Miranda DiBiasio fell in love with running while she was in high school, relieved to find an activity that was so personally rewarding. Running allowed her to breathe, calm her nerves and find peace.
She didn’t feel as seasoned as other runners her age, and she was drawn to George Washington University, which was also growing — the Colonials were debuting track teams when she would start school. She could grow as a runner alongside a new team.
When life is dictated by 6-minute increments and responding to multiple competing demands every single day without breaking a sweat, you have a high-stress job. People who practice law are driven, competitive and have a massively high tolerance for pain and repetition. They aren’t strangers to hard work. And, when they do take time for themselves, running seems like an easy transition: just a different set of rigors. They can compete when they run – against others or their own goals. They can push their limits each and every time they throw on their shoes. But strangely, they can simultaneously use the sport to clear their heads and lose themselves in the sheer joy of pounding pavement.
Mark Cucuzzella’s highest hopes for running don’t involve him breaking the tape at a marathon. Or posting amazing sales figures at his West Virginia running store, Two Rivers Treads.
He wants every military service member to be able to run injury-free.
She might have had a little more sweat in her eyes this time, but Megan DiGregorio still found her way to Bethesda to win the Parks Half Marathon for the second time in three years.
The humidity made a difference this year, but didn’t keep her from putting a nearly-one-minute lead over Michelle Miller, of Damascus, 1:24:45 to 1:25:40.
The stories of women’s closets bursting at the seams with pair after pair of shoes of every style and color are legendary. Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw made the lust for Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choos standard household fare. Sexy, stylish and always a fashion statement, shoes are not just a wardrobe staple. They are an expression of who the wearer is and where the wearer is going.
To Claire Wood, a native Virginian, shoes are as important in her life as they ever were to Carrie. It’s just a different kind of shoe – and a different life. From high school on, running shoes, not heels or espadrilles or sandals, have been a defining factor in Woods’ existence. Earlier in life, she wore them and then sold them, and now, she makes them. Wood is the senior footwear product manager in Performance Running at New Balance in Boston and is as happy as Imelda Marcos checking out the 3000 pairs of shoes in her closet.
A runner’s time goals, for the most part, are arbitrary — the blend of ambition and realism. Not so for members of the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, whose two-mile times count a little more than to the recreational or even competitive runner.
Early morning ROTC fitness tests are woven into the fabric of college life; for most students a myth, spread by someone who might well have been hallucinating at the tail end of an all-nighter. D.C’s Hoya Battalion comprises cadets from American University, Georgetown University, Catholic University, George Washington University and the Institute for World Politics, making it one of the largest ROTC programs in the United States.
With no idea where to turn after hearing a life-changing diagnosis, local runner Heather Jeff decided to take control and make multiple sclerosis work on her terms. And after 15 years managing the condition alongside thousands of miles, the Falls Church resident shared her experience in a documentary — filmed with the help of Arlington high school students — “Living, With MS.”
Jeff is a bright-eyed, bubbly, spirited woman whose openness about MS has made the project possible. For her, running has been an incredible help to her in carrying what might otherwise be a heavy load of symptoms and challenges. Through her upbeat perspective, this possibly-dark story of disease has been turned to a hopeful, honest and even therapeutic story.