The Capital Challenge 3-Miler Revisited

I already told you that last month my agency fielded a team at the ACLI Capital Challenge. The legislative branch challenges teams from the executive and judicial branches and the news media to a 3-Mile race. It's a free for all.

There are some drawbacks to this race. Each team has to be comprised of staff members or employees (no "friends" or guest runners), have a female and be captained by the head of the department or office. In other words, the Senator or Representative or judge or admiral . . . you get the idea. This is likely to be an older person who probably sits around a lot, except for the service teams. The admirals and generals are rarely old and never sedentary. As a matter of fact, the service teams usually kick as*, and they are in my agency's pool, the Executive Division.

No matter. We won an award for being the runner up Executive Branch team. Our agency rock star, G, kicks as*. And this year I uncovered a 20-something paralegal, A, who also kicks as*. G finished 3rd in the Executive Division (11th overall), and A finished right behind him (12th overall). It's as if we cloned G. (Right: The 2009 Federal Tread Commission team: yours truly, A, G, M, and our team captain.)

The winning Army team fielded its usual duo of ringers and they were gonna finish 2nd and 3rd, except that G and A got between 'em and caused the second Army guy to finish 5th instead. I didn't see this because I was back about a mile at the time, but it was apparently very exciting.

Our secret weapon, though, wasn't our clone, it was our Commissioner. She satisfied two requirements, captain and female. And she placed first in her category of Sub Cabinet Head, Female. Can't touch that! (Left: Our team captain, Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour, won her division.)

Can you identify the race's two honorary runners in the photo to the right?