When road races resume someday, they will go off without one of the keystones of the local racing scene in Maryland and Washington, D.C. 

George Tarrico, of Rockville, known as “the race director’s race director,” died June 5 after battling spinal cancer. He was 84. 


Running again took a lot of faith for Vicki McGorty. 

Despite a running career that went back 44 years and took her to the high school cross country championship and a collegiate career at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as she launched herself in the air April 4, she wasn’t sure what would happen when she came back down.


In the middle of mile six, the Parks Half Marathon went from sweaty brow to high brow.  It became the “Rachmaninoff ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon.”

Heading into Ken-Gar Park, runners were greeted by George Gershwin as Shaun Tirrell tickled the ivories. In a tuxedo, paired with some Asics, seated at a concert grand piano.


What started as an innocent IKEA chair purchase in 2014 has turned into quite the display of race medals for Mike Katz of D.C.

His springy bentwood Poäng, which he pronounces POE-ayng, is adorned with 32 pieces of hardware from marathons, half marathons, relays, ten milers, and more. He layers them on with the completion of each race, hoping (with mixed success) they stay in chronological order.


The Jutras family has been running the Army Ten-Miler since 2003. In that time, the team composition has changed, and so has the reason they run.

Pierre and Julia ran with their eldest son, Dillon, and their daughter Heather. They took a year off and came back in 2005, only without Private First Class Dillon Jutras, who had enlisted in the Army and was serving in Iraq.