Surprise!

Every year Congress challenges the Executive Branch, the Judicial Branch and the Press to a 3-mile race in the District along the banks of the Anacostia River. Last year my Agency's team won the Second Place Team Plaque for the Executive Division, a big deal because our division has all the service teams (Army, Navy, the Coast Guard etc.).

Our Captain took the First Place Medal for Sub-Cabinet Head, Female. We kicked butt, in other words. (Left: The team in April.)

The winning team, Army, placed two runners in the top five, finishing in second and fifth in the division. Our two top runners got between these two stars and finished third and fourth in the division. (Right: Half a year later. Our rock star Greg, second from the right, was third in the race, next to him is Andy who was fourth.)

What a battle royal that must have been. I was too far back to observe it but it must have been exciting as it played out.

A bonus from last year's race was that American marathoner Meb Keflezighi ran in the race, only three days after he PRed with a sub-2:10 at London. Meeting him after the 3-mile race last year was cool.

Six months later Meb ran away from a world-class field and won New York. (Left: Our Team Captain holds our Runnerup Plaque.)

Meb has been a hero of mine ever since he silvered in the marathon at the Athens Olympics. Now he is the first American male to win a major in decades. (Right: Adrian Fenty on the left, the world's fastest mayor, poses at the 3-mile race with America's current world-beater marathoner.)

Three years earlier our team had done well and finished seventh, when our Team Captain took the Third Place Medal in his age category. We asked the bemedaled Captain from that earlier team to present the current Team Captain with the hardware we we received from the race administrators. (Left: Our former Team Captain on the right, who medaled in the 2006 race, stands with our current Team Captain.)

In a little surprise ceremony today, he presented the Captain with her individual medal and the team plaque. Although surprised, she was very collected and appreciative that we all came by to bestow the swag. It was very cool. (Right: Can't touch this. The first place medal earned last year by our Team Captain.)

Another good run...

Today the club's Ten-Miler Program ran out of Fleet Feet in Adams Morgan. Local running legend Phil Fenty and his wife Jan opened up the first Fleet Feet franchise east of the Mississippi in 1984 and the store has thrived due to their hard work despite a lack of parking. Now it is owned by Shawn Fenty, their son (brother of the mayor), and he carries on in the family tradition of deep commitment to the running community. Several training programs run out of the store on weekends, including ours. (Right: Joseph Castro, Director of Training for the Army Ten-Miler Race and Shawn Fenty, owner of Fleet Feet, confer outside of the store.)

We went 8.3 miles on a double loop through Rock Creek Park. I am a "drop-in" coach and I enjoy the relative dearth of responsibility on these runs. I started in the far back, chatting up some runners back there. I gradually worked my way forward, talking for awhile with almost everyone I passed. By the time I made it up front, the lead runner was too far ahead to catch but I fell in with Jay, a coach. He's twenty years younger than me and deceptively fast. He hides it until late in runs when he puts the hammer down.

We ran along, pushing the pace until it seemed to me that we were doing sub-eights. I don't do those much anymore. The run was hilly because Adams Morgan sits on a high point in the District and Rock Creek Park, a half mile away, is far below it. We had to climb out of the park twice after dropping into it on each loop. We would pause at tricky turning points on the course until the next runner came into view and wave to show him the way. When he waved back, we'd take off again.

Regaining 16th Street two miles from Fleet Feet, we flashed down the road. Jay kept pushing the pace but I was game, mostly. Whenever I lagged behind by eight feet he'd lighten up just a trace and I'd catch up again. I knew what was coming but the hard running felt good after weeks of running with back-packers.

Half a mile out Jay engaged a higher gear and I had to let him go. He beat me back to the store by a block and a half. My overall pace was just over 9:40 for the run but that included a lengthy stretch of 10:30 running during the first half of the outing and some pauses at directional points.

Afterwards many in the group bought bagels and coffee from a nearby shop and we sat around on the sidewalk outside of Fleet Feet eating, drinking and talking.

A Challenging 3-Mile Run

My agency fielded a team at the ACLI Capital Challenge 3-Mile Race this morning for the fourth straight year. It’s a racing challenge issued by the legislative branch to the judicial and executive branches and to the media, to field teams of five runners (one has to be a woman) who are employees of that particular agency, department or branch. Each team has to be captained by the head of the office (in our case, a Commissioner).

The service teams are in the Executive Division and they usually dominate because they can always find a fit admiral or general to run and then each service sends four ringers from their competitive athletic corps. So it’s usually the Navy, Coast Guard or Army jockeying for first place with the rest of us content to be also-rans. It’s a lot of fun.

We had a pretty good team this year. Our agency’s rock-star G led the team for the fourth straight year with an 18:15, a few seconds slower than his time from last year (hey, he just ran a 3:09 at Boston nine days earlier). G was shocked to see a new addition to our team this year, a paralegal about half his age, on his shoulder at MP 2. Perhaps a moment of doubt about his continued supremacy flitted through his mind, but when G made a strong move with a quarter mile to go, the paralegal couldn’t match it and finished two seconds back. Both men were a few seconds ahead of the very fit DC mayor, Adrian Fenty, the baddest running mayor in the US, a point of pride to them both afterwards.

Despite a sore foot, M was right at about 20 minutes and came in next for our team. I was next at 22:51. I have not trained for anything recently and I was worried that my time for this race might push past 23 minutes for the first time. However, I ran steadily (7:15, 7:41, 7:55) and, given my current lack of conditioning, well for me.

Our captain, the Commissioner, came in at a few seconds over 30 minutes, a tremendous achievement for a non-runner (she did train for this, however) running in her first ever race. I don’t know where our team finished but it was a successful morning, topped off by the very cool fact that I was able to chat for a few moments with American elite runner Meb Keflezighi, the silver medalist at Athens who was a mere two days removed from being the first American at London this year. I beat him, so I gave him some secret running tips. Actually, though, I think he let me and many others in the field finish ahead of him, as he ran the entire race alongside the representative who he was a guest of.

National Half Marathon-A Quick Report

The third National Marathon and Half Marathon is over! Local phenom Michael Wardian three-peated in the marathon, setting a new course record (he sets one here every year) in 2:24:59. When I left, they announced that the mayor was on course for a finish of around 3:40. That's for the full, not the half. As Mayor Fenty says of all other mayors in the world, bring 'em on. When we ran by Fleet Feet in Adams Morgan, the mayor's Dad was outside of his store cheering the runners on. A local high school band was doing a racy number up by McMillan Reservoir when we were all fagged from the long climb up there. DC is great!

The weather was perfect, overcast, 42 degrees and only a little wind. Everyone in the Reebok SunTrust National Half Marathon Training Program I am associated with did great! Matt was done in time to set up his camera and take pictures of runners as they finished. His two stars, the ones whose dust I ate at the Wednesday night track workout, both broke 1:40 (one of them closer to 1:30, I think). Sasha overhauled me in the last mile, chatted politely for a minute and then blazed off to a 1:44. I don't know everyone who ran, but one student did a 1:58 and another did about a 2:02. (Above: Sasha 200 yards from the finish. How is it that she is still smiling? Photo credit Matt.)

(Left: Me 200 yards from the finish, trying to hold on. Photo credit Matt.) My time was 1:45:35, my second best Half Marathon, 1:17 off my PR. It's a tough course so I'm pleased. Maybe I'll write more on it later but now I'm off to Charlottesville to watch some bull riding!

Paranoia strikes deep

Into your life it will creep.
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away.

Last year a tragedy occurred at my agency when two employees were struck and killed in front of the building by a city bus making a left turn as they crossed the street in a crosswalk with the light. This year an employee suffered a broken leg when a turning car struck him in a crosswalk in front of the building.

What to do? The Metropolitan police showed up recently outside the building one morning and started handing out $100 jaywalking tickets. A runner friend observed a cop give a ticket to a runner who ran across the empty street against the light, and issue a gotcha ticket to a pedestrian who stepped off the curb into the crosswalk (but went no further) while the light was still red.

This sucks. I run around there, a lot. I'm careful, but occasionally I run across roadways when I'm not in the crosswalk and the light isn't green.

DC has a running mayor who runs several miles every morning. I wonder if he stops and waits for every light.