Name: Andrea Keane-Myers
Self-described age group: 45-49 Female
Residence: Bethesda
Occupation: Scientist
Volunteer roles in the running world: secretary, MCRRC Board of Directors, co-race director- Cabin John Kids’ Runs
- Robert E. Lee High School alumnus Josef Tessema won the Navy Mile elite race Sunday on Pennsylvania Avenue, running 4:01.89. He beat, among others, two-time Olympic medalist Nick Willis.
- A bridge on the Mt. Vernon Trail south of Roosevelt Island is closed Tuesday after a piece of heavy equipment damaged a wooden footbridge.
- The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy named Bethesda’s Peter Raynor the 2018 Doppelt Family Rail-Trail Champion for his role in writing the 1983 Railbanking Act. Railbanking is voluntary agreement between a railroad company and a trail agency to use an out-of-service rail corridor as a trail until a railroad might need the corridor again for rail service. This interim trail use of railbanked corridors has preserved thousands of miles of rail corridors that would otherwise have been abandoned.
Woodrow Wilson sophomore Vincent Kamami spends a lot of his time before races wrapped up in his nerves. This week, coaches and race directors were right with him.
As rain continued to fall on the D.C. area, the fates of weekend invitationals were once again in doubt. On Friday, Fauquier County, Va.’s Octoberfest Invitational pulled the plug, like Oatlands two weeks before and Maryland’s Track and Trail before that, driven by concerns about how courses would survive the onslaught of spikes and body weight.
But the DCXC Invitational at Northeast D.C.’s Kenilworth Park was a go, and runners would have a chance to face off and get dirty. Coaches, and Kamani, could stop fretting and start planning on actually racing. The flat, usually fast course was not immune to the rain, and long muddy stretches and iffy turns forced many races to become tactical, which as T.S. Wootton senior John Riker remarked after his third place finish, would ultimately be more beneficial in the long term for runners.
Altra sales rep Kyle Northrop returns to talk about a film about his depression and running.
This year’s Marine Corps Marathon may be just like previous years’ races. And that’s just fine with Race Director Rick Nealis.
He’s seen a lot during the quarter century he has led the October race: cheating, celebrity runners (namely, Oprah), security concerns and even a scandal in which runners were urinating dangerously close to Arlington National Cemetery graves. Now in his 26th year leading “The People’s Marathon,” things “surprisingly … look like the status quo,” he said.
But he is always prepared for a debacle that could impact the marathon through D.C. and Arlington. It has happened many times on his watch, and chatting with the loquacious 64-year-old is a like revisiting some of the area’s most memorable moments over the past two-and-a-half decades.
- The Klingle Valley Trail will be closed between Oct. 11 and Nov. 30 and be closed between 7 a.m. – 5 p.m. Oct. 1 – Oct. 10 and Dec. 3 – Dec. 21 for water and sewer upgrades along the trail.
- Montgomery County Parks has closed all of its natural surface trails through through Thursday in an effort to prevent damage from use during this week’s rain.
- The Marine Corps Marathon deferment period ends Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.
- The Arlington Memorial Bridge will be closed to pedestrians this weekend.
Long, dewy grass at Fort Washington Park presented a challenge at runners at the Prince George’s County Invitational. So did “the General,” a long hill from the bank of the Potomac River.
That was alright for Eleanor Roosevelt coach Nayda Pierla, whose teams won the boys’ competition 36-90 over Parkdale and girls finished second behind Flowers 27-54. Roosevelt junior Brandon Lewis on the individual title in 17:49, while C.H. Flowers junior Javon Watts remained undefeated at Fort Washington Park for her career, winning by more than 90 seconds in 21:14. It’s a few seconds slower than her winning time last year, but the grass on the course had not been mowed.
D.C. police charged 23-year-old Anthony Crawford of Northwest D.C. with first degree murder in connection with Wendy Martinez’s death Sept. 18 while she was running in Logan Circle.
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham cited a combination of work by police, tips from the public and security camera footage in identifying Crawford, who was arrested the night of Sept. 19 at the Girard Street Park near 14th Street NW.
Martinez, 35, was killed following a stabbing while she was running west on P Street NW in Logan Circle the evening of Sept. 18. Newsham said she stopped at the corner of 11th Street NW at 7:45 p.m., where she was stabbed in what he described as likely a random attack. There was no indication Martinez was the victim of a robbery, but police have not identified a motive.
A 7 p.m. vigil Sept. 20 has been planned at the corner of P and 11th.
Newsham called the stabbing an isolated instance.
“We don’t see crimes like this very much, it was an unlikely thing that happened,” he said at a Sept. 20 news conference. “It’s certainly damaging to all our senses of safety.”
Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham described her in a Sept. 19 news conference as “avid runner, known to run for miles across the city on a regular basis.” More than that, she ran the 2015 Palestine Marathon, finishing in 4:20:18 for eighth place.
