Outside of mammoth races like the Army Ten-Miler, Marine Corps Marathon and the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile, Thanksgiving is the busiest day of road racing in the D.C. area. Last years, 13 turkey trots totaled 21,214 finishers just in their timed divisions, to say nothing about fun runs, walks and tot trots, many of which these events sport.
This year at least 16 races will kick off around the D.C. area, with another one following a few days later.
Ahead of the Virginia state championships, West Springfield coach Chris Pellegrini figured the race would essentially be a dual meet with Oakton.
In a dual meet, a 1-2-3 sweep can’t be beaten. While muti-team meets are a little more forgiving, seniors Sean Stuck, Sam Pritchard and Chris Weeks made the Spartans a tough act to follow. Stuck won the race overall, running the 5k course at Great Meadow in 15:21, the fastest time of the day. Second place Wesley Bond of Landstown and third place Bryce Lentz of Colgan didn’t have teams in the race, so Pritchard’s 15:50 and Weeks’ 15:53 counted as second and third for scoring purposes.
Buried back in 56th place last year, Walter Johnson’s Jenna Goldberg knew her state meet performance wasn’t what she felt was possible. But it wasn’t as much because of her then-recently-diagnosed anemia. It was her confidence.
“I definitely felt stronger, significantly better, but I’m just in a much better place mentally,” she said soon after winning the 2019 4A title in 17:50. “Every race this year gave me the opportunity to experiment with different racing styles and see how they worked. By the end, I proved that easing into the race was the best strategy for me.”
Two years ago, the D.C. state meet looked like the fertile mud of Kenilworth Park was growing something special. With sophomores sweeping the first three spots on the boys’ side, it was natural to ask what a race among Gavin McElhennon, Luke Tewalt and Cullen Capuano would look like with two more years of growth and experience.
In the end, Capuano ran alone in front from the very start to win, running 16:35 for what several coaches felt to be longer than 5k. McElhennon finished ninth, easing his way back into racing following a long injury while Tewalt, hobbled with tendinitis in his knee, watched from the sidelines, having suited up just for the DCXC Invitational.
Jordan Tropf just wanted to see what he could do.
Turns out, he could win the Marine Corps Marathon.
Oct. 27, 2018
Army Spec. Elvin Kibet did in her first try what her husband, Olympic 10k runner Shadrack Kipchirchir, couldn’t in three — win the Army Ten-Miler.
And thanks to cool weather that was a treat to runners who had suffered through the last two muggy editions, she broke Kerri Gallagher’s event record, running 54:05 to Gallagher’s 54:50 from 2014 on a course that was altered last year to avoid the deteriorating Arlington Memorial Bridge. She and men’s winner Lawi Lalang (48:38) are both members of the Army’s World Class Athlete Program. They were also college teammates at the University of Arizona.
For Shauneen Werlinger, a trip to the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials figured to be the culmination of a long development that started at Thomas Jefferson High School, continued through a spectacular collegiate career and evolved to include her career and family.
But instead of competing in Atlanta, she’ll be following the race alongside her husband and children. Instead of growing the Trials field by one, she’s growing her family by one, with a son due in January.
There’s apparently a second layer to astrology that goes beyond newspaper horoscopes. According to my coworker, what time of day you were born adds a tint of good or bad fortune. For runners at the DCXC Invitational, what time of day they started their race made all the difference.
That’s because cloud cover alternated from race to race, providing much-needed relief from heat that reached the upper 80s throughout the afternoon, while also surprising some runners when they got on the starting line, thinking the hot part of the day was behind them. Those varying conditions just hammered home that the races, divided among graduating class, existed separately of each other. The format also gives runners a chance to race against their peers only, offering each class a chance in the spotlight. That did some favors for the seniors, whose races had the most comfortable temperatures irrespective of cloud cover.
Conroy Zien dropped everything he was carrying when he spotted his wife, Glenda Garcia, outside the finisher’s chute at the Erie Marathon earlier this month and began to cry. Garcia figured the worst. Not again, she thought.
“I got really sad,” she said. “Like, how do we recover from this? I’m already thinking about how I can help him get over this.”