All photos by Karsten Brown

Some people love to race, every week if they get the chance. In 1997, I decided that it would be a grand goal to try to run fifty races, once a week, in a year. No such running club would be complete without Ted Poulos. I approached him with the idea and he was enthusiastic about it. He was well past fifty races, having run 215 races in a year already. Still, he was delighted that others would be sharing his passion for racing. That first year six runners started off on the quest for fifty races. Ted generously hosted an awards party the first three years. As the club grew, we were often asked if the club was for runners over fifty years of age. Indeed, our current average age is 52.27.

Runners read about Ted's world record 222 races in 1997 and asked how they could join. The club is free. There is no requirement for speed though we have world record holders such as Walt Washburn (30K and 20 Mile 80-84 age group) among us. Not every one of our members makes the goal of fifty races in a year. Perhaps only half of our runners do. We are a club of runners celebrating running. I have yet to have been to a race in the last six years (511 races) where I did not see one of our members. This is not so surprising when one realizes that we set a club record of 3,336 races run, with 16,488 miles raced. That will get you nearly around the world at the equator. We have had 67 different members with about 55 active and maybe 40 really serious about breaking fifty.

Every year our club has averaged more than fifty races per member. In 1998, we had 13 runners, including one who had raced all the way across the United States, more than 3,000 miles. In 1999, the ranks swelled to 37. Our ranks included many former running club presidents, including Janet Newburgh. Janet lead the charge in marathoning by running double digit marathons every year on the way to completing a marathon in all 50 states.

We started getting serious about statistics. Races were broken down into nine categories: 1500M/1M, 3K/2M, 3M/5K, 8K/5M, 6M/10K, 15K/10M, 20K/HM, MARATHON and longer, and OTHER. With so many races being run, it was inevitable that someone would run fifty races in a single category. Since our inception Peter Blank (the man with no last name) was the first to do so with 60 5Ks in 1999. With that, the BLANK award was created. Since then we have had 37 BLANKs, 5 times a double BLANK (100 races in a category), 4 times a BLANK double (two separate categories), and 4 BLANK triples (three separate categories). In 2003, both Peter and Ted ran more than 50 races in three categories (1M, 3K, 5K) with Ted having 102 5Ks.

The club includes runners from all over the United States. We have run 18,000 races in these last six years, covering more than 80,000 miles. Club leader Ted Poulos ran 337 record setting races last year, winning 158 of them. Sometime in March he will have run his 3,000th career race.

We enjoy racing so much we created our own Walnut Hill Ribbon 5K, run February 7, 2004. We are hoping to run it twice a year to help fund our awards party and, of course, our desire to race. This year we moved our awards party north from Virginia to the Stained Glass Pub in Glenmont, Maryland. With half-priced pizza and cold beer, we celebrated our seventh year. All runners finishing 50 races received certificates honoring their achievements. Trophies and BLANK awards were handed out as well as special achievements such as Ted and Walt's world records.

All are welcome to join the club. Send us your results, which we update every day all year long, with your name, birth date, hometown, and all the running stats you would like us to know. To join, contact me:

James Moreland
16713 Shea Lane
Gaithersburg, MD 20877
301-947-8783
runjames3@aol.com