When road races resume someday, they will go off without one of the keystones of the local racing scene in Maryland and Washington, D.C.
George Tarrico, of Rockville, known as “the race director’s race director,” died June 5 after battling spinal cancer. He was 84.
Tarrico’s mustache and expressive eyebrows helped him resemble Frank Pentangelli, the mafia turncoat in the Godfather Part II. What he lacked in his fictional counterpart’s cold ruthlessness, Tarrico made up for with warm effectiveness as he served in logistical roles for dozens of Montgomery County Road Runners Club races every year and the Credit Union Cherry Blossom Ten Mile. Read More
The DMV Distance Derby will add two new segments starting July 1:
- Smelling Big Stinky – 1.2 miles: Starting at Michigan Ave NE, head up John McCormack Road NE, pass the Fort Totten transfer station and finish a few steps short of the gate.
- Colorado 1.5 miles: Starting at 16th Street NW, run on the south lane of Colorado Ave NW, follow the outside of the cul de sac clockwise and take the north lane back to 16th Street NW.
For almost nine months, a giant paper map of D.C.’s streets took up a good bit of Jarad Schofer’s floor like an oversized jigsaw puzzle. Now, to his wife’s delight, he can pick it up for good. After almost 2,500 miles of running, Schofer put in the last piece of the puzzle June 13 — filling in a 2 kilometer route near Logan Circle — and met his goal of running every public street and alley in Washington, D.C.
But he didn’t achieve his unwritten dream.
“I really wanted someone to see me running and invite me to their barbecue, to offer me a beer,” he said.
As the weather and grills heated up, Schofer instead found himself running through streets of a city dealing with a deadly pandemic, one that kept people from approaching him the way they did before and while it made it easier to navigate the streets, he couldn’t be as friendly and open with people he met along his way. He also worried public health restrictions could approach some in Europe, where people couldn’t stray too far from home.
- Silver Spring’s Will Etti, who RunWashington featured in its 2015 marathoners series, was a guest on the Run Farther and Faster podcast, talking about diversity in running and his experiences with racial profiling.
- Kensington resident Anthony Brennan III was charged with three counts of second-degree misdemeanor assault resulting from a June 1 incident on the Capital Crescent Trail. Social media users publicly identified two men who were not involved.
- Beach Drive, between the Maryland state line and Broad Branch Road in D.C.’s Rock Creek Park will remain closed to traffic through July 24.
- Longtime Montgomery County Road Runners Club volunteer George Tarrico, of Rockville, died June 6.
- Walter Johnson alumna Jenna Goldberg, a state cross country champion and Foot Locker finalist, will be a speaker on what is billed as an online “motivational talk” Monday June 16 at 5 p.m. Register here.
- This week’s Potomac River Running Instagram Live, starting at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, will feature Moise Joseph, Kareen Lawson, Kelly Kavanaugh and Kim Griffin.
- Arlington County and Washington, D.C. tracks are open. Don’t be dumb about using them.
- A white male in his 20’s, with brown hair, wearing blue shorts, no shirt, and a black fanny pack exposed himself to a woman on the Custis Trail June 8 around 11 a.m. For more information, check ArlingtonNow.
- The National Arboretum will be open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 1 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Thurgood Marshall Academy Executive Director Raymond Weeden, a college teammate of Farley and Docs, discusses his experiences as an African-American runner.
Greg Cass and Michael Basen from the Central Park Track Club talk about the Connect the Corridor challenge, running through May 31.
You’re at a picnic at a park, and so is another family nearby. Your uncle gets drunk and belligerent, wanders over to the other family, gets rude, starts taking food without asking.
If both families wanted the uncle to stop, who would he be more receptive to?
“When we’re talking about violence against unarmed African Americans, whether by police or civilians, it’s largely been our family trying to get the drunk uncle to stop,” D.C.’s Fred Irby said. “His family is looking at what’s happening, shaking their heads and saying ‘he doesn’t represent us as a family,’ but they haven’t done anything to pull him back.”
These days, Irby is applying that metaphor to the Feb. 23 shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, who was running in a Glynn County, Ga. neighborhood. After more than two months with no action by local authorities, the Georgia Bureau of Investigated Gregory and Travis McMichael and charged them with murder and aggravated assault May 7.
In an online movement, #IrunwithMaud, that gained momentum following the May 6 release of video footage of the incident and stoked in large part by New York-based activist Alison Désir, runners dedicated their runs on May 8, which would have been Arbery’s 26th birthday, with many running 2.23 miles, commemorating the date of his murder. While there’s no shortage of violent incidents, including deaths, of unarmed African Americans, this was the highest profile, if not the first, involving a victim reported to be exercising at the time, particularly running.
It caught on, with thousands of runners, unable to gather because of physical distancing orders, followed through on social media platforms.
Ashley Donovan is used to starting off her ultramarathons with a low-key command. “Go” usually suffices. But the start of her latest 24-hour run was accompanied by sirens.
At 6:01 a.m. May 9, as she started on a day’s worth of solitary 0.2-mile loops around the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad building and parking lot, an ambulance rolled out on a call. That service, and her fundraising run, hammered home the 24-hour nature of emergency response and demonstrated why she was doing this. The secretary on BCCRS’ Board of Directors, Donovan, of Upper Northwest D.C., has been a volunteer EMT since 2015.
“People have been surprised when they hear I’m still volunteering,” during the coronavirus pandemic, she said. “This was a fine opportunity to highlight the role of volunteers in our emergency response system.”
The fundraising effort around her feat totaled more than $11,000, which will be split between the rescue squad and Feed the Fight, a nonprofit that feeds emergency and healthcare workers meals from local restaurants and caterers.
As you may have noticed, we don’t have many races happening for a while.
For the rest of 2020, RunWashington’s rankings are going to change to the next best thing – Strava segments. Since we can’t all get together in one place and go shoulder-to-shoulder, the next best thing will be to compare performances on the same turf at the DMV Distance Derby.
I’m a road guy.
I’ll get on trails pretty regularly, but I have the most fun when I can just run and not focus as much on where I am stepping or thinking about the last time I tripped and bruised my ribs. Once I realized just how many people were exploring narrow trails when they started getting out of the house more, the roads, particularly in residential neighborhoods became more and more my bread and butter.
When the National Park Service granted Mayor Bower’s request to close Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park for more than half of April, I was thrilled, and I decided I was going to make the most of it.
