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?

I accept full responsibility...

I accept full responsibility for local blogging legend DC Rainmaker winning a three decade old race outright at the end of his 2008 training season.

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I always run the free, monthly noontime Tidal Basin 3K which is held on the third Wednesday of every month. The race dates back to the early 70s so it’s venerable. I think it’s older than Rainmaker.

All the old reliables showed up today. A former winner of the MCM was there. I was there. My doppelganger Peter was there. My agency’s rock star, G, was there. And Rainmaker showed up and came over and introduced himself to me.

He had been saying that he was going to run this fast and furious 1.8 mile sprint around the body of water that fronts both the Jefferson and FDR Memorials. I emailed him last night and told him to put up or shut up. Oh, he came alright!

I follow his outstanding blog, overlooking the fact that a lot of it is about biking because he runs really well. I knew that he was coming off a 37:21 (6:01) 10K at which he PRed on Sunday, and I figured that he might be in peak form.

I carefully described the course to him so he wouldn’t get lost. It’s pretty simple actually, get on the sidewalk by the road, always keep the road to your left and the water to your right and stop when you pass the clock back by the start line. It’s a big circle.

This month’s race was in memory of long-time local runner Ray Blue, an octogenarian who passed on recently. Another World War II vet gone. Everyone was wearing blue. After a few nice words in his honor, off we started. Rainmaker had asked me who the fast runners were but how did I know? After the first few seconds of any race, I never see them again. I had referred him to G the rock star, who usually comes in between fourth and eighth. Ten seconds after the start, Rainmaker was gone, along with G and many others. They were all way up there, receding rapidly.

I ran my typical race, good for a finish in the bottom quartile. I passed Peter early, as usual, but then surprisingly, he passed me back soon afterwards. I hung on him for awhile, then passed him back on the narrow bridge part, glancing him with an elbow as I went by. "Oh ho!" he cried, and the battle was joined. (We’re good friends.)

I ran the rest of the race wondering where Peter was behind me, dreading his famous finishing kick. But he didn’t have it today and I came in just ahead at 13:13 (7:06). I stood by the finish line with my hands on my knees and my head down, chest heaving. You’d have thought that I had just run a long ways really fast or something.

Rainmaker came up to me, completely relaxed and composed, and congratulated me on my finish. Umm, my finish way back in the pack.

I thanked him and asked him how he did. "About 10:30," he said.

"No," I said, "how’d you do?"

"Uh, I won?"

Yep, thanks to my good directions, Rainmaker had been able to bolt away from the lead pack just past the midway point and bring it home alone without going off course. Because after all, it’s pretty tricky to follow an unending sidewalk. He won the race. I suppose he’ll retire from 3K competition now as one and done, been there, won that.

G came in seventh in 11:10. Congrats to him, and also to a local biking and blogging phenom.