Twelve US Senators and twenty-five Representatives will lead teams in the annual ACLI Capital Challenge, a three mile road race. The race takes place Wednesday, May 2 at 8:00 a.m. in Washington, DC's Anacostia Park. The course is an out and back, riverfront course in Anacostia Park (just over the Sousa Bridge- Pennsylvania Avenue). For a brief period, competitors will run away from Presidential candidate bad hair days, immigration bills, Alberto Gonzales, and other distractions and address the serious task of determining who is the fittest: the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of government, or the media who cover them.

Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) will compete for the 26th straight year, having never missed a race. Joining him will be several congressional committee chairmen, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson and several other agency heads, more than two dozen on-air reporters, eleven federal Judges, print journalists. DC Mayor Adrian Fenty is a guest entrant.

While several past participants were deemed ineligible by the voters, defending champions Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), fastest man in Congress; Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), long-time female Senate champ; and Senator John Sununu (R-NH), last year's fastest Senator, are entered. Senator John Ensign (R-NV) will be attempting to win back his Senate Championship from incumbent Senator Sununu; the two have traded the title for the last few years.

In addition, former Congressional champ, Jane Harman (D-CA) returns in hopes to regaining her title as fastest woman in Congress from Representative Shelley Moore-Capito (R-WV). IRS Commissioner Mark Everson again filed his entry late, but leads his team, "Take the Money and Run," and will sport the number 1040. On hand to help celebrate the 26th running of the race and get the runners on their way as official "whistle blower" will be 2007 celebrity runner Kathrine Switzer. Switzer, who was the first woman to officially enter the Boston Marathon, won the 1974 New York Marathon, is an Emmy award-winning television commentator, and was a leader in making the women's marathon an official event in the Olympic Games (1984). She iss the author of a new memoir, "Marathon Woman: Running The Race To Revolutionize Women's Sports."

Team captains in this event are not honorary positions. Each must finish the three-mile course for their team to score. The event shows even the busiest people can take time out to stay physically fit. All entry fees go to DC Special Olympics, as does an additional donation from the title sponsor ACLI (American Council of Life Insurers) and other sponsors ING, MetLife, Northwestern Mutual, the Principal Financial Group, Swiss Re, Qwest Communications and Roll Call. Competition for the prestigious Best and James B. Kenin Worst Team Name honors remains intense.

TEAMS 	                       CAPTAINS 
Corn-yn the USA 	       Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) 
Just for the Halibut 	       Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) 
Red, White and Blumenauer      Representative Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) 
Bad News Barretts   	       Representative J. Gresham Barrett (R-SC) 
The RoadDENTs 	               Representative Charles Dent (R-PA) 
The LiSPRINTskis   	       Representative Dan Lipinski (D-IL) 
Weapons of Mass Reduction      John Higgins (NLRB) 
Gut and Run 	               David Sands (Washington Times) 
Loose Lips Can't Sink Scripps  David Nielsen (Scripps-Howard) 
Race the Nation 	       Bill Plante (CBS News) 
Walk of the Nation    	       Neal Conan (NPR) 
35 U.S.C......ya    	       Judge Randall Rader (US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit)