeup Sunday, the drive in to Arlington and the race, they were back in the car by 1 p.m. to get home to Maine that night.

Anne and Zoe fl ew from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to support husband and dad Capt. Shaun Bennett, Thomas’s nephew, who fl ew in from Okinawa for a quick three-day visit to run the marathon.

“Best support crew one could hope for,” Thomas said.

(From left to right) ANNE GRANT, ZOE and SHAUN BENNETT, KELLY BROWN, BARB PRZYBOJEWSKI, THOMAS BENNETT and SCOTT BROWN. Kelly, Barb and Thomas are siblings.

PHOTO BY NATASHA ERIKCSON

BY CHARL IE BAN

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April 12, Prince William County, VA17.75K registration opens February 19marinemarathon.com

May 18, 2014Fredericksburg, VA

www.marinemarathon.comwww.marinemarathon.comthe greatest hal f marathon in history

organized by the Marine Corps Marathon

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