Ben Beach was actually happy for the reprieve.
The Bethesda man, who holds the record for most consecutive Boston Marathon finishes with 52, had every intention of running his 53rd, but with the race’s delay, he’s happy to sleep in on Patriots’ Day for the first time since he was in high school.
“I was relieved when they postponed it,” he said. “I’ve been fighting a bad knee, my mileage was more pathetic than usual. Having a few more months to get ready is a break for me.”
Alexis Fairbanks, of D.C. also would have pushed through some discomfort to race, but has taken the break to recuperate.
“So no fun Boston challenges for me, but the Olympic Channel (paying the past six marathon broadcasts) has been all day to relive the glory,” she said.
Beach and Fairbanks were two of 606 local runners registered for the race, many of whom are still signed up for the Sept. 14 makeup date, one that is obviously still in question. Many observed the day in one form or another.
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.
“I was so excited but a little nervous,” she said. “When I go up in the air, is my leg going to catch me?”
It did.
She was nine months removed from a double knee replacement which repaired about seven years of damage that she pushed herself through.
When the Rock ‘n’ Roll D.C. Marathon, stripped of its permit in the face of D.C.’s state of emergency order, announced its postponement, it hit a lot of runners right as they were starting their tapers.
But not all were planning to wait for the Nov. 7 makeup date. They had a marathon on their calendars for March 28, and they were going to run a marathon on March 28.
The response to COVID-19 has been wide reaching, affecting the lives of millions of Americans and shuttering businesses nationwide. The pandemic is affecting businesses in all sectors, and the running community is not exempt. D.C.-area specialty running stores are closing their sales floors, canceling events and working to find ways to virtually connect with patrons in an industry that thrives on face-to-face interactions.
Most specialty running stores rely on business in the spring to help set them up for a successful year. It’s when many runners hit the streets again and think of their apparel and footwear needs, said Potomac River Running Owner Ray Pugsley.
Most years his stores see an uptick in sales in March, and sales stay strong through the Marine Corps Marathon in October. However, the novel coronavirus has been a gut punch to his business and has him concerned about what the future could hold. Potomac River Running’s Virginia stores have reduced hours; the D.C. store closed last week after Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered the closure of all non-essential businesses.
“If businesses like us are shut down for two months, we can’t recover … It’s so grave I can’t even wrap my brain around it. I can’t even wrap my arms around how bad this can get so fast,” Pugsley said. “… As long as you’re selling stuff every day, it’s not a problem. But when you pull the sales out, everything stops. We can’t do anything; we’re paralized.”
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.
Diego Zarate was in Albuquerque for a job interview.
He was hoping that, as one of 16 men who qualified for the mile at the NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships, he could make something good happen and bolster his chances at signing a professional contract this spring after graduating from Virginia Tech, a few years after winning the Maryland 4A title in the 1,600 meters while a junior at Northwest. But he never got his chance to show what he could do in the mile and 1,500 meters after both the indoor and outdoor championships were cancelled in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Preliminary rounds were due to start a day later.
“It was a shock,” Zarate said. “Everyone was there to be the best they could be. I’m wondering ‘could I have won? Could I have been an All-American?’
“I want to run professionally, but it’s going to be difficult figuring everything out,” Zarate said. “The way the seasons ended for a lot of sports, it’s going to be messy.”
All over the world, the starting guns are standing down, high fives from the sidelines are falling silent and at the very least, water cups at aid stations are giving way to bottles. And now it’s happening here.
The spread of COVID-19 is forcing race directors to evaluate the risks associated with holding recreational events could serve to transmit the coronavirus, particualarly as local governments issue advisories aimed at limiting exposure.
On March 11, Pacers Running canceled its Fairfax Four Miler (March 14) and St. Pat’s 5k/10k (March 15) and the Anne Arunel County Department of Health cancelled the B&A Marathon (March 15). The Rock ‘n’ Roll D.C. Marathon, Half Marathon and 5k (March 28) and Scope it Out 5k (March 29) lost their D.C. permits after the mayor’s office declared a public recommended against gatherings of 1,000 or more people. The Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile announced March 12 it planned to stick to the April 5 race date but is allowing more deferrals through March 19. The Lucky Leprechaun 5k has postpoed until June 14.
Earlier that day, the D.C. Health Department recommended that “nonessential mass gatherings” of 1,000 or more people “congregate in a specific location” be cancelled or postponed, through March 31.
Cherry Blossom falls on April 5, outside of the D.C. recommendation range, and draws an international crowd. Race Director Phil Stewart said he was taking guidance from public health and municipal officials, “all of whom at this point are advising that events should go forward with participants taking extra precautions including things like frequent hand washing and simply not showing up if they don’t feel well,” he said. “We have ordered extra hand washing stations for the staging area. Initially, for sustainability considerations, we were going to serve our post-race water in cups for the first time in many years, but due to COVID-19 concerns we will be reverting to serving it in 16.9 ounce bottles once again.”
Three runners with D.C. area ties finished in the top 20 of the Olympic Marathon Trials on a brutally hilly and windy course in Atlanta.
Georgetown alumna Kate Landau was 14th in 2:34:07, passing Oakton and American alumna Keira D’Amato in the last few miles. D’Amato, formerly Carlstrom, was 15th in 2:34:24. Aliphine Tuliamuk won the race in 2:27:23.
Bethany Sachtleben, who hit RunWashington’s #TrialsFever triple crown by growing up in Manassas, running at George Mason University and living in Fairfax, overcame a mid-race interruption to finish 18th in 2:36:34.
When she hit mile 11, digestive ills forced her to find a bathroom, and fast.
“It definitely wasn’t something I could keep running with,” she said. “I was in the bathroom for maybe 30 seconds at most, but the pack was gone by then. What else are you going to do in that situation…”
With more than 700 runners heading to Atlanta this weekend to take a shot at the U.S. Olympic Marathon team, it’s hard to deny that Trials Fever is in the air.
Runners who spend all day standing up teaching, others who fit in their training around work and grad school, some who are also raising children, they’re all going to be on the starting line with the professionals. With apologies to another sporting venue in Georgia, this is the tradition truly unlike any other.
Through the sheets of rain, Bonnie Keating embraced the challenges that the 2019 Marine Corps Marathon dished out.
The distance wasn’t a problem, she could easily handle 26 miles, and she finished fifth among women. But while the sunny Southern California weather she has gotten used to over the last 13 years hasn’t necessarily made her soft, she does realize she’s missing a certain edge, something she wanted to regain before her second Olympic Marathon Trials.
“On one hand, you never have an excuse why you can’t go out and train, but you also don’t get things like really windy snow drifts to give you that grit,” she said.
Keating moved to San Diego after three years at Frostburg State University that culminated in a 21st place finish at the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships. That followed her time, as Bonnie Axman, playing soccer and running cross country at Robinson Secondary School in Virginia, forgoing soccer at the end of her senior year to run track.
