DCXC

Fort Dupont Park offered a cross country course that is challenging, full of character and surprise for any spectators trying to follow the race through the winding trails.

DCSAA Championships

Rohann Asfaw and Abbey Green both sewed up their individual Montgomery County championships with plenty of room to spare last year, and there was no indication anyone else racing would have made up much ground, but for a few miles on Saturday, Adam Nakasaka made things interesting.

Oct. 22, 2015- Bohrer Park, Gaithersburg

There was big news spreading at the DCXC Invitational, after the elementary school races. Two girls were eager to share it.

“I got second place!”

Whether you’re first or fifteenth on the cross country team, you run. Hard.

“Every single day I see everyone run until their lungs are on fire,” said Fernanda Yepez–Lopez, a senior at Walter Johnson, in Bethesda.

Rohann Asfaw put to rest one of the great debates from the Summer Olympics: Diving doesn’t make a difference.

Oct. 8, 2016 – Bull Run Regional Park, Va.

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.

A rapidly cooling evening primed Kenilworth Park for fast races at the DCXC Invitational, conditions that D.C.-area cross country runners have ached for all season. Heather Holt‘s 16:56 and senior Saurav Velleleth‘s 15:01 times on the 3.07-mile course were just the fastest of likely hundreds of personal records, even adjusting for the slightly short course.

The rolling, sometimes steep, hills of Leesburg’s Oatlands Invitational are a wake up call for a lot of runners.

“This is the race that snaps you back into cross country,” said Abbey Green, a Walter Johnson junior who finished second. “This is where you get some great competition on a hard course and really test yourself.”

Nearing two miles at the Monroe Parker Invitational, runners emerged from the shade that protected them for most of the course at Burke Lake.

If they didn’t already feel the stifling humidity, they certainly felt the sun beating down on them, and the times for the 2.98 mile race reflected that. Those conditions combined to first move the varsity races earlier and on race day prompt the cancellation of four junior varsity races. The freshmen races went off before the varsity races.