RunWashington Winter 2015

MARATHON // 1/2 MARATHON 10K // 5K // 2K // KIDS MARATHON

Canada’s biggest and best-loved marathon • Beautiful scenery of Canada’s capital • Fast, IAAF Silver Label course • Awesome spectators and atmosphere

#LoveEveryMoment #RunOttawa2016

MAY

28 - 29

2016 www.runottawa.com

COVER PHOTO: Hand-crack cyclists pass through Rosslyn in the second mile of the 2013 Marine Corps Marathon. RunWashington photo by Jimmy Daly

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

EDITOR’S NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

OFF THE BEATEN PATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

MILITARY RUNNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

THE MARINE CORPS MARATHON COURSE NEVER TOO OLD TO TRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

UPCOMING RACES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

RACE PHOTOGRAPHERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

SUPERFAN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

RUNNING AROUND THE WORLD . . . . . . . . .

A RUNNER’S HAPPY HOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

LIVING THE DREAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CELEBRATE RUNNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

..2 ..4 ..6 ..9 . 13 . 18 . 22 . 25 . 30 . 35 . 40 . 43 . 48

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 1

WINTER 2015/2016

PUBLISHER Kathy Dalby RunWashington Media LLC EDITOR IN CHIEF Charlie Ban charlie@runwashington.com SENIOR EDITOR Dickson Mercer dickson@runwashington.com CREATIVE / PRODUCTION AZER CREATIVE www.azercreative.com SALES DIRECTOR Denise Farley denise@runwashington.com 703-855-8145 CUSTOMER SERVICE office@runwashington.com BRANDING ORANGEHAT LLC The entire contents of RunWashington are copyright ©2014 by RunWashington Media, 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 charlie@ runwashington.com.

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 four times yearly by RunWashington Media LLC, 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.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR Hi Charlie, Thanks for the opportunity to provide feedback. It’s actually very timely. Within the last couple of weeks, I was browsing the newsletter and I noticed a bullet point about a woman in Virginia being attacked while out on her run. This bullet was included along with some others that I would consider “fluff”. It really struck me how out of place it was and I felt like it really diminished the experience of this woman as well as the experience of all female runners who are continuously aware that they may not be safe engaging in an activity that they love. This is a serious issue and deserves to be treated as such.

Now, I know that sometimes space is limited and I’m not deeply familiar with the way the newsletter is laid out. But there must be a better way to report incidents like this.

Thanks for providing a format to provide some feedback. I do enjoy the updates about upcoming activities, etc. that RWExpress provides.

Sincerely, Milena Yang Milena, We make threats to public safety very seriously, I always include them in the subject line of the first edition of RWExpress that comes out afterward. We also share reports as soon as we can via social media and our growing map of incidents involving runners available on our website under the Runner Resources heading.

The information provided by law enforcement on the incident you mention amounted to a news brief for our “Running Shorts” feature, which include a mix of pieces of local runningrelated news, none of which has the depth of detail to become an independent story, but are grouped together to increase their chances of being read. I’m not going to omit a news item because its tone does not match that of another independent item, but in this case I would have ordered the items differently.

Charlie, I just wanted to say thanks for doing such a good job with RW’s content. Yours is one of the few news-oriented emails I get that I put in the “Goldilocks” category…..everything’s just right.

The right about of information at the right amount of frequency. Plus, I find your website to be helpful when I’m looking for information on races. I run about 12-15 races a year and almost all of them are here in the DC area.

Anyway, thanks again for a great site and RW Express. I truly appreciate what you & your colleagues are doing.

Cheers, Chris Hill Chris, That is the most favorably I’ve ever been compared to a fairy tale! The race calendar depends on the participation of race directors who submit their information as early as possible. The more they do that, the more we can present you with a lot of options in one place.

Hey Charlie, I think the stuff that you guys are doing with high school running is awesome. I love reading about the kids, coaches and teams that are in the area. I think it elevates all of our games. The piece that Dickson wrote on Andrew Hunter that got picked up by Lets Run was particularly awesome. It is crazy that the Hunters were Alan Webb’s coaches! I had no idea.

Because I don’t race as much as a I used to, especially now that I have a four-month-old at home, I don’t follow the runner rankings like I used to, but I also think those are particularly cool.

Keep up the good work. Hope to see you at a meet or on the roads this fall.

-Jesse Gaylord Thanks, Jesse! I hope other adults in the D.C. area are taking notice of what our high school athletes are doing on the cross country fields, because it’s pretty special and with any luck we’ll be hearing about their success continuing on the collegiate and professional levels.

/runwashington @runwashington

2 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

Keep that feedback coming- charlie@runwashington.com

CORRECTIONS

PHOTO BY DAN REICHMANN

When we step on the starting line, our minds are (mostly) on the task ahead of us: to run fast. More often than not, our appearances belie how we’re doing, sometimes how good we look is inversely proportional to how well the race is going, but as Brian Knight explains to Dickson Mercer (page 25), but somehow the photographers around here, both professional and hobbyists, manage to catch our most optimistic, or determined, expressions when all we want to do is get across the finish line. Show me someone who doesn’t check their race photos when they’re online and I’ll show you someone who would still be fascinated by the insight that several local photographers offer in this article.

A lot of those photos floating around are free, so if you find yourself spectating someday instead of competing and come across someone with a bunch of cameras who is also trying to cheer for runners, thank them (without distracting them).

Hearing more about the skill and detail they put into shooting races just makes me appreciate when I am able to hire one to cover races so I can focus on the words, rather than ham-handedly take pictures hoping one will turn out as well as their mid-range photos.

We have the 40th Marine Corps Marathon coming up, and with it, the latest in a long series of course configurations (page 13). The challenges of holding one of the largest marathons in the country across several jurisdictions means the organizers have to be flexible when conditions change, while also trying to cater to the needs of a changing population of runners. For instance, trying to offer a less rigorous course for the benefit of thousands of first-time runners taking a crack at ‘the people’s marathon,’ particularly by taking out a rough hill in mile seven.

That story is told on the roads. Along the curb, you can see the spray painted mile markers: the letter M, the year and the mile number. I run a lot on Hains Point, using the 2012 marks for workouts, and I’ll end up trying to do faulty math in my head calculating my time based on other years’ marks...it’s a folly but it shows me that running Marine Corps more than once means you’re probably getting a different experience each time. George Banker pointed out that it’s hard to compare your times for the course across a number of years because the layout changes so much.

Now that I’ve seen all the different ways the course was laid out over the race’s 40 years, a funny little detail jumped out at me. For half of those races, the mile 16 mark was within sight of the Lincoln Memorial, which I don’t think anyone intended, but just chew on that for a while.

Katie Bolton’s look at the international differences in running culture (page 34) contains perhaps my favorite quotation I have read about running, summing up how running really is different here: “They’d come to my mom and say, ‘Hey was that your daughter that I saw running this morning? Why is she running? Does she have diabetes or something?”

Be sure to check out the continuing adventures of our local marathoners at www. runwashington.com and look out for the nominations for the 2016 Best of Washington Running.

We’ll take nominations in November and December, take the top six nominees in each category and move on to final voting in January, February and March.

See you out there!

Charlie

4 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

The new 860v6.

Each pair is created by us, made by the exhausting, exhilarating, unique miles that every runner gets out of them. With a twin cushioning system, plus stability from top to bottom to allow for 360° support, this brand new distance trainer will carry you for more—and more memorable—miles than ever. #MadeByMiles

©2015 New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc. - 15-08775

Abbey D’Agostino Team NB Athlete

S

UI

AR T L A N D P KW AY SUITLAND

SU I T

L A ND

PARKWAY

MORNINGSIDE UPPER MARLBORO

BRISTOL

DUNKI

C

PATUXENT RIVER

WALDORF

American Chestnut Land Trust Prince Frederick, Md. RUNWASHINGTON PHOTOS BY CHARLIE BAN & CRAIG BARRETT

6 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

BY CHARLIE BAN

BRISTOL

DUNKIRK

CHANEYVILLE

TUXENT RIVER

HUNTINGTOWN

Real estate developers may have their eye on Calvert County, Md. land, but at least 3,000 acres is safe.

The American Chestnut Land Trust protects hardwood forest, wetland and farmland. In the process, those lands offer 19 miles of trails that make it the ideal running spot in the county.

It’s off the beaten path, about an hour’s drive from D.C., but it’s not hidden. Signs on U.S. Route 4 point it out to anyone who passes: a turn onto Dares Beach Road, past Calvert High and Double Oak Road.

That takes you to the North Side Trailhead, which offers easy access to the Double Oak Trail, which leads down to the Chesepeake Bay and the Parkers Creek Trail, a run by the bay which is subject to the tides’ whims. A few days after heavy rains from Hurricane Joaquin meant some of the trails were under water, but there were plenty that were dry uphill.

The park’s centerpiece is a 12.2mile ramble, the Prince Frederick to the Bay Overlook Trail. Five footbridges throughout the overlook trail were built by local Boy Scout troops. Despite the wonderful trail, I reveled in the opportunity to run along road under the power lines, magnetic waves be damned. The rolling hills and the dirt right-of-way path get you going.

The park is special for Craig Barrett, who travels for work, often with the chance to find trails wherever he goes, but the land trust is different.

“I love coming to run my home woods after work sends me to travel,” he said. “I love how close it is to the water. I come home from traveling and can smell the salt off the bay and the humidity in the air. It brings me home.”

The Parkers Creek and Horse Swamp trails are his favorites, but he loves the Prince Frederick to Bay Trail for his long runs.

“No matter what my training plan calls for, I can find it on ACLT trails,” he said.

AMERICAN CHESTNUT LAND TRUST WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 7

PRINCE FREDERICK

BY ASHLEY RODRIGUEZ

The hand-crank cyclists kick off the 2013 Marine Corps Marathon.

RUNWASHINGTON PHOTOS BY JIMMY DALY

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 9

Push-rim wheelchair racers and handcyclists are familiar on the courses of D.C.-area races, but that’s not the case elsewhere in the country.

For as long as Army Capt. Kelly Elmlinger can remember, running has been a part of her life and of her family’s. Three years ago, the competitive runner was vying for a Boston qualifying time — and missed it by mere minutes. It was a blow, but she was young and certainly would have another shot.

Just a few months later, in March 2013, Elmlinger learned she had synovial sarcoma, a rare soft-tissue tumor, in her lower left leg. While she avoided amputation, the nine surgeries that followed left her without function in her leg. It was difficult to walk, let alone continue to run competitively.

After three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, she began caring for wounded warriors as a nurse on the orthopedic unit at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, and knew her competitive life was not over.

While her cancer diagnosis was devastating, getting back on the road and track as a push rim athlete was bittersweet. In a short time, she’s become an accomplished wheelchair athlete, earning gold medals in the 100m and 400m women’s wheelchair races at the 2014 Invictus Games in London. And she won four silver medals as the only woman to compete in last year’s Warrior Games held at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Va. Earlier this year, the fierce competitor set her eyes on a second shot at qualifying for Boston.

“I’ve always been a person that always has some type of athletic goal,” Elmlinger said. “My thought was, ‘I’m going for it and I’m going for it in the chair.’”

Elmlinger qualified by more than 10 minutes after her third-place finish in the women’s push rim division at the 2015 Marathon — her first in a wheelchair. This fall, she traveled to D.C. from her home in San Antonio to compete in the 2015 Army TenMiler’s push rim division.

“I wish other people could experience what I’ve been able to,” Elmlinger said, adding that she considers herself lucky to live in a community that has a strong Paralympic and adaptive sports scene. Still, it’s often difficult to find races that will allow her to participate.

That’s why she comes to Washington.

At races across the D.C. area, wheeled athletes — both push-rim wheelchair racers and handcyclists — are a common sight.

For roughly 20 years, two of Washington’s biggest races, the Marine Corps Marathon and

10 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

the Army Ten-Miler, have welcomed wheeled athletes with open arms. But elsewhere across the country, these competitive athletes have fought to be included in the local race scene.

Tami Faram, public relations coordinator for the Marine Corps Marathon, explained that because handcycles have gears and brakes, they’re considered bicycles and fall under the jurisdiction of USA Cycling — so many marathons don’t allow them.

In fact, USA Track & Field sanctions only allow for a push rim division “provided the wheelchair (push rim) race is done as a separate division or course from the running event,” according to USATF spokeswoman Jill Geer. Handcycles aren’t even allowed.

“Handcycles are not covered in our area of oversight or insurance,” Greer explained, adding that handcycles are a “different category of equipment.”

Logistically, wheeled divisions require additional planning, something not all race organizers seem to want to do. For starters, handcycles are much faster than push rim wheelchairs and in some cases blaze through the course so quickly that they easily can outrun street closures — a huge liability. A recent case against the Missoula Marathon in Montana found reasonable cause that race organizers discriminated against a quadriplegic participant by limiting the number of wheeled athletes to just eight, imposing speed limits and instructing them to yield to runners, among other offenses.

But some more progressive race organizers are changing this thinking, going the extra mile to allow for all wheelchair athletes — regardless of their mode of transportation — to participate.

“With so many wounded veterans from all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces taking up the sport, the MCM allows the wheeled division, which includes both handcyclists and push rim, to continue to participate in ‘The People’s Marathon,’” Faram said.

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, there are approximately 4 million “service-connected” disabled veterans living in the United States, meaning that their disability was a result of “disease or injury incurred or aggravated during active military service.” And while the veteran population has been declining for the last 30 years, advances in medicine have meant that more wounded veterans are able to survive their injuries; therefore, there’s been a rise in disabled veterans.

For many of these vets, endurance sports like running help them with rehabilitation and regaining the confidence they had before their life-altering injuries. Organizations like D.C.-based Paralyzed Veterans of America have been advocating for more races to allow wheeled athletes to compete.

“It is one of Paralyzed Veterans of America’s big initiatives,” said Jody Shiflett, adaptive cycling program consultant at Paralyzed Veterans of America and an Army veteran.

“We work closely with race directors who are open to our involvement and suggestions on how to better accommodate more disabled athletes. The Pittsburgh Marathon is one of the latest marathons that has become more open to the growth of wheeled athletes. The Air Force Marathon in Dayton, Ohio, also has a very progressive race management team and wants to include more wheeled athletes in their growth. Too often, race directors are limiting or even stopping the wheeled racers from competing due to liability and cost.”

Elmlinger believes there’s a “big movement” to shed more light on the issue, especially for disabled vets, and she applauds the military for helping advance the cause.

“You look at what happened with Vietnam [vets]. They weren’t treated very well. We have to change some of these things about society to allow these people to live equally,” she said. “We really credit the military for upping the game in adaptive sports. There are a large amount of wounded veterans. We can’t not do anything for these individuals.”

Army Ten-Miler race director Jim Vandak was surprised to hear there are races that don’t allow these divisions. During his 19-year tenure with the event, wheeled athletes have always been included.

“It’s important to the ATM,” Vandak said.

“Many of the people … are wounded, single or double amputees that are still in the Army or they are veterans. The amount of courage and determination to get out there is an inspiration. They are out there to participate and compete and we applaud that. We welcome them.”

Elmlinger plans to return to Washington over the next few years to compete in the Marine Corps Marathon and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon as a push rim athlete.

“Sports really do matter. It doesn’t just make me better — it makes me better for my daughter and makes me better for my friends,” she said, “It has a trickle-down effect.

It doesn’t just end with that person.”

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 11

The Marine Corps Marathon’s wanderings through Arlington and D.C.

BY CHARLIE BAN

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 13

Like many Marine Corps Marathon runners, Al Richmond fixated on a part of the course that he just couldn’t wait to finish. While running the race for the first time, he cursed the trip down the George Washington Parkway to Old Town Alexandria.

“Running past the airport on George Washington Parkway…there was just nobody out there,” Richmond said.

If that detail didn’t make it apparent, Richmond’s experience in 1976 was a world apart from almost every runner who will be taking the starting line this Oct. 25. He’s one of two remaining “Ground Pounders” who have run the prior 39 races. He has seen the course change little by little, and sometimes dramatically. Richmond lives in Arlington, a few blocks from the course.

Particularly over the last 15 years, road construction, local pressure and the size of the race have all reshaped the event that will celebrate its 40th running this year.

“I think right now we have the best course I can get for the runners,” said Bret Schmidt, MCM’s operations manager, the chief course coordinator since 2003. “Talking to our elite military runners and the beginner runners, we’re all pretty happy with what we have.”

His canvas is limited by cost, permitting and practicality. More than half of the course is on National Park Service land, on roads with few intersections, dramatically cutting down the need for police protection and accompanying costs. Getting the okay for the course means consulting law enforcement for three sections of the National Park Service, Arlington County, the Commonwealth of Virginia and Washington, D.C. “Most are looking for safety, and others are looking to get runners off the street as soon as they can,” Schmidt said. “That’s why they have to ‘beat the bridge.’ The Metropolitan Police want to open up 14th Street.”

In addition, various advisory neighborhood commissions need to sign off on permitting, weighing the disruption to their residents versus the excitement that comes with playing host to the race.

“Trying to find real estate for a marathon is much different than laying out a 10-mile course,” said MCM historian George Banker.

Banker wrote in A Running Tradition that the original layout was just designed as a prototype, and the first revision was to make the course more scenic.

It was. Thanks to a parade permit, the 1977 race introduced runners to Georgetown, the National Mall and Capitol Hill, and that basic configuration would last, in one form or another, until 2001. Construction in East Potomac Park meant Hains Point would have to take a three-year hiatus, though the course returned to the “base” of the park in 2003. In its place, runners headed up Rock Creek Parkway and turned around near Woodley Park.

In 2004, a hill was thrown in. A mile-long climb of Lee Highway from Rosslyn before descending onto Spout Run Parkway. There’s some debate as to whether that improved the course.

The growing race field made it more and

14 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

more difficult to direct runners south on U.S. 110 into Pentagon City, where they would loop around before heading back north, past the starting line, to the Key Bridge. There was a way to replace the lost three miles, but it’s not beloved.

“It’s a tough hill, but it’s a good feature because it reminds first-timers to slow down and take it easy,” Schmidt said.

Banker disagrees.

“With that hill, you really have to dog it early on, or else you won’t have much left,” he said. “I’d tell anyone running it to not even think about their target time until they get over the Key Bridge.”

It’s one reason Banker said the race times aren’t as fast as they could be.

“If that hill was later in the course, then maybe, but one mile in doesn’t give you a chance to get going,” he said.

Approaching 2007, construction that closed Rock Creek Parkway to runners meant Schmidt needed three more miles, somewhere.

“We came out of a meeting with the National Park Service and we heard a suggestion to use Canal Road,” Schmidt said, referring to M Street NW beyond the Key Bridge. “We drove it with the odometer going and it came out to be three miles, give or take, right about what we needed.”

So began a six-year detour through the Palisades neighborhood west of Georgetown.

The neighborhood commission was on board, but runners would be a harder sell. Climbing to the Palisades residential neighborhood meant a roughly 50 foot climb.

“Canal Road was pretty, but that climb was tough on people,” Schmidt said.

In 2007, runners head to climb Foxhall Road to reach MacArthur Boulevard, a more abrupt grade than in later courses, that scaled Reservoir Drive. In 2013, when Rock Creek Parkway was back on the table, runners said goodbye to the westward detour and Liz Badley couldn’t have been happier.

“It always seemed crowded in there, and the road was hard to run on,” she said. “That part of the race, miles seven through nine, you really want to be able to get a rhythm going, and I couldn’t do it out there. I really like going back to Rock Creek Parkway.”

A 2008 revision went a long way to making the course less dispiriting for runners.

The five-mile trip around the tip of East Potomac Park — for years on either side of the 20-mile mark — switched places along the course with the National Mall. Now the halfway point, at or about Hains Point, would come as runners are about to head back toward civilization, and would no longer coincide with them hitting “the wall.”

“I believe that was probably the most significant change,” Schmidt said. “Hains Point, it’s hard to get out there and there aren’t a lot of people besides at the water stops. It’s flat, but it seems like you’re always running against a headwind. It took me five years to change that, but it was like a light bulb going off.”

Richmond was thrilled with that change.

“So many years you’d be hitting the wall out on Hains Point and there’s nobody out there,” he said.

Banker wasn’t crazy about it.

“I liked coming around the turn onto the bridge at mile 22 and knowing I just had to get into Virginia and I was home,” he said.

The course also eliminated a climb up Capitol Hill to Union Station in 2004, when new barricades and guard stations near the U.S. Capitol narrowed the road to lead vehicles could no longer pass.

“When you look at all we’d need to do to keep that piece of the course, it wasn’t worth it,” Schmidt said. “Plus we cut out a hill.”

With the new loop around the Capitol reflecting pool came a somewhat notorious anatomical comparison when looking at the map.

Schmidt has kept that in mind while revising the course.

“We needed a few feet, so we go outside of the circles now,” he said. “That cuts down on the resemblance.”

Farther along, in 2004, the course picked up a few miles in Crystal City but the next year, that temporary detour would be worth fighting for. The federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission’s decisions forced Department of Defense-related businesses out of the office buildings that make up the bulk of property in the neighborhood. The Crystal City Business Improvement District formed to rebrand the area, and keeping the course running through was a way to introduce the public to what was happening.

“The best way to show people the area was changing was to have a big event, and the Marine Corps Marathon brings 15,000 spectators and all the runners right into the main street in Crystal City,” said Crystal City BID CEO Angela Fox. With metro access and restaurants lining Crystal Drive, it’s ready-made for spectators, who can make up for having to turn and run away from the finish line at the end of the marathon, a source of derision for a lot of weary runners.

“At mile 22 and 23, you’re ready for the end, but the crowds are there, at a point in the race where you didn’t really have crowd support before,” she said.

It’s also the one part of the course the Schmidt covets — turn onto S. Clark Street, rather than an out-and-back on Crystal Drive.

“The problem is that we close off all the people who live on that block, and that’s about 500 units,” he said. “That’s the one thing I’d do to improve the course right now, it would give us a wider road.”

At the very end of the road, at the Marine Corps War Memorial, Richmond sees one of his favorite changes. The finish line is now in front of the Iwo Jima statue, whereas before, runners would run around most of the road around the statue and finish in the grass.

“Getting up that hill and still having to run for a while, that was a killer,” he said. “Now you can see the balloons around the finish line. That gives you some hope.”

The 2013 return of Rock Creek Parkway, pictured here, brought a lot of cheers from runners who didn’t care for climbing a hill to the Palisades.

PHOTOS BY CHERYL YOUNG

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 15

Here we are The Marine Corps Marathon has gone through a lot of changes to become what it is today, and it’s had some hiccups, too. Here are nine major changes or diversion over the years: 1977— cut off a trip to Alexandria in favor of a loop through Georgetown and around the National Mall and Union Station 1998 — East Potomac Park was run out and back along the Potomac River 2001-2002 — An out and back on Rock Creek Park replaced East Potomac Park for two years 2003 — Runners cut off most of East Potomac Park, turning at Buckeye Drive 2004 — Dramatic revisions throughout. The first few miles headed north on Route 110, rather than south into Pentagon City. In its place, runners climbed Lee Highway and came down Spout Run Parkway.The loop around Hains Point returned. Crystal City made its first appearance.

2005 — The loop around Capitol Hill was eliminated.

2007 — Rock Creek Park began a six-year absence. In its place, runners climbed Foxhall Road to the Pallisades and returned on Canal Road and Whitehurst Freeway.

2008 — The loop around the Pallisades reversed, runners went from the Georgetown to East Potomac Park and then the Mall.

2013 — The Pallisades loop gave way to Rock Creek Parkway.

16 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

2016 Run Washington HP ad:Layout 3

9/22/15

12:44 PM

Page 1

K

15K • 5K • HALF MARATHON • 8

Run for FEB. the Booty! 20 & 21, 2016 Call 813.254.7866 or register online at: www.tampabayrun.com

Delivered to your inbox every other Monday.

Sign up up runwashington.com

Joe Divel cruises up the ramp from the C&O Canal Towpath.

RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY DUSTIN WHITLOW/ D.WHITLOW PHOTOGRAPHY

18 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

Lots of would-be marathoners get enamored with the idea in their mid-20s, looking for a challenge as they establish their adult identities.

Joe Divel went down that path a little later. More like in his mid-50s.

“I didn’t want to be a slob and waste my life anymore,” he said of his New Year’s resolution to lose weight and run a marathon.

He was an intermittent runner for years, including taking a running class at the University of Maryland, complete with a 5k as a final.

That milestone year, 50, with his daughters out of the house, he turned to an online program for help training for the marathon. But he found training alone to be grueling and troublesome. He trailed off.

The Montgomery County Road Runners Club’s First Time Marathoners brought him back a few years later, with a purpose, a role and support.

“Having coaches train you in person sets you up for success,” he said. “Doing it by yourself is harder. There’s no way I would have been able to do this on my own.”

His coach, Conroy Zien, said he can tell Divel is making a strong and valuable foundation.

“Our program has someone like him in mind when we start,” he said, adding that getting runners to buy in to running all their long runs slow is one of the biggest challenges, but Divel is the type that listens and takes in all the information.

“My goal for Joe would be to just get him to the start line healthy,” Zien said of Divel, “because I know if he gets there, he’ll finish.”

Divel said an added perk of joining the club has been discovering his own stomping grounds in a different light. He said he’s seen parts of Maryland and D.C. he would have never found on his own, and that “going on trails I’ve never been on before is like a little adventure.”

Divel is one of the few men in the 12:00 pace group and his pace coach, Glenda Garcia, said some men in that position would roll their eyes at what she describes as a lot of “women talking about women problems” but Divel is “great to have in the group — he listens and gets along with everybody. He can be very chatty, and is easy to talk to.”

Garcia said Divel has a natural affinity for distance.

“He has very good running form — a very relaxed stride…he’s fit to run a long distance,” she said.

While he worried that at 55, be might be too old for a marathon training program, FTM coaches insisted he was the ideal age.

Garcia said she enjoys coaching people like Divel because “older runners like Joe are a lot more patient.”

At 235 pounds, he didn’t feel ready to get out and run 26.2 miles right then, but he did start making changes. He doesn’t tout any kind of miracle, instant weight loss program.

He started watching his diet, traded, as he says, “the beer bottle for a water bottle.. I’ll grab a banana instead of a candy bar now,” got a new elliptical, and started doing small runs. Just like he does in marathon training, he made slow, steady progress and 18 months later he’s at 174 pounds.

“I feel a whole lot better,” he said. “I feel

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 19

like I’m 40 years old again.”

Divel has fallen in love with running — not just the athletecism, but the people involved in it and the sense of belonging it lends.

“The whole team, the whole running community, it’s just behind you I feel,” he said.

Part of him is already looking forward to next fall and doing it all over again. He’s even considered becoming a pace group coach as a way to contribute to the sport and group he’s come to love.

“I’ve gotten more out of this than I could ever give back to it, so giving back is something I’d like to do,” he said.

One silver lining he does acknowledge will come from no longer being in training — getting his Sundays back.

“I have a very understanding and supportive wife,” Divel said, and they make sure to do something together on Saturday.

Church has moved to Saturday night and weekday runs are done in the early morning hours. It’s a serious time commitment, he allows, but he hasn’t had to sacrifice much, except “my lawn maybe. I figured I’m not gonna water it so I don’t have to cut it.”

He has already practiced the route with the FTM gang. The group’s coaches lined the hill leading to the Marine Corps War Memorial to give runners a taste of the finish line thrill.

He’s not sure how he’ll handle the extra energy that comes with the taper, but he knows there will be more on Route 110, approaching the finish line.

“As we came up the street, all the coaches were there cheering us on and I thought — 100 percent I am ready for the Marine Corps Marathon,” he said.

As far as his plan for race day, Divel has been doing all of his training runs at a 12-minute mile pace, and has no plans to shoot for an audacious time goal in his first marathon. He just wants to finish.

“I don’t have a time I want to do it in. My goal is to finish the race — no matter what it’s going to be a PR for me. My goal is to beat the bridge. My goal is to finish the Marine Corps Marathon and to get that medal around my neck. My goal is to finish my first my first marathon.”

Most people who run a marathon fall into two categories. The first checks the achievement off their bucket list and vows ‘never again.’ The second, before they even regain the use of their quads, starts planning for the next one. Divel is among the latter. He definitely has the bug.

“I’d like to do New York, I’d like to Chicago. Next year I really want to step up and contribute any way I can, as a volunteer, be a part of it more in any way I can,” he said.

Divel is planning to make the most of the experience of his first marathon, much as he’s done throughout the training process.

“Getting that medal put around my neck, I’m getting really emotional just thinking about it.

It’s one of the biggest accomplishments in my life,” he said.

RunWashington has been following five

20 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

local runners on their way to their marathons.

Here’s how the other four, besides Joe, are doing. Check out their progress weekly at www.runwashington.com.

MATT DETERS suffered through the summer’s heat and humidity, and the Navy-Air Force Half Marathon’s mugginess and is deep into a routine of long runs at marathon pace and slow, easy recovery miles in between.

He’s seeing consistent improvement.

“My last run I averaged 5:38 for the last seven miles. The same effort last spring was in the 5:40s.”

MEGHAN RIDGLEY’s hopes for the Philadelphia Marathon were dashed when the hip pain she felt turned out to be a torn labrum and a stress fracture.

She lugged around a hip brace for several weeks, but has kept a positive outlook and redoubled her efforts with the athletes she coaches through the Potomac River Runners training group.

“I just try to live vicariously through my customers and the people I train. A lot of people are doing the Army Ten-Miler and Marine Corps, I’ll absolutely be cheering them on and that’s gonna be the best,” she said.

AMELIA MCKEITHEN, who is running Marine Corps to raise money for the Inn at NIH, has augmented her training with yoga. she says that it has helped her by giving her the capacity to be present through the more trying miles.

“I’ve definitely noticed its positive impact on running. Some poses are extremely uncomfortable, and learning to relax into them has helped with running,” McKeithen said.

WILL ETTI has decided to forgo the Baltimore Marathon in favor of Marine Corps this year. It will fall on his 39th birthday, and he’s feeling good about his chances of running faster than five hours.

“Even if I feel like I can run faster, I’m going to stay with the pacer,” Etti said.

TM

R U N N I N G F E S T I VA L 2 0 1 6

MAY 8

RUN DELAWARE

the First State’s

MARATHON

Sunday, May 8, 2016 Wilmington, Delaware

Marathon • Half Marathon • Relay Marathons

Enter at www.delawaremarathon.org PO Box 24, Montchanin, DE 19710 • 302-654-6400 TITLE SPONSOR

NOVEMBER 15

OCTOBER 31

.US NATIONAL 12K

GHOST, GOBLINS & GHOULS SPOOKTACULAR 5K

NOVEMBER 8

ALEXANDRIA, VA..

ASHBURN, VA.

CANDY CANE CITY 5K

POTOMAC RIVER RUN MARATHON

FAIRFAX 5K

CHEVY CHASE, MD.

CARDEROCK, MD.

FAIRFAX, VA.

NATIONAL RACE TO END

KING OF THE ROAD 5K

FALL FOLIAGE TRAIL SERIES--

WOMEN’S CANCER 5K

ROCKVILLE, MD.

FOUNTAINHEAD

WASHINGTON , D.C.

FALL BACKYARD BURN TRAIL RUNNING

FAIRFAX STATION, VA.

VETERANS DAY 10K

SERIES - RACE #5

NOVEMBER 1

WASHINGTON, D.C.

FAIRFAX STATION, VA.

VETERANS DAY 5K

MAKING A DIFFERENCE 5K

FAIRFAX, VA.

ASHBURN, VA.

EX2 OFF-ROAD HALF MARATHON & 10K

VIVA VETS 5K

TRIANGLE, VA.

FAIRFAX, VA.

STACHE DASH 5K

NOVEMBER 11

NOVEMBER 21

ARLINGTON, VA.

VETERAN’S DAY “RUN ELEVEN” 11K/5K

RUN UNDER THE LIGHTS

FALL BACKYARD BURN TRAIL RUNNING

FAIRFAX STATION, VA.

GAITHERSBURG, MD..

ROCKVILLE 5K/10K ROCKVILLE, MD. RUN FOR IT! 5K FAIRFAX, VA.

SERIES - RACE #4 LORTON, VA. BREAKAWAY 5K MCLEAN, VA.

NOVEMBER 7

NOVEMBER 14

SPEND YOURSELF 5K

WASHINGTON,D.C.

FALLS CHURCH, VA.

STONE MILL 50 MILER GAITHERSBURG, MD..

MUSTACHE MILE

ALEXANDRIA, VA.

RESTON, VA.

SALUTE FOR SERVICE 5K

LACE UP FOR LEARNING

ASHBURN, VA.

ASHBURN, VA.

RESTON, VA.

PHOTO BY MARLEEN VAN DEN NESTE

22 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

LEESBURG, VA.

VIDA THRIVE 5K

FILL THE SHOES 5K

MUSTACHE MILE

FREEZE YOUR GIZZARD 5K

DECEMBER 13

NOVEMBER 22 THE 9 HOLE RUN

JUNGLE BELL JOG

WASHINGTON , D.C.

NOVEMBER 27

ROCKVILLE, MD..

RUN FOR SHELTER 10K/5K

GINGERBREAD MAN MILE

GAR WILLIAMS HALF MARATHON

ALEXANDRIA, VA.

RESTON, VA.

CARDEROCK, MD.

VIENNA TURKEY TROT 5K/10K

NOVEMBER 28

VIENNA, VA.

TURKEY BURNOFF 10 MILE/ 5 MILE

RIDGERUNNERS TURKEY TROT

HOLIDAY HALF MARATHON

GAITHERSBURG, MD..

FAIRFAX, VA.

NOVEMBER 29

DECEMBER 19

THE FALL BACKYARD BURN TRAIL

SOME TROT FOR HUNGER 5K

SURF N SANTA 5 MILER

RUNNING SERIES - RACE #6

WASHINGTON, D.C.

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA.

CLIFTON, VA.

WOODBRIDGE, VA.

NOVEMBER 26 ALEXANDRIA TURKEY TROT 5 MILER

FROSTY 5K FAIRFAX , VA.

DECEMBER 31

ALEXANDRIA, VA.

DECEMBER 5

ASHBURN FARM THANKSGIVING DAY

JINGLE BELL RUN

BRAMBLETON , VA.

10K/5K/2K

ARLINGTON, VA.

FAIRFAX FOUR MILER

ASHBURN, VA.

DECEMBER 6

FAIRFAX, VA.

VIRGINIA RUN TURKEY TROT

JINGLE ALL THE WAY 5K

CENTREVILLE, VA.

JANUARY 1

WASHINGTON, D.C.

TURKEY TROT 4 MILER

NEW YEAR’S DAY 5K

BREAD RUN 10K

FAIRFAX, VA.

GAITHERSBURG, MD..

GLEN ECHO, MD.

FAIRFAX TURKEY TROT 5K

NEW YEAR’S DAY RESOLUTION

AMBASSADOR’S CUP 5K

FAIRFAX, VA.

5K/10K TRAIL RUN

FAIRFAX, VA.

TURKEY TROT FOR PARKINSON’S 5K

GAINESVILLE, VA.

RUN WITH SANTA 5K

FAIRFAX STATION, VA.

NEW YEAR’S DAY 5K

RESTON, VA.

COKER FAMILY YMCA TURKEY TROT

RESTON, VA.

SENECA SLOPES 9K

YOUTH 1 MILE/ HALF-MILE

GAITHERSBURG, MD..

RINGING IN HOPE 5K/10K

JANUARY 9

FREDERICKSBURG, VA.

AL LEWIS 10-MILER

PRINCE WILLIAM TURKEY TROT

KENSINGTON, MD.

MANASSAS, VA.

JANUARY 16

TURKEY DAY 5K RESTON, VA. BETHESDA TURKEY CHASE 10K BETHESDA, MD.

JFK 20K/ MLK 5K WASHINGTON, D.C. HAPPY FEET 10K WOODBRIDGE, VA.

Upcoming races is not a comprehensive listing of road races, but are chosen for their proximity to the Washington, D.C. area. Listings are based largely on information provided by race directors on the free online race calendar at www. runwashington.com. It is wise to confirm event details with organizers before registering for an event. Date and times are subject to change.

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 23

BY DICKSON MERCER

BRIAN KNIGHT suits up to shoot the DCXC Invitational.

PHOTO BY MARLEEN VAN DEN NESTE

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 25

What is it about runners and photos? I lose more items than I save but I have not yet lost the photos of myself spanning my years in the sport.

Why do I keep these? It reminds me of the Joan Didion essay in which she asks herself: What kind of magpie keeps this notebook? Didion, in her way, decided it was “well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.”

In my way I find it helpful to have a record of both the good races and bad, something I can turn to when I’m looking for answers or inspiration.

That is, the good photos of those races. I guess that is where the vanity comes in: when you come home from the race, see the photo on Facebook and either untag yourself or make it your profile picture.

Digital photography brought with it the option to buy photos of ourselves crossing the finish line or on the course or looking like some wild animal in the finish chute. Race organizers working with professionals such as Swim Bike Run Photography founder Brian Knight; runner-photographers like Cheryl Young; and running club photographers like Dan Reichmann started offering race photos, too — free ones.

Their job is both artistic and physical: that of zooming, focusing, pointing, and clicking for hours on end as they try to capture not only an image — a keeper, a memorable image — of every single participant.

Meanwhile, there are photojournalists like Sarah Voisin, with The Washington Post, who encounter the running scene on occasion and put in their own long days seeking out the images that best capture the essence of what happened.

RunWashington wanted to learn more about the personalities behind the camera: things like how they approach an assignment or tackle the challenge of taking photos of people who are in fact moving while wearing weird clothes. And especially for Young and Reichmann, for whom this is an avocation, we wanted to know what keeps them coming back for more?

I was struck by something Reichmann said. He is under the impression, if you can believe it, that the “vast majority” of runners do not look at the photos he takes of them.

Oh, Dan. Trust us.

They definitely look at your photos.

Sarah Voisin They had different objectives. Elvin Funez was there to run. Sarah Voisin was there to work.

Still, Voisin says, “we were a team.” She was there, in the hours before last year’s Marine Corps Marathon, not only to get earlymorning photos of nervous runners huddling, twitching, focusing, relaxing, and calming themselves outside the Pentagon metro

26 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

station, but to support Funez, her husband, in his fourth marathon.

Voisin is a journalist who covers all types of assignments. This year her primary assignment for the Washington Post has been to travel to Cuba to capture a new era of U.S.Cuba relations. “I do, however, appreciate how sports assignments sharpen your focusing and response skills for documentary photography,” she said.

And when it comes to covering running, Voisin is most interested in capturing the prerace atmosphere. “I believe the best photos from any assignment, whether it is a marathon or presidential debate, always come before and after the official event,” she said.

There was the shot.

As a herd of people walked towards the starting line (you see their backs), Alexandria’s Tracy Curtis stood there, separated from the herd, facing the opposite direction, smiling, gazing, dressed “in a warm pre-race bathrobe.” Her gloves were pockets. Sunlight was in the early stages of replacing darkness.

And, somewhere off in the distance, some source of bright-blue light beamed toward her, making her look angelic, as if she was planted there. What style!

“She looked so cozy and out of place,” Voisin says. “While most runners had sweatsuits and hats they discarded at the starting line, this woman looked so comfortable, like she about to make bacon and drink coffee on a Sunday morning. She looked unique, and I loved it.”

But priority No. 1 for Voisin was supporting Funez. She met him at three different points in the race. Her Fitbit recorded more than 10 miles of walking.

“According to [Funez],” Voisin said, “every time he sees me, it gives him inspiration to continue.”

Brian Knight Knight, like Voisin, covers a variety of assignments, though he specializes in endurance sports events.

Back in 2000, Knight helped produce an adventure race in western Fairfax County.

Among his many duties were serving as a webmaster and photographer. And when the race ended up spawning the adventure race group EX2 Adventures, Knight stayed onboard for another five years. Since then he has upgraded both his equipment and overall technical skills.

Knight, recalling that first race, said: “I was using one of the first Sony digital cameras that had a resolution of less than a megapixel and used a 1.44MB floppy disk for film. The camera had a nice lens, but it was slow to focus and took several seconds to take a single photo.” (Today his camera shoots 14 frames per second.)

On the skills side, Knight spent two years — what he describes as an unpaid internship – working with a photographer who specialized in covering adventure races as well as trail runs, mountain bike races, even off-road triathlons.

“I received a tremendous education in how to cover races, get the shot set up just so, and then how to cull the images down so only the best photos remain,” he said.

When that mentor hung up his camera, Knight inherited some new clients and Brian W. Knight Photography was born. The name stuck until someone reviewing his portfolio came up with something catchier, saying “Swim Bike Run Photo has a ring to it.”

Today Swim Bike Run Photography covers some adventure races, but specializes more in road and trail races, triathlons, and, as of late, high school cross country races like the recent DCXC Invitational in Northeast D.C. Knight typically assigns one photographer to cover the finish line and post-race photo booth, a feature that has become a hit at many local races, while he gets out on the course.

Knight’s assignment is different than a journalist’s in that his job is to capture a photograph of every single participant. Some courses and events make this easier to do than others.

“For me, the easiest races are out and backs or courses that loop around,” Knight said. “If I know that I’m going to get more than one look at a racer, then the pressure is off a little. Conversely, if I only have once chance, then I might hammer away a little more at the shutter button.”

How about covering a race in freezing rain or hanging off the side of a boat in the Potomac River for the Nation’s Triathlon or sitting on the back of a motorcycle as it zooms around the course?

Typically seen wearing a big, floppy hat and lugging around an assortment of cameras and tripods, Knight can be found at events hustling around in search of the best light to capture participants (which, as it turns out, is a loaded way of describing his job).

If Knight had his choice, every race would either start or finish about an hour before sunset, ideally in the spring or fall: peak light.

“It really makes the photos pop,” he said.

The reality is that most running events start in the early morning. Oftentimes the sun is rising directly behind the finish line, “which makes it super tough to make a decent photograph.”

DCXC, though, often delivers Knight his ideal conditions. The weather for last month’s afternoon event was a bit overcast. But in the inaugural year, in 2014, “the light was this amazing golden color and the kids were running right into it.”

But perhaps his biggest obstacle is gravity.

“Gravity does weird, terrible things to the human body,” he said.

Knight does his best not post those

photos on the Internet.

The child who in one frame is running – no, he is flying, with both feet off the ground – and has a big smile. In the next, though, as his feet slam back towards the ground, he looks old enough to quality for Medicare.

Or a woman who exits the water of a triathlon making a face that makes her no longer herself – now she is Sloth from “The Goonies.”

“I will never post these photos anywhere,” Knight said.

Check out Swim Bike Run Photography’s photos at www.swimbikerunphoto.com

Dan Reichmann By now, if you run a Montgomery County Road Runners Club race, your mindset is: photos of me are part of the deal. That requires someone behind the camera, and in this case maybe that person’s son, too. Enter Dan Reichmann and his 9-year-old son, Alex.

Dan took photos at the Piece of Cake 10k in 2011 and since taken over for Ken Trombatore as MCRRC’s lead photographer.

Alex got his start two years later, at 7, the year he was strong enough to hold a camera.

Dan said he had been a “hobbyist photographer” for most of his life and took to it more after digital photography made the craft more accessible and less expensive. Though a Boston Marathon qualifier himself, Dan refers to his wife and MCRRC Racing Team member, Lisa Reichmann, as the competitive runner in the family.

At an MCRRC race, Dan went to photograph Lisa and met Trombatore in the process.

Dan says he can do without the cold weather that gives him “frozen trigger fingers.” He also prefers the smaller races that “allow for more individual focus on each runner.” Approaching runners sometimes hear him wish them luck or ask them to smile.

The runners, in turn, appreciate his effort.

Some thank him as they run by. They wave, raise their arms up in the air, do the click-theheels jump, or hug their running partner.

If Dan is working by himself, he prioritizes the start and finish. When Alex or another photographer comes along, someone takes photographs out on the course, too. And for larger races such as the Parks Half Marathon, Dan assigns photographers to specific locations on the course.

Capturing every runner makes for a long day at the races. There’s yet more work to do when Dan gets home, as he uploads the photos, deletes the really bad ones, and tries to get them up on the MCRRC website as quickly as possible. But Dan enjoys the process, and the time he gets to spend with Alex.

“I just think it’s a great service and benefit we can provide our club members … I like to think [they] appreciate the effort represented by those pictures, and I like knowing I was

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 27

able to provide them that shot, that photo.”

See years of MCRRC race and program photos at www.mcrrcphotos.org.

Cheryl Young

The 2016 Best of Washington Running will have a photography component.

Nominate a photo taken in 2015 by emailing charlie@runwashington.com by December 31. A panel of out-of-area judges will narrow down the field of finalists, and the winner will be printed in the Summer 2016 issue.

I know how you love taking photos of your running friends.

These were the words of Cheryl Young’s husband, in 2007, when he bought her a DSLR camera.

“I kind of laughed,” said Young, a dedicated member of Capital Area Runners.

“I mean, I loved finding running photos of me, but okay.

Soon after was the women’s Olympic marathon trials in Boston. Young traveled there to cheer on her teammates, Kristen Henehan and Lisa Thomas, and for the first time tried her hand at photography. “I did the same thing at the Marine Corps Marathon and it just took off from there,” she said.

Young has since taken photography classes and bought new equipment, and photography has strengthened her connection to the running community.

Before Young got into photography, an injury would have kept her on the sidelines.

Or maybe not. Seeing people running would make Young miss it too much.

Now, if she is injured, Young is on the sidelines. She seizes the opportunity to cover more events.

“I would not have thought in my early days as a runner I would love being on the other side of the race, but I really do. I feel as much accomplishment seeing runners have a breakthrough performance, or even just a great day, as I do on my race days. You just know the feeling they are having; you can see it.”

Before races, Young studies course maps and looks for a nice backdrop. At the Navy Air-Force Half Marathon, for instance, she photographs runners as they enter and exit Hains Point. The sun is in the runners’ face in one direction, behind them on the other, requiring different settings. And it’s still pretty dark when the race starts. She bought a new lens, in fact, with September’s race in mind, and was pleased with the results.

“The groups come really fast,” she said of the half marathon. “Sometimes I’m at home looking over the photos and I see a shot of people I didn’t recall during the race.” Young tries to capture as many photos of as many runners as she can, but her main task is to cover CAR members, who run a variety of paces. “As the crowd gets thicker, it gets hard to spot many of the runners,” she said.

Sometimes her CAR runners even get photobombed (sorry, Patrick Rainey), but that doesn’t faze Young, either.

After all, she said, “How do you not love someone so excited to get their picture taken?”

See if Cheryl Young got a picture of you alongside one of her CAR teammates at www. youngrunner.smugmug.com.

28 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

we let everyone join our reindeer games

ACE R E E FR OR ALL F S O T O TS! PH N A P I C PARTI

SURFNSANTA5MILER.com DECEMBER 19, 2015 • VIRGINIA BEACH, VA

“He has a feeling of what’s in a runner’s head at a certain point of the race. That sheer exhaustion when you can’t think of anything, then this character pops up” -Lauren Silberman

30 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

BY JAMIE COREY

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 31

Max Nacheman saw a red dot in the distance as he approached mile 35 of the JFK 50 Mile.

The D.C.-based first-time ultra runner was trudging along a lonely stretch of the course between aid stations and was tired. His knees hurt. Struggling to hit 10-minute miles, he could see his goal time slipping away.

“There was me and one other guy, but we couldn’t see anyone ahead of us or anyone behind us,” Nacheman said. “And we weren’t really talking...we were just suffering next to each other.”

As Nacheman closed in on the red dot on the horizon, he began to hear music.

Moments later, the red dot materialized into Disney superhero Mr. Incredible, jumping up and down to music coming from speakers strapped to a bike.

No, Nacheman wasn’t hallucinating (though it’s a fair question to ask, during an ultra). There was, in fact, a man dressed up in a costume cheering on runners and dancing to music. At that moment, the motivational song was “Be My Lover” by La Bouche.

“He yelled, ‘take the power out,’ and I hit the gas,” Nacheman said. “I banged out a couple of eight-minute miles. Ultimately, I finished the race and I cleared my goal-time by 30 seconds. I was very happy about that.”

Anyone who has completed a major race in the D.C. area in the last five years (the Marine Corps Marathon, the Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Marathon, JFK 50 Mile, Cherry Blossom) probably has something in common with Nacheman: both have been motivated by the electric jolt that comes from seeing Mr. Incredible among the spectators, dancing to music, dishing out his high fives.

But who is the mystery man who started showing up at races in costume around D.C. five years ago? Who hasn’t missed a JFK 50 Mile since? Who has taken the job of cheerleader and elevated it to superhero status?

His real name is Paul Silberman, DDS. Mr. Incredible is a dentist That’s right Monday through Friday at his practice, the Silberman Dental Group in Waldorf, Md. While Silberman himself isn’t a runner, his friends are. In fact, that’s how his journey to becoming Mr. Incredible began.

–

The Road to Mr. Incredible In 2002, Miles Haven, Silberman’s neighbor in Potomac, Md. at the time, asked if he wanted to ride parts of the JFK 50 Mile course to cheer on members of Miles’ running

32 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

group called “MilesRun.” Without hesitation, Silberman, who played doubles tennis with his neighbor, agreed. He was given speakers to strap on the front and back of his bike in an effort to create the “stereo effect.”

When race day arrived, Silberman parked at the finish line, then strapped the speakers onto his bike with duct tape.

“He came out, played the music and we ran,” Haven said. “I remember he just had a great time...and Paul continued doing it.”

Silberman eventually upgraded his sound system to two large speakers, which require large and expensive batteries and puts the weight of the bike at more than 100 pounds.

Six years after his first JFK 50 Mile, he came up with the idea of putting on the costume.

“I just put it on as a goof at the JFK 50 and the response of the people was so different than somebody on a bicycle with music,” Silberman recalled. “It’s like there was a superhero on a bicycle with music. People’s jaws drop when a non-human is cheering them on. They’re just so willing to smile and be receptive to cheering and high-fives.”

His friends noticed the transformation, too.

“When he’s in costume, people just treat him differently,” Haven said. “Like he’s a friend.

Like he’s one of the family. It’s interesting to see that. It’s like he’s not a human, he’s somebody else. They’ll just run around and treat him a little different than if he was just a normal person. That costume does a lot, they’re more gracious that he’s there.”

After several years of supporting runners in D.C.-area races, many runners now expect him at major races. But they aren’t the only people who have noticed what Silberman brings to a race. By 2013, Mr. Incredible was part of the official “entertainment” of the Marine Corps Marathon and was given permission to ride the course with his bike while jamming out to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” or Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” In 2014, Marine Corps invited Silberman back again and earned a spot in the media guide as “Mr. Incredible, The Marathon Bike Guy.” “We’re glad to have him as part of the team and we’re glad he’s an official entertainer for a variety of reasons,” said MCM Operations Manager Charlie Harr, who approved Silberman’s plan and credentials for the race three years in a row. “Having coached with a charity-based training program, I see what the people in the back are going through and know how hard it might be mentally for

them to continue and see the value he brings to those runners.”

Harr, who also benefited from Mr. Incredible’s energy jolt at one JFK 50 Mile, said prior to race day, Marine Corps officials brief law enforcement partners on the entire entertainment plan, including Mr. Incredible’s case.

“We provide him vehicle credentials for his bike so that law enforcement on the course know that he’s supposed to be there and he has been properly vetted,” Harr said.

“We essentially just make sure that they’re aware of what our intentions are and that Paul is part of plan.”

No Easy Task Silberman preps for races in the same way a runner would. He hydrates the night before, anticipating that he won’t have many opportunities to during the race. He spends hours perfecting his race-day playlist. He arrives early. He makes one last trip to the bathroom before putting on his costume.

And just because he gets on his bike when runners’ shoes hit the pavement, doesn’t mean he’s not burning any calories.

During this year’s JFK 50 Mile, he rode nearly 60 miles. That’s while lugging more than 100 pounds. The temperature at the finish line that day was a miserable 16 degrees--not quite ideal biking temperatures.

During Marine Corps, Silberman starts his day at 6:30. He rides the course until he reaches mile eight and stays there to give out high-fives and cheer on runners until 10, when most of the runners have gone past this point. Then he rides down the course to the 14th Street Bridge at mile 20 where he sets up to give runners one last boost to the finish. Getting from one place to another isn’t always smooth.

“Each year I learn a lot,” Silberman said.

“Next year I won’t go around the Pentagon with the runners. I got stopped every 50 yards by security with semi-automatic rifles.”

While cheering during the 2014 Marine Corps Marathon near mile 25, Silberman came across a wheelchair-bound veteran who couldn’t move his arms anymore.

Silberman told the veteran that he could help push him in an effort to get some momentum to the crest of the hill and onto the downhill prior to reaching the last hill in the race. Silberman added, “But if I do, I don’t know if that disqualifies you for a medal.”

(Silberman contacted the race coordinator the day after the race to confirm the vet

received his medal, which he did) “It doesn’t matter, I’m stuck and I can’t move,” the veteran told Silberman.

Silberman ran with the veteran from the Pentagon parking lot and helped him take off to the steep hill at the end of the race. He recounts this experience as “the first time he has run in the last 20 years.”

A Runner at Heart Mr. Incredible most recently picked up a sidekick: his daughter, Lauren, who lives in D.C. Lauren ran cross country and track in high school and college and has started to join her father in costume at races as “Violet.”

She said that her father understands running culture even better than some runners.

“He gets running, running culture and running life better than any non-runner I’ve ever met,” Lauren said. “He has a feeling of what’s in a runner’s head at a certain point of the race. That sheer exhaustion when you can’t think of anything, then this character pops up. Or how sometimes you need just a little bit of encouragement, you need to be told to go just a little faster.”

Silberman typically never crosses the finish line himself in races, except for in the JFK 50 Mile. But even then, he doesn’t receive a medal or any of the other race memorabilia participants get to take home with them after a job well done. Yet he keeps showing up to the next race year after year.

“He’s not just a guy putting on a costume,” his daughter said. “He’s a guy who found a way to insert himself in running culture and to make that a hobby without necessarily running the full 26.2 miles.”

After a long day of dancing, biking and running back and forth cheering on runners, the man in the costume will load all of his equipment, mount his bike on the back of his car and head back home. He’ll hang up his costume and mask until the next race. When Monday morning rolls around, the avid cyclist will walk into his dental practice and start seeing patients.

“I have come to appreciate what a runner does to be able to complete a marathon, much less an ultra,” Silberman said. “The physical and mental training is remarkable.

I have a huge amount of respect for the runners. There are times during the race when I clearly am receiving as well as giving ... and there is something powerful about helping people when you know they have nothing to give in return.”

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 33

BY KATIE BOLTON

MARK NAYLOR (white shirt) runs in the 2013 Buenos Aries Marathon.

PHOTO COURTESY OF NAYLOR

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 35

“I’m a runner” is kind of a cultural shorthand indicating the speaker is a little restless, highly motivated, independent and curious about their surroundings.

These traits correlate closely with those needed to make an even bolder move and leave your home country to live abroad.

With our high concentration of federal agencies, international financial institutions, and universities, not to mention the running stores, road races, and club and social runs, it makes sense, then, that so many runners would pass through and develop a deep affection for our city. What’s more surprising are the many facets of this feeling, the particular ways D.C. has worked its way into their hearts and minds.

Getting the Chance Azrah Azhar, a doctoral candidate at George Washington University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, grew up in a small, conservative town in Sri Lanka where the only runners she saw were training for other sports.

Outside of Colombo, the capital, Azhar said, anyone jogging or walking would be doing so on a doctor’s recommendation, and they likely wouldn’t be a young woman running alone. When she took up running in college, she was careful to train early in the morning, worried that if a neighbor saw her, “They’d come to my mom and say, ‘Hey was that your daughter that I saw running this morning?

Why is she running? Does she have diabetes or something?”

When she moved to Tokyo in 2011, she remembered, “I started realizing, ok, I’m freer, right? I don’t have to wake up early morning and go for a jog.”

She began running more regularly on the trails and roads of Tokyo, but never quite settled into the Japanese running culture. “You’d see people run, but they are very health-conscious people, from the way they eat to their lifestyle,” she said. “So most of the people you see who run are actually very fit. You’d not see someone who has to lose a lot of weight running on the street.” To her, the community seemed exclusive and inaccessible to beginners.

“When I came here to the US on the other hand, I’d see a poster like, oh, Turkey Trot, 5k! Anyone can join,” she said. “I started feeling more and more comfortable about running because you’d see people of all body types attempting to run.” She loves to people-watch as she runs on the National Mall.

In two years here, she has completed a 5k and a 10k and is now training for the C&O Canal Half-Marathon in October. “It seems like such an interesting thing!” she adds. “The more I run, the more I know how much I can run.”

“It’s very welcoming,” she said, gushing.

Making Connections “I think running allows you to connect with folks in a way that you might not otherwise be able to,” said Emily Ruppel, a foreign service officer currently posted in Santiago, Chile. Ruppel was previously posted in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, served in the Peace Corps in a village in Kenya, and studied abroad in Thailand, Costa Rica, and South Africa. She took up running as an undergrad at George Washington University and went on to train with the Capital Area Runners while living in DC.

SANTIAGO CHILE

36 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

BUENOS AIRES ARGENTINA

BERN SWITZERLAND

MONROVIA LIBERIA

The day before this interview, she had been the third overall female at her first trail race.

“In our running group,” she said of CAR, “you know people who have maybe very different political backgrounds or ideologies or religious and educational and employment, career backgrounds. Otherwise, we might not be friends or even socialize, but you have this shared hobby and passion and I find that’s true overseas as well.”

Though soft spoken, Ruppel does make deep connections through running no matter where she lives. In Costa Rica, she didn’t intend to join a team until she bumped into one on the street and ended up regularly training with them.

In the Peace Corps, she and a friend helped a Kenyan runner research the visa process to run a race in the United States. “I was not able to run with him, he was way fast,” she recalled. “But being able to share and help share some of that knowledge… enabled him to do his dream of going to compete there and coming back.” And back in D.C., while training with CAR, she got to know her teammate Stephanie Denis, whom she married in August 2014.

A Big Family Greta Stults, another foreign service officer on her first posting in Bern, Switzerland, sounds a little homesick even though she’s clearly also enjoying her time in the mountain city.

“Carlsbad, California is my hometown, but D.C. is kind of home to me,” she said. “It’s where I spent most of my adult life, ever since I was 23 and I didn’t start running really until I was 24. I started out as a runner in D.C., that’s where I started.” In those eight years of running, she has completed 8 marathons, knocked 50 minutes off her finishing time, and qualified for Boston.

Stults joined Chevy Chase Running Company’s fun runs back in 2009 and went on to lead them on Tuesday and Thursday nights, but she didn’t hesitate BETHLEHEMto explore the breadth of the community, running with clubs or friends nearly PALESTINEevery day and looking forward to the company.

“Back in DC, the idea of running a long run of over 16 miles by myself seemed like the worst torture and here I’ve probably run all but two of my long runs ... by myself,” she said.

In Bern, running teams are mostly affiliated with sports clubs and stricter about membership and participation, but they tend to welcome a wider range

TOKYO

COLOMBO SRI LANKA

of paces. Still, “I’m thinking what I miss the most about being in the US and that would be all of my running friends and the running community in D.C.,” she said.

“It is something pretty special that even in the US you don’t have in most cities like you do in D.C.”

Freedom of Movement Though many of the runners interviewed for this story talked about having the freedom to run when and where they want, none meant it as literally as Sari Dallal, a 10k enthusiast and Communications Consultant at the World Bank.

Dallal grew up in Bethlehem, Palestine, dreaming of running but subject to the waxing and waning political tensions between Israel and the West Bank.

“You get strange looks if you see people running,” he said. “It’s not that

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 37

bad, but it’s not in the culture. It’s not something that people do. I think it’s changing more and more now but also you have to understand the fact that there are no actual places to run because it’s occupied territory.” The city is walled in and surrounded by checkpoints that he compares to airport security; Palestinians cannot leave the city without a permit issued by Israel, which means anyone who does run is mostly restricted to the five square miles that make up Bethlehem itself. Dallal said, “It’s like you’re running in a box.”

He’s noticed, though, “When you go to the Israeli side, they all run. They run on the boardwalks, they run in their cities. It’s crazy. They have freedom of movement, whereas Palestine, it’s nonexistent.” Local running clubs work to host races within the walls of the city, sometimes out of necessity and sometimes out of protest.

“It reflects on their personalities because you’re there, you’re pressured, there’s nowhere to go,” he said. “I think running is sort of an escape route for them.”

After picking up running as a graduate student in Syracuse and falling in love with the sport while in New York, he declared, “I’ve never seen any better atmosphere than running in the fall in D.C. The leaves are just amazing. If you’re in Rock Creek or you’re on Mount Vernon Trail or you’re around Arlington, Four Mile Run Drive, all those places are fascinating. The climate is just perfect for your breath, for your pace.”

Now that he’s a frequent runner, alone and with colleagues at the World Bank, Dallal plans to recreate one of his proudest moments from his early running days in Palestine: running the 10k from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. “I felt like I did some sort of big accomplishment, a victory. When I came close to that Old City, it’s just the most beautiful thing, I think, in the world, tied with New York for me,” he said.

Development on Foot Mark Naylor has the most adventures as a runner and foreign service officer. A 3:19 marathoner, Naylor has packed his running shoes for stints in D.C.; Monrovia, Liberia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and most recently Prishtina, Kosovo.

He may have run a half-marathon on a glacier and defied rules about which shirt to wear in Argentinian races, but he has also seen firsthand the nascent days of two running communities. In 2011, he ran the first road race in Liberia.

“The first race was called a ‘10k,’ I think because the organizers assumed that’s what you call a road race,” he said. “It was actually about 3.4 miles, which none of us runners knew until we could see the finish line.”

Later that year, he ran the inaugural Liberia marathon. In a country a few years removed from civil war, a marathon (and accompanying 10k) was an ambitious, unifying goal for the citizens. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf crossed the starting line of the 10k, and the BBC covered the race as a key step in the country’s recovery. Naylor recalled that race with affection, remembering even the hazards like the intermittent aid stations, that there were only enough police to close the first half of the course, and the steady, steady rain with fondness and good humor. To bear witness to that moment in the country’s history made up for some of the challenges of actually running it. Movingly, in 2015, the Liberia Marathon is again celebrating a resurgence, this time from last year’s Ebola outbreak.

After two years in the runner’s haven of Buenos Aires, Naylor now gets to see some of the first changes coming to Kosovo’s sports culture. Kosovo’s very independence is still disputed by Serbia, but increasing recognition from international bodies. In the past year, Kosovo joined a dozen international sports federations, including the International Olympic Committee. “[This] is part of its strategy to gain broader recognition in the international community,” Naylor said. “For them to compete in the Olympics or the World Cup, it’s a big step.” He’s excited by the prospect of making running a part of the State Department’s diplomacy efforts in Prishtina.

38 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

BY KATIE BOLTON On a cool, overcast Friday evening, the Argonaut Running Club gathers outside the new patio bar of its namesake and sponsor. The club is a week past its six-month anniversary, and the weather has finally cooled, so the group is a little bigger than in summer. Several runners wear their Argonaut Running Club shirts, awarded after five runs with the group, and more ask about the trucker hats that are about to become available.

Organizer Ariel Laguilles welcomes runners one by one, by name, asking about training or injuries and marking their attendance. “That’s the teacher in me,” he said, paging through his packet to a waiver that he asks me to sign. Runners introduce themselves to me, too: Leah, who has only run with the group once before; Marissa, Laguilles’s wife; Stephen, a colleague of Laguilles’s. Have I run with the group before, they ask. Do I live in the neighborhood?

Most of them do. The club draws runners from the H Street Corridor, where a few chain sporting goods stores carry the basics, but specialty running stores and their corresponding running clubs are a few miles away. Even social clubs are limited: the H Street Runners, formed in 2012, meet a little more than once a month. More than a few top search results for “running” and “H Street NE” mention the one thing in the neighborhood that doesn’t run: the streetcar.

The club was born on a snow day last February when Laguilles overheard the owners and managers discussing activities

40 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

for the upcoming season. “I was just eavesdropping,” he admits. “I mean, I was alone.” But when co-owner Shaaron Pine asked his opinion, he floated the running club he’d been missing. The restaurant had become an institution in the neighborhood, rallying the community after a devastating fire five years ago. “It was a no-brainer having a brick-and-mortar spot to meet every week, a consistent time,” Laguilles says. “Every Friday at 6, everyone knows that we’re going to come and run, whether it’s two or three of us to 15, 16 of us, there’ll always be people to run with and then hang out, socialize with.”

With some social media and signage around the bar, the club was born.

Stephen Szolosi has lived nearby for five years and works with Laguilles at Gonzaga High School. He originally joined the club to support his friend but he stayed for the sense of community it built. The club, he says, is made up of “people who are part of that [H Street] community and want to get to know others and end up getting to know people who live a few blocks away and then enjoy the running on top of that and the happy hour to boot.” Leah Loloyan reiterates this, saying, “Especially since a lot of the people are from this neighborhood, I feel like I’ll see them randomly running.”

It’s Friday evening after a challenging week. Working at a Catholic high school means Laguilles, Szolosi, plus Catholic University students Matt Gatti and Emily Thompson, have been caught up in Pope

PHOTOS COURTESY OF ARIEL LAGUILLES

Francis’ visit. With the dozen others gathered, the group collectively eschews its four and six-mile routes for an easy two around the neighborhood.

Pine snaps a group photo before we take off down Maryland Avenue. We settle into loose pace groups. The route itself is very nice: flat, mostly on brick sidewalks, stopped by few stoplights, and greeted by neighbors as we pass. “Whoa, Argonaut has a running group?” marvels a man walking his bicycle down G Street.

Over and over again, the Argonaut runners talk about the welcoming atmosphere and sense of community the group has developed. Loloyan is here for the second time ever, impeded by a travel-heavy work schedule. “I did come back,” she exclaims.

“And I will continue to come back whenever I can because everyone’s so friendly and you meet new people.” Her boyfriend has joined her at the bar and he jokes, “She’s here because I don’t run.”

Sara Betancurt agreed, commending Laguilles and his wife: “They always remember you, they always say hi, they always ask about your day. They don’t forget you, even if you’re gone for three or four months.” She was part of a group from the club that ran the Capitol Hill Classic in May, where they debuted their team shirts, and she recently returned to the club after being injured.

First timers Gatti and Thompson caught the group a few blocks into the run, having started their day running with the nonprofit

Back on My Feet and coming straight from delivering meals to the homeless in McPherson Square. Gatti is a former student and current co-coach with Laguilles who had been meaning to come down from Brookland for a while. Finally having seen it for himself, he smiles as he says, “It’s a great experience, great people, great running, great happy hour, good beer.”

“After the craziness of this week, I feel like a nice easy two mile run and a drink after was just right,” Thompson said. “Definitely necessary to unwind.”

Upstairs at the Argonaut, Laguilles lights up to talk about the future of running in the neighborhood. “One of our goals also is to work on that and bring people out here to Northeast and bring the running community from other parts of D.C., Maryland, Virginia to H Street,” he said. “We just had a big festival [the annual H Street Festival]. It’s a hot spot and people know it but I think it’s time for the running community to lay a stake here in this area.”

He dreams of a 5k or even a mile race in the neighborhood, maybe taking advantage of the nearby National Arboretum or Anacostia Riverwalk trail. “There’s tons of untapped potential in terms of running in this area,” he said.

“It’d be great to share that with everyone and people from other parts of D.C., bring them over here.”

The Argonaut Running Club meets Friday evenings at 6 p.m. at 1433 H St. NE.

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 41

SAMIA AKBAR RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY MARLEEN VAN DEN NESTE

Samia Akbar

BY ELTON HAYES

ALEXANDRIA TECHNICAL REPRESENTATIVE, NEW BALANCE

If you have been to any of the area’s New Balance-sponsored events, chances are you’ve probably seen Samia Akbar. Akbar’s running resume is something to envy. After impressing American University coaches as a student at Oakton High School, she was offered a scholarship to compete on the track and cross-country teams.

After graduation in the early 2000s, she joined Reebok as a professional runner and represented the brand in various long-distance races, including 10ks and marathons. But as with many professional athletic careers, shelf life is unusually short.

“My team kind of dissolved,” Akbar, 33, said. “People moved away and some people stopped running.

I had kind of had enough with just hanging on and trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I took a break from running and I worked with a really close friend who was on my team and I got my real estate license.”

As the sun set on her running career, Akbar transitioned to life as a real estate professional, a field in which she worked in for several years. But along the way she decided to chart a new course and accepted an assistant manager position the Pacers Running Store in Clarendon. Although she was no longer fully entrenched in the sport as a professional athlete, she was finally around fellow runners again. A year and a half later, she took a technical representative position with New Balance.

“Every shoe company has a name for their tech rep position — I’m a ‘trackster.’ It was New Balance’s first running shoe,” she said. “Basically, I train all of the staff members in my run specialty accounts. That includes apparel and footwear. I partner up in my territory with a sales rep who would do all of the orders for each territory or each of the accounts.”

Akbar’s job, as you can imagine, takes her to the far reaches of the D.C. area. She often works on evenings and weekends and frequently travels to schools, expos, running stores and running-themed events on behalf of New Balance. She said she enjoys visits to local high schools, and the New Balance-sponsored Nationals indoor and outdoor track championships, where she can connect and speak with young runners, many of whom, she said, remind her of a young version of herself.

“It’s just so much fun to see kids with so much potential and with so many future possibilities in the sport with their families at the events and to see them all just really excited about it,” she said.

Akbar doesn’t log the running hours she once did as a professional, but she said she still incorporates running into her daily routine and couldn’t imagine a life without it.

“Joining the track team in high school was one of the best choices I’ve ever made. Running means everything to me,” she said. “To have done the professional running career and to now be at New Balance, where I feel like I am really part of a family and organization that really cares about the community and about me as a person, means a lot. It’s just really nice to be able to go in on a regular basis and talk to other people who love to run.”

For most, running fills in the gaps between waking and working, but for the lucky few the sport becomes their vocation, in all sorts of ways.

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 43

Ashley Zuraf MONTGOMERY VILLAGE, MD. DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, MONTGOMERY COUNTY ROAD RUNNERS CLUB

Not long after Ashley Zuraf graduated from West Virginia University, she decided to move to D.C. And like many newcomers, she looked for ways to immerse herself in the city, so she took to running.

Zuraf ran causally in middle school and high school, but after picking the sport back up after moving to the District, she decided to test her mettle with a marathon. Citing a love for travel, she and a few friends chose to participate in a Dublin, Ireland marathon. Recognizing the challenges ahead, she reached out to one D.C. area running club to prepare her for the task.

The Montgomery County Road Runners Club offered a solution to her challenge.

“We started looking for ways to train,” Zuraf, 37, said. “One of the programs we found was the Montgomery County Road Runners Club and their first-time marathon program. That’s how I joined the club. It was 2003 and I joined the club specifically to run in the program. I’ve been with the club ever since.”

Since finding MCRRC, she has run six marathons, with a JFK 50-Miler sandwiched in between, before injuries forced her premature exit from distance running. She also participated as a pace coach for the MCRRC First-Time Marathoners program.

“I started to get plagued by injuries which would happen one right after another,” she said. “I would try one year and would end up getting injured and be out for the season. I’d come back the following year and something else would happen. Eventually I just stopped.”

Despite her injuries, Zuraf remained involved in the MCRRC programs as a coach and she and her husband held positions as race directors for the club’s Memorial Day Four-Miler for several years. She also served on the club’s board of directors for two years. Professionally, she worked in real estate, but the birth of her son in late 2012 forced her to recalibrate her professional career.

“Transitioning back to the corporate world with a young baby at home was extremely difficult,” she said. “Between the eight-hour day and the sometimes one hour each way commute, I felt like I would have only two hours to see my son every day. I realized that this schedule was not working.”

Once again, MCRRC helped her find a solution to a challenge.

“Within two days of that last conversation that I had with my husband, I saw a posting on the club’s listserv that they were looking for an operations manager,” Zuraf, who has a degree in business administration, said. “Seriously, there couldn’t have been better timing. I jumped on it. I had been a club member, training program participant, pace coach, race director and a board member. I thought my background would fit well into the position.”

The feeling was mutual.

Zuraf became MCRRC’s director of operations in March 2013, a position she is extremely thankful to have.

“It’s an honor to work in a position like this,” Zuraf said. “To actually have a career in something that you are so passionate about, in an organization that you have come to love, is the best place that I can be.

I love this club and I always have. I could not think of a better place for me to spend my career.”

44 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

Weir with former assistant coach Ashley Campbell.

Terry Weir ARLINGTON HEAD CROSS COUNTRY COACH, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

In 2007, Terry Weir faced a difficult decision. He was working as a software engineer at America Online and enjoyed all that came with the position: a great salary, benefits and job security. He also doubled as a part-time, assistant track-and-field and cross-country coach at American University.

Weir first started coaching in 1997 as an assistant at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, then at Oakton High School. But a full-time, assistant cross-country coach position at the University of Maryland opened up, forcing Weir to mull his options and his future in the sport.

“I had to ask myself ‘Do I want to coach full-time or stay with this?’” Weir, 44, recalled. “I was making good money. I would have to take more than a 50 percent pay cut. But honestly it was an easy decision for me. Making good money was great, but I wasn’t happy.”

Weir, who was a member of two state champion Woodbridge High School track and cross country teams in the last 1980s, took the job and spent two years in College Park, helping guide the Terrapins to school records and sending Alex Lundy to the NCAA Cross Country Championships.

He returned to American in 2009, where he stayed until 2011, when he took the head cross country coaching job at George Washington University. He’s been there ever since.

“I got an interview and talked to athletic director Patrick Nero, who was new at the time, and he discussed the overall new vision for GW athletics,” Weir, who ran collegiately at the University of South Alabama, said. “Right off the bat we hit it off. He believed I’d be the right person to take over what was a cross country-only team at the time and develop the program.”

He appears to have been the right person for the job.

At a time when a number of the country’s athletic programs have jettisoned their track-and-field and cross-country programs, GW added indoor and outdoor track. Weir is currently in his fourth year in Foggy Bottom and is pleased with the direction the program is headed.

“I feel very honored to be entrusted to start this program up,” he said. “It’s just an awesome challenge and I’m really fired up and excited about growing the program.”

Weir said a number of factors led to his hiring at GW, but counts timing among the most prevalent, saying it played a role in landing at each coaching stop along the way. He also credits his fellow friends in the coaching profession for providing quality mentorship as he navigated the ranks.

“Timing is everything and I tell that to my kids who run,” he said. “That goes for relationships and everything else. It was just good timing for me. I wasn’t married and I didn’t have any kids yet. If I had those things, this could have been different.”

Those words couldn’t be truer as Weir and his wife Janet – who he coincidentally met at a running store – welcomed a baby girl to their family in August.

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 45

RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY DUSTIN WHITLOW/D.WHIT PHOTOGRAPHY

Lindsay Flanagan SILVER SPRING PROFESSIONAL RUNNER, MIZUNO

Like many professionals, Lindsay Flanagan begins the day at the gym. She leaves her Silver Spring home at dawn and heads in for an early morning workout. After a few stretches, she digs into her routine, which she usually begins by 7 a.m.

But unlike her peers, Flanagan doesn’t leave for home within the hour to shower, eat breakfast and head into the office. Flanagan runs professionally for Mizuno; her office is the road.

“We meet around 6 a.m. for workouts and they usually start around 7 a.m.,” Flanagan, 24, said. “That lasts until about 10 a.m. I then usually go home to eat, take an ice bath and a nap — which I know sounds funny. Around 3 or 4 p.m., we go out for a run and then we’ll go to the gym and do some light weights or a strength routine. I get home at around 6:30 or 7 p.m., make dinner, hangout with the roommates and do it all again the next day.”

Flanagan attended Lake Park High School in Roselle, Ill., where she earned a scholarship to run at the University of Washington. After a decorated collegiate career, she graduated in June 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and public health, and a minor in global health and nutrition.

It was while at Washington that she set her professional running career into motion.

“I knew that running was something that I wanted to pursue for as long as I could,” Flanagan said. “So I talked to people and the opportunity kind of arose to come out here and join a Mizuno-sponsored training group. I talked to my current coach — he called and told me all about it and it really seemed like the right fit.”

Two months after graduating, she moved to the East Coast to embark on her new career.

“It was a quick turnaround,” Flanagan, who won the bronze medal in the marathon this July at the Pan American Games, said with a laugh.

As a college student, Flanagan interned at Nike and Adidas and became acquainted with sports marketing. She said those jobs piqued her interest in the field, and it’s one she’d like to pursue when she leaves Mizuno.

“I can see myself staying in the fast-paced sports world and maybe finding a corporate job after it’s all done,” she said.

But Flanagan isn’t looking too far ahead. For now, she’s focused on competing in the upcoming U.S. Olympic trials, and the numerous road races, 10ks and half marathons she frequently runs on behalf of Mizuno, an opportunity she doesn’t take for granted.

“It’s always something that I’ve dreamed of doing, but I didn’t know if the opportunity would ever arise,” she said. “But now that it has, it really is a dream come true. Through high school, you think it would be so great to be able to do it. And in college, you get a little bit closer to it becoming a possibility. When it finally happened, it was pretty awesome.”

46 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

PHOTO BY CHERYL YOUNG

Jeff Caron ARLINGTON TERRITORY SALES MANAGER, ELLIPTIGO

As a youngster, Jeff Caron dreamed of playing basketball. He loved the game and spent countless hours honing his skills on the courts in his hometown of Auburn, Maine.

But the feeling wasn’t mutual: he wasn’t getting any better and he didn’t make the freshman team.

“I watched the Pistol Pete [Maravich] movie and was really inspired by that, and of course, I had all these dreams of being a great basketball player. But it seemed like the harder I worked the worse I got,” Caron, 32, said.

Not long after his sobering realization, a friend encouraged Caron to try out for his high school’s track team.

“I figured I had nothing to lose because they didn’t cut anyone,” the Arlington resident recalled.

“Right away, I found out that the harder I worked, the better I got at it. I wasn’t naturally good at it right from the beginning, but the ability to get better at something through hard work was attractive to me.”

He was on four state championship teams and was a nine-time All-State honoree. He ran at the University of Maine, where he earned a degree in civil engineering and the America East Conference outdoor 5,000 meter title in his final year.

“In high school, you have these dreams of becoming an Olympian as a runner,” he said. “And even though I improved as a runner quite a bit in college, it became more and more of a reality that the Olympics probably wasn’t really going to be a reality — not because I completely ruled it out, but you realize really just how difficult it is to make it.”

With this realization in mind, Caron headed to Boston for an engineering job with Camp Dresser and McKee, Inc.. He ran semi-pro for New Balance, but his professional life left him with a void.

“That success that I had in those two years after college — not necessarily the success on the track — but in finding other likeminded people at my level in the sport, I really wanted to be around that as much as possible and wasn’t getting that in the engineering world,” he said. “So I decided to quit engineering and focus on my own running to see how far I could go and how I could make it a career.”

Caron moved to the D.C. area in 2011 to work as a marketing representative for Saucony. Then, in 2014, he moved to ElliptiGO as a territory sales manager. ElliptiGO is an elliptical bicycle machine that blends elements of running and cycling into one fluid motion, for a low-impact, outdoor-exercise experience.

Although it took a while, he’s grateful to finally be able to do what he loves.

“I discovered that even more than I love running, I love the people that running attracts,” he said. “It was always a goal of mine to be around those people as much as possible. ElliptiGO is a place where I can help people stay healthy, and work hard toward achieving their goals at a low risk [of injury].

He’s visible at races all over the eastern seaboard, mainly because he’s on an ElliptiGO, giving him a great view and a quick way to get from point to point on the race course.

WINTER 2015/2016 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 47

Chris Farley, Joanna Russo and Tim Marriott/ William E. Docs recording an episode of Pace the Nation.

Photo BY STEPHEN LAICO

by CHARLIE BAN

When you meet your friends for a run, do you make an outline of things you want to discuss? Of course not, so why should the hosts of a running podcast do it?

That’s the approach Joanna E. Russo, Tim Marriott (better known as William E. Docs) and Chris Farley have taken with Pace the Nation, the weekly podcast they’ve been doing out of Docs’ Clarendon home since April.

“We don’t do any preproduction, at all,” Russo said. “We just sit down in front of the mics and whatever we say is the show. It’s very authentic.”

Guests, too, are often last-minute propositions, any lack of planning is rescued by the hosts’ combination of quick wit (Docs), overall direction by Farley, and relatability Russo brings to the group as the straight man. Farley (Yorktown) and Docs (West Springfield) grew up running in Northern Virginia and have done a podcast together before, so Russo’s rural New Jersey perspective serves as an entryway for other non-native D.C. area residents to access the show.

“Our first podcast was called the KiShy Fake Football podcast, but it wasn’t really about fantasy football, it was about our friends and their personalities,” Farley said.

“We’re doing kind of the same thing here — the meat of the show is the three of us talking about our lives and how running is such a big part of it. That drives the show.”

Along with high profile guests like world championship 1,500m runner Kerri Gallagher, Olympic 5k runner Julie Culley and their

48 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | WINTER 2015/2016

coach, Matt Centrowitz, some guests have gained a following as a result of their appearances on the show. None perhaps as much as Todd Sadowski, best known as Sandwich Todd, who went from anonymous mid-packer to scrappy underdog when he decided to train so he could challenge the elites at the .US National 12k. He regales listeners with his progress as he strives toward that goal.

Likewise, the show has gained a cult following. A mid-August happy hour brought out a crowd of between 20 and 200 fans to meet the hosts.

“There was no way to tell who was there for our happy hour and who wasn’t,” Docs said.

Audience participation is encouraged via Twitter, and one listener, Mike Katz, named the show, from its original “Pacers Running Podcast.”

Despite 20-plus weeks of winging it, they’ve developed some callbacks that reward loyal listeners — Edison lightbulbs, the Clarendon Pacers construction updates, Russo’s father’s forays into Twitter, machetes seen on the run, and Farley and Docs’ fake fraternity of University of Virginia runners.

And there’s plenty of time for serious discussion, touching on sponsorship issues in professional running; safety issues from cars, bikes and harassment while on the road and a tribute to Farley’s father, Chris.

“What I like is that we have a lot of different personalities on the show and they’re all connected through running,” Farley said. “They’re all telling their stories.”

SHAMROCK SUperstar KENNY R.

King Neptune Challenge Finisher

• ShamRocked first full marathon in 2014.

• Favorite part of Shamrock is post-race beers with friends • Friends call him the “Challenge Accepted” Man • Hopes to make the King Neptune Challenge an annual tradition

ACE R E E FR OR ALL S F TS! O T O H P AN P I C I PART

VISIT SHAMROCKMARATHON.COM FOR DETAILS MARCH 18-20, 2016 | VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA

Yuengling Marathon • Anthem 1/2 Marathon • TowneBank 8K • Operation Smile Final Mile