I’ll add results to various D.C.-area turkey trots as I come across them. We also have some photos from Alexandria.
Rob McAnnally has checked some running feats off his to-do list over the last few years: he’s run a few half marathons and 10-mile races. But this 49-year-old Arlington resident is starting to get hungry for more. He’s looking to be more a more efficient and effective runner and shave off some time during his races. He also wants to run his first marathon when he turns 50 next year.
To help in his quest, McAnnally turned to Formula Running Center, a new facility geared toward helping runners excel, recover and learn with guidance from a staff of runners, physical therapists, nutritionists and coaches.
“I think [Formula Running Center] can help me learn from professionals and coaches that really know running and can help me achieve even more than I could on my own,” said McAnnally, who has already attended a running class and signed up for a membership at the facility.
Formula Running Center, or FRC, opened in Clarendon earlier this month, billing itself as “a complete training experience for runners and endurance athletes.”
Maybe if he had gotten out of his own head earlier, all those races on the track would have been more fun for D.C.’s Nick Golebiowski.
Or maybe the oval, or the grass for that matter, was never the place for him. Either way, at 24, he knows what it can take others years to figure out — he’s a marathoner. If the love of the training hadn’t been clear enough, he got objective feedback when he ran his first marathon in 2:18:39 two weeks ago at Indianapolis’ Monumental Marathon, qualifying him for the Olympic Marathon Trials.
Learning from the injuries and inconsistency that plagued his early years at Georgetown culminated in the mental breakthrough that he punctuated with a Big East championship in the 10,000 meters his senior year. He continued his career in grad school at the University of North Carolina, but immediately moved to the roads after he didn’t make the first round of the NCAA Championships.
“Not making regionals opened up the possibilities of the roads,” Golebiowski said. “If I had advanced, maybe I would have tried to run faster on the track.”
Outside of mammoth races like the Army Ten-Miler, Marine Corps Marathon and the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile, Thanksgiving is the busiest day of road racing in the D.C. area. Last years, 13 turkey trots totaled 21,214 finishers just in their timed divisions, to say nothing about fun runs, walks and tot trots, many of which these events sport.
This year at least 16 races will kick off around the D.C. area, with another one following a few days later.
Run hard, run for fun, wear a turkey costume, wear a pie costume if you can find one…whatever does it for you, the options are out there in D.C., Virginia and Maryland.
Note that the Virginia Run Turkey Trot and the Turkey Trot for Parkinsons in Lorton have both taken hiatuses. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re done for good – the Cheverly Trot is making a comeback this year.
Heritage High School alumna Weini Kelati, racing for New Mexico, won the NCAA Division I cross country championship Nov. 23 in Terre Haute, Ind. She ran 19:47 over 6k for a nearly 10-second margin of victory over Wisconsin’s Alicia Monson.
The Annapolis Ten Mile Run was three weeks away when the Annapolis Striders got a phone call that almost ended the annual race for good.
It was illegal in the state of Maryland to shut down the roads for a foot race, police said.
That was news to former state Sen. John Astle (D), a longtime member of the Striders who helped found the A10 in 1976 with six other runners. Over the next few decades, the race grew into one of Annapolis’ biggest running events.
“We were told if it wasn’t specifically permitted, then it was prohibited. The law was silent,” Astle said. “We were three weeks out — people had made travel arrangements to be there. They told us we could have the race this year — but then no more.”
Julie Culley and Joanna Russo take off their co-host hats and put on some guest berets to discuss issues raised Mary Cain first in the New York Times, then Sports Illustrated, then other outlets.
Olivier Leblond of Arlington was having a great day at the 24-Hour World Championships in Albi, France.
He still felt good through the first 100 miles. But once it got to be 2:30 a.m., and he’d been running for more than 16 hours, he said, it was tough to think about having more than seven hours of running left. Still, he kept going.
“You get tired until you see the sun,” said Leblond, 47.
