The National Park Service is accepting public comment through Aug. 22 regarding the ongoing closure of Beach Drive to through traffic.
The 4.25-mile stretch of Beach Drive between Broad Branch Road and the Maryland border has been closed since April 2020 to allow more room for physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, with portions open for cars to reach picnic areas.
The agency offered possible scenerios, including extending the current closure indefinitely, reopening the road — which was rebuilt over the past several years, or exploring the possibility of a hybrid approach, including extending weekend closures to include Mondays and Fridays or opening the road during rush hour on weekdays.
Public comment will be accepted until 11:59 p.m. Aug. 22. To provide comments online or get additional information on the project, visit https://parkplanning.nps.gov/beachdrive. Mailed comments should be postmarked by Aug. 22, 2021, to receive consideration:
Superintendent
ATTN: Beach Drive
Rock Creek Park
3545 Williamsburg Lane, NW
Washington, DC 20008
The family she babysat for didn’t need her. The cost of living, with no job, in Westchester, N.Y. was crushing. Her team’s funding was gone. So Katy Kunc came home.
With the pandemic squeezing her out of everything else, she ran the same roads and trails where she discovered her talent for running while at Lake Braddock.
“I started running more than I ever had before,” she said. “I figured I might as well take some kind of risk to get better.”
The 12 weeks of at least 80 miles added up to a whole new level of fitness that Kunc hadn’t reached in two years running for the New Jersey New York Track Club after graduating from the University of Kentucky, and she will be racing the finals of the Olympic Trials in the 3,000 meter steeplechase Thursday at 11:47 eastern. She qualfied for the finals with a 9:37.85 finish, a PR, in the first round.
Robert Brandt was eyeing graduate school programs in real estate development because he likes being a part of building something.
He already has some experience doing it with the latest Georgetown track team, accounting for two of the men’s team’s four All-American finishes last week in Eugene, Ore. Brandt finished fourth in the 10,000 meters and fifth in the 5,000, while junior Jack Salisbury finished sixth in the 1,500 meters (3:40.06) and freshman Parker Stokes finished eighth in the 3,000 meter steeplechase (8:33.44). Sophomore Sami Corman was an honorable mention for the women’s team, and among local natives, Diego Zarate (Virginia Tech) from Northwest High School, was seventh in the 1,500, Tuscaorara’s Derek Johnson (Virginia) was seventh in the steeplechase and Robinson’s Lauren Berman (Virginia Tech) was 11th in the 1500.
One hundred days of running didn’t seem ambitious enough.
So Erika Fields figured she’d run until her birthday, that would be about four months.
Then she kept negotiating with herself.
“I’ll go until the time change,” she said. “I’ll go until it’s too cold. I’ll go until there isn’t any daylight. I’ll go until work travel starts up again.”
Fields doesn’t know how long she’ll keep her streak going, but she’s about to celebrate a year on Wednesday, June 9.
Fitsum Seyoum didn’t last long during freshman tryouts for the Tuscarora track team.
“Most of track season is pretty warm, but tryouts were early in the year, so it was pretty cold and wet,” former Tuscarora coach Troy Harry said. “He didn’t stick with it.”
Fortunately, Seyoum came back the next year and went on to Virginia Tech, where his mastery of the 3,000 meter steeplechase has led him to two Atlantic Coast Conference titles and his second straight trip to the semifinals of the NCAA Championships. What does he like about the event?
“Those water jumps shock your body each lap, that cold water really wakes you up,” he said.
This year, he’s going to be joined in the semifinals by former Husky teammate Derek Johnson, who was two years behind him in high school and now running for the University of Virginia. They led their heat during the NCAA quarterfinals. Seyoum has the U.S. Olympic Trials qualifier and Johnson needs to cut four more seconds to make it to the Trials. Georgetown’s Parker Stokes and George Mason’s Annabelle Eastman have also moved onto the NCAA steeplechase semifinals. Post-collegiately, Chantilly alumnus Sean McGorty and Lake Braddock alumna Katy Kunc have the Olympic Trials qualifiers for the steeplechase and McGorty has the Olympic standard.
Taylor Knibb had already gone an entire year without competing in a triathlon, so what was a few more months?
Possibly the difference between making the U.S. Olympic Team and staying home.
For the first time since she was 11 years old, growing up in Washington, D.C., Knibb had a year off, with the competitions she had planned following her graduation from Cornell University all scuttled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In that year, she settled into her life as a professional in Boulder and toward the World Triathlon Championship Series race in Yokohama, Japan May 15. Winning that race made her the youngest U.S. Olympic triathlete in history at 23.
The Marine Corps Marathon announced it will hold a race in-person Oct. 31.
Runners who had registered for the 2021 virtual races or who deferred from the canceled 2020 race, rather than opt for the virtual 2020 race, will have the first opportunities to register. General registration will available, first-come-first-served, at noon eastern May 26.
Race fields for the marathon, 50k and 10k will be reduced and runners will be divided into waves beginning at 7 a.m., among other public health measures. to all Since 2013, the number of marathon finishers has ranged between 18,355-23,513, the 10k has seen 5,069-7,778 finishers and the inaugural 50k in 2019 drew 1,329 finishers.
“Throughout my many years heading the MCM Organization, we have faced various challenges and hurdled them all, often repeating the Marine Corps mantra to “adapt and overcome.” This year will be no different,” said race director Rick Nealis. “The MCM’s mission is to highlight the high standards and organizational excellence of the United States Marine Corps and we are excited to showcase that as we plan to safely gather and celebrate the 46th MCM in person.”
When Joel Frye tore his achilles tendon in early 2020, he expected a tough recovery and some challenges returning to his passion for running. What he wasn’t expecting was a global pandemic that affected his physical therapy, rehabilitation, work life and attitude toward training.
Frye, a 36-year-old Capitol Heights resident, had an excellent running year in 2019. He achieved his personal best in the Richmond Marathon — 3:29; he was looking forward to doing the Speed Project relay race; he had his sights set on qualifying to run the Boston Marathon. His running group, which had branched off from District Running Collective, had a solid foundation, some good momentum and big goals heading in to 2020.
However, an injury and a year unlike anything he’d ever experienced changed his plans.
It was a cultural shift for Christie and Joe Jones.
Not to moving Virginia after living in Honduras and Bolivia. Rather than sitting quietly and clapping between points on the tennis court, they were welcome to… nay… encouraged to make as much noise as they could as their son Matthew ran around cross country courses.
“It’s a lot more exciting, you have a lot more adrenaline,” Christie said.
Matthew played tennis throughout his childhood as his family rotated among U.S. Foreign Service postings. When the Jones came back to the United States for a few years, he planned to keep at it and signed up for club tennis in advance of his freshman year at Thomas Edison High School. Then, the pandemic canceled all sports.
Well, nearly all sports.
Waldon Adams was killed, along with Rhonda Whitaker, April 24, 2021 in a hit-and-run while the pair was walking in East Potomac Park near Hains Point.
This story was originally published in the April/May 2013 issue of RunWashington.
Waldon Adams’ body went numb while the words poured from the physician’s mouth. As he sat aghast on a gurney in the emergency room at the Howard University Hospital, each word uttered by the doctor drove the invisible dagger deeper into his rapidly-beating heart.
To him, it just was not fair. While he admitted to routinely using freebase cocaine – cocaine dissolved by heat to be purified before use – for nearly two decades, he adamantly denied ever injecting the drug intravenously. But he said he did have an idea of how he contracted the deadly virus.
This was not really happening. Surely, it must be a mistake. The only health obstacles Adams faced up until this point in his life were infrequent bouts with asthma. Now, he listened as a stranger gave him the somber news that would ultimately alter his life. Adams had tested positive for HIV.
“When I first received the diagnosis, I was really upset. I was really devastated,” said Adams, who recently celebrated his 52nd birthday. “I cried and was admitted to the psychiatric ward. When I was released from the ward three days later, the first thing I did was get high. I figured that I was going to die anyway.”
