Washington City Paper Sports Editor Kelyn Soong dicusses how the coronavirus has affected nearly every sport.
The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Impacted Nearly Everyone in Sports
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When Kerry O’Brien woke up on Friday, March 13, she hadn’t expected to have an entire day free, because she’d been planning to go in to school to teach her 6th grade special education class. When she got the memo that her school would be closed for at least the next several weeks due to COVID-19, she seized the opportunity to tackle her bucket list of local trails. O’Brien set a goal to run a new trail every weekday she is out of school, which Governor Northam just announced will now be until the end of the school year in June.
O’Brien has an inspirational notebook where she keeps lists of places she wants to travel, books she wants to read, and of course, trails she’d like to run. When she first moved to the DC area from upstate New York in 2012, she craved community, so she joined a Meet-Up group that met every Saturday morning at Teddy Roosevelt Island for long runs.
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No running group is good right now. Run alone for a while.
Most of the paved paths around here are barely six feet wide anyway.
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Name: Thong Tran
Self-described age group: 41
Five days after having pacemaker surgery, DC Road Runners Club President Ben Richter was running the streets of Columbia at the Maryland-District of Columbia RRCA 10 Mile Club Challenge.
The Capitol Hill resident had been given some restrictions, but running wasn’t among them.
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The first time Tony Valenti got into a wheelchair meant to be pushed in races, he loved it so much that it took four people to get him out of the chair.
In October 2015, Valenti became the first rider in the National Capital Region ambassadorship of Ainsley’s Angels, a nonprofit group of volunteers that push those who can’t run in races. Valenti has cerebral palsy, a motor disability that prevents him from bearing weight on his legs, so can’t run races on his own. But with the help of a volunteer, Valenti gets to be part of two or three races a month, feeling the wind on his face as he tackles distances ranging from 5ks up to marathons.