Alazar Tegegnework entered seventh grade in a new school and dived into the lessons and homework. He excelled in the classroom, but one of his teachers at the Brightwood campus of Center City Public Charter Schools saw something more.
“He understands hard work because he knew if he didn’t work hard in his academics, that would affect other things,” says Jermar Rountree, a physical education and health nutrition teacher at Center City PCS.
“Academics is his driving force. But that’s all he knew.”
Rountree encouraged Tegegnework to come with him to a program called Teens Run DC.
My first ultramarathon was supposed to be the North Face 50K in September of 2009.
My actual first ultra was the Rosaryville 50K that July. Then the Catoctin 50K in August. Then The North Face 50K in September.
All because of Bob Gaylord.
I’d met Bob and his long-time running buddy Stan the previous May, the way I meet all my trail friends: Randomly in a parking lot at a trail head. Then, at some point between May and July, Bob convinced me that the best way to train for a 50K was to run a different 50K. You know, as a training run. And oh by the way, Catoctin is one of the tougher courses in our area — but it’ll be fun.
So … sure … what could go wrong?
To hear Tom Brumlik tell it, Albert Velikonja approaches an August time trial with the same intensity as he does a state championship final.
“It was pretty evident from the first lap last year that he was going to be pretty good,” Brumlik said of the now-senior, who was trying cross country after a moderately successful sophomore track season.
This was before he even took the field for a serious race, at the DCXC Invitational, where he finished sixth in the junior race.
“He just loves to race, and that’s hard to coach,” Brumlik said. “He has a natural competitiveness that’s easy to build around.
Name: Stephanie Balaconis
Self-described age group: Female 31-40
Residence: Alexandria
Occupation: Corporate Digital Marketing Manager
Volunteer roles in the running world: I led a running group in Ohio before I moved to D.C. (shout out to Up and Running)
Why you run: I run because it helps me clear my mind and relax.
When did you get started running: I started running in high school with my dad. It was a way to spend time with him and do some conditioning for softball. He was always a runner and had ran a marathon when I was small. I always thought, “how cool it would be if I could do that too!” So, I started running too.
As a freshman, Jenny Schilling’s Heritage Pride jersey never fit quite right.
The subtext wasn’t lost on Nancy Merriman.
“She didn’t know exactly what her talent level was,” Merriman said. “She was trying to figure herself out in the sport, and that took a little while.”
Schilling had been a dancer until sixth grade, when she followed her brother onto the NOVA Athletic Club and she retrained her legs to run.
Riley’s Rumble’s reputation is forged on its heat, hills and humidity. The annual half marathon in Germantown and Boyds, Md. markets itself as a masochists’ dream, with a roughly 170 foot climb in mile 12 to extinguish many runners’ hopes of a fast time. And, as part of the Montgomery County Road Runners’ Club’s series of low-key races, it is both budget-friendly and bereft of awards, Until now. This year, Race Director Ida-Lina Diak toyed with awarding giant novelty oversized checks to the winners of the half and 8k, only to have them made out for $0. In the end, she and assistant race director Melanie Mollica settled on the amount of 1 million Strava kudos, which, unfortunately, have a cash value of 1/1,000,000th of a cent.
Like many trios, each member brings something special to the group. Among West Springfield’s Three Terrors, now seniors, Sean Stuck won the state outdoor 3200 meter championship in 6A and Chris Weeks was second in the 1600 meters. But on the cross country course, Sam Pritchard leads the Spartans. He finished third in the Virginia 6A meet last fall, and is the top returning runner this season.
“Sam is the most natural cross country runner (among the three seniors), but he’s the least flashy,” said coach Chris Pellegrini. “He shows the most natural instincts and that’s shown in his races. He has the best mid-race understanding of where he has to put himself to do what he wants to do.”
D.C.’s Roman Gurule talks about his transformation from barfly to track nerd, providing an audiobook version of this earlier RunWashington article.
Name: Ricardo J. Salvador
Self-described age group: 60 – 65
Residence: Cloverly, Md.
Occupation: Director and Senior Scientist, Food & Environment, Union of Concerned Scientists
Why you run: The usual! Fitness, mental sanity, longevity. This is thoroughly for lifestyle reasons, as I don‘t have a single competitive bone in my body, and rarely run in organized events (and then overwhelmingly marathons, for the course support.) I‘d rather run alone with my thoughts—for a long time!
Danielle Siebert goes to races all the time. But she’s normally not the one racing.
On Oct. 27, the University of Maryland cross country and track coach plans to toe the starting line in Arlington with thousands of other runners at the Marine Corps Marathon.
“It’s not that easy to race when you’re a coach, because most weekends you’re away ’cause your athletes are racing,” said Siebert, 35, who lives in Rockville.
When she decided on the Marine Corps Marathon for her second marathon, she said she needed to choose a race that wasn’t on a weekend of a competition for her team or a weekend recruits were visiting. The Marine Corps Marathon is the weekend before the Big Ten Championships, she said, which would work with her schedule.
