It started by accident, but before every race, Aaron Liiva makes sure he dabs a little bit of marinara sauce on his spikes.
He doesn’t use any particular type of sauce — although the Blake senior mentioned he’s partial to Costco’s Kirkland Signature brand. Usually, he just makes a point to save some of the sauce from his pre-race spaghetti.
We spoke with several new and long-running camps — all of them different in their own unique ways — that offer athletes a chance to break the monotony of solo training runs and learn from elite coaches and staff while having fun away from home. From the camp that loves a killer game of ultimate Frisbee as much as it loves a good fartlek, to the camp that touts its urban backdrop, there’s something for everyone this summer.
For Hiruni Wijayaratne, the last six years have been a whirlwind adventure. The track star — who won a 3,200m state championship as a junior at Herndon High School — is now eyeing the chance to represent her native Sri Lanka at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing this August.
Although her career at the marathon and half marathon distances has been brief — only spanning about six months — it’s been wildly successful. Last October, she was the first-place female finisher at the Evansville Half Marathon in Indiana. A month later, her debut marathon in Indianapolis — where she clocked 2:43:35 — was just seconds shy of making the marathon trials-qualifying cut for the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials. It was fast enough, however, to qualify to compete as part of the Sri Lankan national team.
She blends in with her classmates at Heritage High School, constantly joking around and texting with her friends and cross country teammates. But Weini Kelati doesn’t share the same stories with her classmates about growing up in Leesburg, having shown up a year and a half ago from a country only her most geographically-astute classmates knew about — Eritrea.
Now a junior academically, the 19-year-old has been making headlines all school year as she nabs win after win, including the 2015 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships in December and a national high school record 16:08.33 for the 5000 meters at the New Balance Nationals Indoor in New York, two seconds faster than the existing record set my Anna Rohrer last year in 16:10.79. But her journey to become a champion — which began half a world away on the east coast of Africa — was not easy.
She blends in with her classmates at Heritage High School, constantly joking around and texting with her friends and cross country teammates. But Weini Kelati doesn’t share the same stories with her classmates about growing up in Leesburg, having shown up a year and a half ago from a country only her most geographically-astute classmates knew about — Eritrea.
Now a junior academically, the 19-year-old has been making headlines all school year as she nabs win after win, including the 2015 Foot Locker Cross Country Championships in December. But her journey to become a champion — which began half a world away on the east coast of Africa — was not easy.
Sunday’s 40th Marine Corps Marathon started out on the wrong foot when rain and unusually long, slow security lines frustrated thousands of runners, but fortunately, it’s not how you start a marathon, it’s how you finish.
The 23,217 finishers made it the third-largest in the race’s history, with 4,438 coming from the immediate D.C. area.
Name: Ashley Davidson
Self-described age group: 33 – an “older” millennial
For many, hiking the Appalachian Trail is a rite of passage. Spanning 2,180 miles from Georgia’s Springer Mountain to Katahdin, Maine, the “A.T.” challenges even the most seasoned athletes with its untamable terrain and unpredictable elements.
Just 64 miles northwest of Washington lies Harpers Ferry, W.V., a small, historic town nestled in the Shenandoah Valley where West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia converge. It’s one of the few towns through which the Appalachian Trail runs directly. Just a few weeks ago, Dustin Meeker, of Baltimore, and Gaithersburg resident Conrad Laskowski descended upon Harpers Ferry for the second time that day, this time to celebrate completing the Appalachian Trail Four-State Challenge — a 42.9-mile trek traveling across the borders of Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia.
[button-red url=”http://s3.amazonaws.com/media.racebx.com/transfer/gen/5/5/9/5597e27f-9054-456c-9455-52afc0a86526/2015-Firecracker-Overall.htm” target=”_self” position=”left”] Results [/button-red]The crowd erupted as Abu Kebede Diriba and Gregory Mariano rounded the corner onto Market Street in the final 200 meters of the Firecracker 5k, Saturday at Reston Town Center. The men had pounded the wet pavement neck and neck for most of the race, and now cut through the rain in a fight to the finish. But after a quick glance over his right shoulder, Diriba, an Ethiopian marathoner living in New York, gave one final kick to cross the finish line in 15:30 — just one second ahead of Alexandria’s Mariano.
Ben Dickshinski, a senior at North Central College in Naperville, Ill., and an All-American in the 5000m this spring, placed third in the men’s race in 15:53.
Ryan Witters was a little rusty, but muscle memory took over and powered him to his fourth consecutive Father’s Day 8k title on the C&O Canal Towpath in Georgetown.
He captured the title in 26:20 — smoking his nearest competitor, Matthew Deters of Arlington, by a full 50 seconds. Although slower than last year’s first-place finish of 25:38, Witters was happy with his performance.