Carl Klein woke up one night to a police officer knocking on the window of his Ford Explorer. He was parked in a lot right off the highway, and the officer told him he couldn’t sleep there. Carl started his car, drove to another location and fell asleep again.

He was 17 years old.


A lot of federal and media employees found out what their coworkers looked like in shorts at the ACLI Capital Challenge.

[button-red url=”http://www.capitalchallenge.com/2001_cabinet/history2001.html” target=”_self” position=”left”] Results [/button-red]The annual three-mile run, a staple of many offices in Washington, featured strong individual performances from the Executive Branch, with Coast Guard’s Patrick Fernandez edging House aide Paul Balmer, and Erin Taylor of the General Services Administration outlasting Rachel Beckmann, another Coast Guard team member. The out-and-back course in Anacostia Park featured a slight headwind after the turnaround. Both Fernandez and Taylor train with the Capital Area Runners. Balmer lead Rep. Earl Blumenauer‘s (D-Ore.) Red White and Blumenauer team to the House championship for the fifth consecutive year.


There’s no doubt that completing a marathon is an achievement. But completing a marathon 120 days in a row to run across the country from Portland, Oregon to Washington, D.C. is just flat-out nuts.

Ashley Donovan, who plans to knock out a marathon a day with her friend Adam Meyer, would be the first to agree. That was her reaction when Meyer, who has wanted to run across the country for more than a decade, asked her to join him.


Perhaps she was getting her legs back under her, 10 months after having a baby. It might have been the adrenaline that came from not being able to find her bib and almost missing the start. Maybe runners just don’t forget how to race.

Whatever it was, it worked for Lindsay Wilkins, who won the Capitol Hill Classic 10k May 18 in 37:38. Earlier in the year, she had finished third at the Four Courts Four Miler. The race is an annual fundraiser for the Capitol Hill Cluster School and starts and finishes at Stanton Park, after a run out to RKF Stadium on East Capitol Street. The event yielded almost $80,000.


A month before pitchers and catchers reported, the true stars of Washington Nationals games showed up at the stadium.

Most of them, 38 total, arrived before 8 a.m. on a 20-degree Saturday in January. People in the group ranged from early 20s to mid 60s, and we all stood in the cold, ready to see if they had what it took.


The fourth try was the charm for Christine Ramsey, who broke the tape at the Pike’s Peek 10k Sunday morning in 34:43.

The Baltimore runner debuted here in 2008, finishing 5th in 36:19.  Four years later, she returned, running more than 90 seconds faster but finishing two spots lower. Last year, another solid showing got her 11th.


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