Her athletes are not making headlines or standing on any podiums, but that doesn’t stop Burke’s Kareen Lawson from coaching. With dozens of athletes in the Potomac River Running “Burke Beasts” group under her wing, Lawson is making a difference for athletes of all ages and abilities, with an affinity for the over-40 crowd.
Unlike a lot of runners who started running in high school, Lawson started running as a way to meet friends in her 30s. Until that point, she knew most of her friends through her kids. But when her youngest kid left for college in 2012, she found herself wondering how to make new friends. When a Facebook connection referred her to a training program, Lawson decided that joining the program was a perfect way to make new friends while also losing some weight at the same time.
Back in middle school I played soccer like I wanted to be the next Ronaldo or Messi.
I thought I had found a sport that I would stick with for a long time. But before official fall sports season started, my school wanted to try out a couple of new sports. Cross country sounded like fun. I asked a friend of mine if he wanted to join the team with me, and we both agreed that we would do it.
We started so late in the season that we didn’t have any training or practices, and we had a race on one of our first days of being a formal team. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from it, and our school didn’t even have a bus yet, so our parents drove us to the meet.
When we got there I got really nervous. I didn’t know what to expect. I was completely new to the sport. I take a lot of things in athletics seriously, so I just thought of it as another challenge and was just afraid to fail because it was something unknown to me.
When I got to the D.C. Road Runners Track Championship at Dunbar High School, the final meet in the Eastern Track League series, the women’s masters mile was starting.
As a high school runner, I race from September to June. These weeks in between seasons are for following dramatic professional races and the pursuit of record breaking performances. My morning routine now consists of checking Twitter to see which all-time mark went down or which finishing kick dazzled the day before.
I have the entire world of track and field at my fingertips whenever I care to look, and that is exactly why I could not pass up the opportunity to drive an hour into D.C. to watch the this meet in person. I wanted to move beyond the times and splits on a static results page and the occasional suspense-free race video that broadcasts the winner and time in the title and instead experience track and field first hand.
During the pre-race brief, organizers of the Old Dominion 100-Mile Endurance Run described the race as a battle of the runner against the course against the clock.
Runners have to conquer 100.01 miles of all types of terrain, 14,000 feet of elevation gain, all in Virginia‘s oppressive early June heat and humidity. To count as a finisher, they must complete the course in less than 28 hours; but those who want to go home with a coveted silver belt buckle must do so in less than 24.
Name: Natalie Atabek
Self-described age group: F 25-29
Residence: Washington, D.C.
Occupation: Director of Communications at AFS Financial Group
Why you run: I run because I never feel more like myself than when I’m running. No matter what kind of day I’m having, I know that once I start my run, nothing else matters and everything else can wait until I hit stop on my watch.
Springfield resident Roy Englert, 96, ran 42:20.33 to shatter the 5k world record for men 95-99 at the USATF Masters Outdoor Championships July 11 in Ames, Iowa. The previous record was 50:10.56.
This article was initially published in June 2018.
At age 95, Roy Englert may not have competition in his age group. But he does have the clock.
“I was running against time, actually,” Englert said of his recent performance at the USATF Masters Indoor Track & Field Championships, where he broke three age group world records.
You can hear it bellowing from speakers as soon as you arrive at a race: directions to gear check, instructions to get into corrals and details about the race course. And when you finish: encouragement, commentary and pleas to keep moving beyond the finish line.
Race announcers play a huge role in running events — from keeping the race-day timeline to interacting with spectators and informing and encouraging participants. And there are scores of D.C.-area announcers who dedicate their weekends to help make races run smoothly and see that runners have fun and feel a sense of accomplishment no matter their finish time.
Creigh Kelley’s voice may sound familiar if you’ve run one of the more than 20 races he has announced for around the country, including the Chicago Marathon, the Walt Disney World Marathon or many in the popular Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon and half marathon series. In the D.C. area, he serves as the announcer for the D.C. Rock ‘n’ Roll races as well as the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile race.
Farley matches wits with Docs’ nieces when guests from the show’s run return to ask questions.
- Patriot alumna Rachel McArthur elaborated to The Stride Report on her decision to transfer to the University of Colorado from Villanova University.
- South Lakes alumnus Alan Webb has been named associate head cross country and assistant track coach at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
- Georgetown alumnus and former director of track and field Chris Miltenberg has been named director of track and field at the University of North Carolina. He coached the 2011 Georgetown women’s cross country team to an NCAA championship.
- George Mason rising sophomore Siobhra O’Flaherty will represent Ireland in the 10,000 meters in the European U23 Championships July 12 in Galve, Sweden.
- Quince Orchard High School named its inaugural athletics hall of fame class, which includes distance runners and contributors:
- Wayne Bartholomew
- Karen Pulliam Egan
- Troy Harry
- Coach Jerry Link
- And track and field athletes Ruth Kura, Ariel Nehemiah, Aron Dorsey, Bani Gbadyu and Travis Hawkins
If Chase Weaverling didn’t think he was going to qualify for the US Olympic Marathon Trials before starting the Houston Half Marathon, it definitely didn’t help his confidence when he hit the ground a half mile into the race. He clipped the heels of a marathoner he was drafting off of, then stumbled once that the marathoner went down.
Weaverling, who graduated from Poolesville in 2014, was a few months into his post-collegiate running career following a solid four years at the University of Virginia.
But in less time than it would take to explain that his Reebok Boston Track Club is actually based in Charlottesville, he was back on his feet and catching back up to a pack which included two pacers aiming for 1:04:00. That’s the time he needed to qualify for the trials and that’s what he ran, tying him for the slowest time qualifier, and at 23, making him one of the youngest. It was another example of him making the most out of his opportunities.
“I just told myself not to freak out,” Weaverling said. “My left side was pretty scarred up, but I didn’t even realize I was bleeding until afterward.”
