Landon Invitational photos

Francesca Cetta and Meredith Gotzman battle in the second mile of the Landon Invitational. Photo: Charlie Ban

St. John’s swept the team and individual titles, with senior Chris Tetter making a big jump in the last few months and freshman Meredith Gotzman won her first 5k. See more photos here.

0 Comments

Name: Kaitlynn Glover

Self-described age group: F 25-29

Residence: NE D.C.

Occupation: Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Advisor

Volunteer roles in the running world: I’ve volunteered at an assortment of local charity road races over the years.

Why you run: I thrive in high-stress environments and when I have a consistent routine, but I’m an introvert. That combination can sometimes be difficult to maintain for any length of time. Running gives me a time-efficient way to take care of my body and mind, process issues without distraction, and grab a few quiet, conversation-less minutes. Running has also changed the way I look at my body. I’ll likely never be fast enough to be competitive in my age group, but running has made me appreciate my body for what it can do, and has made my fitness goals much less about appearance and much more about surviving a couple hours traipsing through the mountains.

Read More

0 Comments

Lafayette Invitational photos

Vincent Kamani and Robin Handley lead the School Without Walls team in the second mile of the Lafayette Invitational. Photo: Charlie Ban

Woodrow Wilson’s boy edged the School Without Walls and the Tiger girls finished comfortably ahead of Bell. Roosevelt junior Fajr Kelly won the girls’ race by more than two minutes. See more photos here.

0 Comments
Conroy Zien celebrates while crossing the finish line at the 2019 Erie Marathon. Photo: RunPhotos

Conroy Zien dropped everything he was carrying when he spotted his wife, Glenda Garcia, outside the finisher’s chute at the Erie Marathon earlier this month and began to cry. Garcia figured the worst. Not again, she thought. 

“I got really sad,” she said. “Like, how do we recover from this? I’m already thinking about how I can help him get over this.”

Since January, Zien had trained in ways he hadn’t done before. He ran hilly long runs in below-freezing temperature with the Broderick to Boston (B2B) group in Bethesda over the winter. He added miles to his mid-week runs, embraced speed workouts and changed his diet.

“I’ll be honest, I was pretty unpleasant for pretty much the whole year,” Zien said.

He did it all with the singular goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon with enough of a buffer that he wouldn’t be on the outside looking in. Garcia didn’t know how to handle another setback.

“It’s okay,” she told him. “You did great.”

A couple minutes passed before Garcia asked for Zien’s time. She started to cry too.

Read More

0 Comments
Walter Johnson senior Jenna Goldberg. Photo: Ed Lull

It wasn’t a race she ran that showed Walter Johnson coaches Tom Martin and Ashley St. Denis that Jenna Goldberg was serious about cross country.

It was a race she wasn’t going to be running. A JV runner her freshman year, Goldberg was not on the Walter Johnson roster for the state meet. But when the team made arrangements to go up to Hereford High School to practice on the course a week before the championships, Goldberg asked if she could come along.

“They went and did a hill workout at Hereford and hung with the varsity girls,” St. Denis said. “I remember taking a video and saying ‘we got ’em!’ They liked the team, they wanted to be a part of it.”

Read More

0 Comments
Loudoun Valley senior Kevin Carlson. Photo: Ed Lull

In the past few years, Loudoun Valley has built tremendous depth with a large team that typically wins most, if not all, team titles at different invitationals – varsity and junior varsity. Kevin Carlson has seen that from the Vikings’ varsity team since 2016.

But with that depth come some tough calls when the numbers crunch for championship races, and that’s where the Vikings found themselves last November. With another Nike Cross Southeast title in hand, the harder task was figuring out who would represent the team as it went to defend its 2017 title. Carlson finished 113th overall that year — 7th for Loudoun Valley, but in the scoring five for all but three other teams.

Carlson and Mateo Barreto finished in a dead heat for number seven on the team in 2018. Barreto, like Chase Dawson a year before, ran unattached. In essence, the free agent must just beat the last Viking to make the team. It’s cutthroat, but when a team trains for November but is limited to seven runners through the Virginia postseason, it’s the most effective way to field the strongest team, if only by fractions of a second. That 2018 team went on to be the first repeat NXN champion on the boys’ side.

“We had to ask to see the video replay, that’s how close it was,” Coach Marc Hunter said. “From where I was standing, I could see Kevin cross first. The video showed Mateo first.”

Read More

0 Comments

Running Shorts

A woman and her dog trespass on the south end of the Klingle Valley Trail. Photo: Charlie Ban
  • The Klingle Valley Trail will be closed, possibly until December, to allow for installation of a new storm drain, concrete manholes and a concrete headwall.
  • Following outcry from its decision to add two lanes of traffic near a Capital Crescent Trail crossing, the Montgomery County Planning Board voted to delay funding, for five years, that would shift the trail to a controlled intersection for users to cross Little Falls Parkway. The current configuration, which restricts traffic to one lane in each direction at the trail crossing, will remain.
  • The W&OD Trail is closed under Wilson Boulevard for a few weeks to allow for the removal and replacement of the underpass.
  • Montgomery County is launching a pedestrian master plan.
0 Comments
×

Subscribe to our mailing list