RunWashington Fall 2017

Cover photo: The Loudoun Valley cross country team in its element. First row: Peter Morris, Jacob Windle, Kevin Carlson, Sam Affolder; Second row: Chase Dawson, Connor Wells; Third Row: Jacob Hunter, Colton Bogucki. RunWashington photo by Ed Lull.

EDITOR’S NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 TRULY OFF THE BEATEN PATH: THE BARKLEY MARATHONS . . . . . . . . . 5 MILITARY RUNNING: MILITARY ACADEMIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 THE 2017 ALL-RUNWASHINGTON TEAM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 A BUMPER CROP OF RUNNERS AT LOUDOUN VALLEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 MORE LIKE CROSS CITY! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 SHOULD CROSS COUNTRY RUNNERS DO ROAD RACES? . . . . . . . . . . . .32 STARTING FROM SQUARE ONE AT COLGAN HIGH SCHOOL . . . . . . . . .35 HER TOLBERT: A RUNNING LIFE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43 UPCOMING RACES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 CELEBRATE RUNNING: A RECIPE FOR CROSS COUNTRY SUCCESS . . .48

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 1

PHOTO BY JONATHAN BIRD

FALL 2017 PUBLISHER Kathy Dalby RunWashington Media LLC EDITOR IN CHIEF Charlie Ban charlie@runwashington.com SENIOR EDITOR Dickson Mercer dickson@runwashington.com COPY EDITOR Katie Bolton CREATIVE / PRODUCTION AZER CREATIVE www.azercreative.com SALES DIRECTOR Denise Farley denise@runwashington.com 703-855-8145

We’re just about at my favorite time of year. The temperature and humidity will soon drop and I’ll feel like a human being again on my morning runs. The roads will swell with people training for their Fall marathons. And every weekend, some of these local high school cross country runners will do something impressive.

Virginia runners, you’re the victims of some ill-advised, disproportionate realignment on the state’s part in the 6A classification. Why the new Occoquan Region, with 18 teams, will sport the same number of teams at the state meet as the Central Region, with a total of eight, is beyond me. The same goes for the new Northern Region, which will comprise 17 teams.

If my selective memory of U.S. history holds up, Gov. Edmund Randolph and James Madison pitched a plan to the Constitutional Convention that proposed proportionallyweighted representation in the Legislature. Now, I don’t mean to suggested the Virginia High School League is acting un-Virginian...but that proposal was colloquially known as the Virginia Plan. We should have the same for our state meet.

If a Central Region team needs only to beat five teams to make to the state meet, but an Occoquan Region team needs to beat 15, I think we’ve found the new alignment’s failing.

But I digress. We have a lot of great stories this issue. Andrea Rutledge talks to some runners and coaches about how much road racing cross country runners should do (page 32). Katie Bolton takes on a story that has intrigued me since I heard about Colgan High School opening last year — the cross country team is starting from scratch (page 35), with no established team leaders, no traditions, no momentum to build on.

It’s a fascinating story of some experienced coaches getting the band back together.

Andrew Gates tells the story of a constant for 26 years, a piece of real estate that has played host to three different speciality running stores (page 43).

See you out there, say hi if you see me. I’ll be wearing a faded Richmond track hat and probably the same RunWashington jacket I wear every year.

Charlie charlie@runwashington.com

CUSTOMER SERVICE office@runwashington.com BRANDING ORANGEHAT LLC The entire contents of RunWashington are copyright ©2016 by RunWashington Media, LLC. All rights reserved, and may not be reproduced in any manner, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the publisher. Unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, results, or other materials are welcome but are not returnable and are preferred via electronic communication to charlie@ runwashington.com.

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Be advised that running is a strenuous sport and you should seek the guidance of a medical professional before beginning an exercise regimen.

@runwashington CONTRIBUTORS ANDREA S. RUTLEDGE (Keep the Kids off the Streets?) lives in Washington, DC. She is a writer, association professional, and late-blooming athlete who took up running three different times beginning in her early twenties; the third time was in 2006 and she hasn’t looked back.

ISABELLA TILLEY (Rolling Hills of Cement) is a senior at Montgomery Blair High School, where she runs on the cross country and track teams. She is managing features editor for Blair’s newspaper, Silver Chips.

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JOHN KELLY checks in with race director GARY “LAZARUS LAKE” CANTRELL before starting his fourth loop at the 2017 Barkley Marathons.

PHOTO BY ED ARAMAYO

ROCKVILLE’S JOHN KELLY FINISHES THE BARKLEY MARATHONS

BY CHARLIE BAN

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As fog rolled rapidly through the Cumberland Mountains in Eastern Tennessee, it created a strobe-like effect as dawn broke.

From a fire tower, Rockville’s John Kelly could be seen, then not seen, then seen again, as he climbed a long hillside cleared for power lines.

Kelly picked up something orange, shook it around and put it on his head. Days later, he was still thrilled with his good fortune.

“It’s one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen,” he said.

That hat, along with a plastic grocery bag that he fashioned into a poncho, helped Kelly, 32, mitigate the cold and rain, with just a few miles to go in what was probably 130 miles over 59 hours and 31 minutes, over some of the most rugged terrain in distance running.

“In 2017, he became only the 15th person to complete the Barkley Marathons in over 30 years, and the first from the D.C. area.”

“John’s performance this year was a clinic in how to succeed at the Barkley and the entire Barkley family was thrilled to see him become the fifteenth finisher,” said Arlington’s Keith Dunn, who has been involved with the race for 13 years, some as a runner and, since 2009, the de facto voice of the race on social media.

Gluttons for Punishment The race rewards resourcefulness and resilience, on top of endurance and navigational ability. From the very start of the 2017 race, the 40 runners who headed into the woods at 1:42 a.m. Saturday April 1 dealt with fog reflecting their headlamps right into their eyes. And it only got worse from there.

The race loops through Frozen Head State Park near Oak Ridge. Runners have less than 24 hours — roughly 10 this year — to check out the official map and create their own. GPS watches are replaced with $11 models. After a one-hour warning, race director Gary Cantrell lights a cigarette to start the race.

Runners have 12 hours to complete each loop, touch a yellow gate and start on the next.

During each loop, they search for 13 books that serve as checkpoints, from which they tear pages corresponding to their bib numbers.

Though the woods and hills are dense, runners are never more than two miles from a road. Nobody has died, and nobody has been lost beyond the 60-hour time limit.

“The race has always been a cult race, even among ultrarunners,” Dunn said. “People’s reactions range from ‘that’s the stupidest thing in the world’ to ‘that’s not a real race because it’s designed for nobody to finish.’”

The race entry fee is a pack of socks, a license plate and $1.60. That’s up from $1.55 in 1995, but runners get an even better deal, which is more of a curse. Those 20-mile loops advertised? They’re a little longer than that.

“The consensus, among people who have tried to map it out on Google Earth, is that a full Barkley is close to 130 miles,” Kelly said.

Over that distance, runners will climb 67,000 feet, and because what goes up must come down, they will accumulate 134,000

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JOHN KELLY refuels after the first loop of the 2017 Barkley Marathons.

PHOTO BY CONRAD LASKOWSKI

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feet of total elevation change.

In late 2015, Netflix viewers got a look at The Barkley Marathons: The Race that Eats Its Young, a documentary that brought the race to the masses and sparked interest in its traditions and challenge.

There are no trophies, and the post-race activity, even if someone finishes, is limited. When Kelly emerged from the shower at the campsite following his finish, almost everyone had left.

I Can See My House from Here After running at Oak Ridge High School, Kelly took a long hiatus from running in college and grad school. In 2013, he ran the Marine Corps Marathon, but it did not go well.

“I wasn’t prepared, I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said. “My training was horribly insufficient. I might as well have walked the last eight miles, my legs cramped so bad.”

But a 3:38 finish didn’t deter him.

“If my goal was to see what I could do, I don’t think that cut it,” he said. “Maybe I should actually do some training, give it a shot.”

He eventually got a Boston Qualifier at the 2014 Mohawk Hudson Marathon in New York, but it was a month after Boston registration for the next spring.

With a year and a half on his hands until Boston, he tried out some ultras and triathlons and decided to head to Tennessee and run the course he could see from his childhood home.

“If anything was going to present a measuring gauge that was taller than what I am, Barkley was it,” he said.

He navigated the secretive entry process with a combination of his running and speed hiking resume and the legacy of being a local.

“What cemented me getting in was the hometown aspect,” he said. “Having someone from the area, much less right next to the park, whose family has been there for 200 years. For someone like that to actually have any credentials and wanting to do it...the odds are astronomical.”

He scoured topographical maps to find the closest contour lines that would give him some steep climbs in the woods for training near home. He found a hill near a middle school where he could climb 20 feet over the course of 132 feet, for 400 feet of elevation gain for every mile. He recorded 2,000 trips, on the dot, up that hill during his first year preparing for Barkley.

For all of his endurance, climbing and navigational savvy, something still caught up with him — his nutrition.

“I figured I could survive on energy bars and gels,” he said, “but after a while, your stomach basically says ‘nope.’”

After three loops, he was done.

“My legs were alright, but my gas tank was empty,” he said. “I knew I wasn’t going to finish.”

His wife Jessi was shocked at his condition.

“It was really, really tough because I had never seen him like that,” she said. “I had seen him after marathons, but this was a whole

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other level.”

He aimed to prevent that the next year, fixing the nutrition component of his race by supplementing gels and bars with real food: salty maple nut bites, chocolate rice muffins, peanut butter and jelly rice waffles. He packs far more calories than he will consume in the later loops, early on carrying 2,500 calories, but lugging 8,000 calories toward the end.

“You could argue that I would be able to shed some weight if I didn’t take all of that fuel, but I never know what’s going to sound appealing,” he said. “I know my stomach is going to get more picky in the later loops.”

Vowing to come back and finish the job, he worked to fit training into his family and professional lives. The first two years, he had a toddler son, but this year’s arrival of a twin son and daughter added time pressure and a desire to be home when he could. He would run to work, giving him what he calls “free miles,” when he would otherwise be commuting to Dupont Circle.

He catches the Rock Creek Trail a quarter-mile from home and then takes the Western Ridge Trail.

“It’s awesome. I live in a congested urban area and I can run 16 miles to work, 14 are on bike path or actual dirt trail,” he said.

That’s how he fits in training while spending time with his wife and three young children.

“It’s about open dialogue,’ Jessi said about the balance the family strikes. “John’s focused on quality time. When we’re together, we’re together.”

But John doesn’t plan on trading on that forever. While he insists this wasn’t a “finish or bust” year for him, because Kelly insisted on never thinking beyond the coming race, he also didn’t plan to try forever.

“If I wanted to do it again, Jessi would support me, lovingly, but that wouldn’t not make me a jerk for doing it,” Kelly said.

It’s an Entirely Different Kind of Running, Altogether!

Though the race seems to incorporate aspects of orienteering, the course, while unmarked, is still mandatory. This year, Gary Robbins seemed to fall just six seconds short of the 60-hour time limit. But he had gotten lost and approached the finish from the wrong direction. The six-second margin was beside the point.

Using the full 60 hours to cover the likely-130 mile course, a runner would average 27:41 per mile.

“A few places that are highly runnable,” Kelly said. “At the end of each loop you’re coming down switchbacks on a gradual descent on well-maintained trail, you’re kind of letting it rip, there.”

But, “You can never just zone out and run, you have to focus on where you’re going.”

Other parts are uneven, unstable, unrunnable.

“It’s very important to have good form to make sure you’re being energy efficient,” Kelly

said. “Heading down a hill, you’re making sure you’re putting the least amount of impact on key areas, while still taking advantage of the downhill. There’s lots of going downhill sideways to minimize heel strikes and the forward pressure on your foot.

“In the end, how you run is determined by how your body is feeling at the time. By the end of the race, no matter what you’ve done, you’re going to have something that hurts. You have to be able to adapt and still keep moving forward while that thing hurts.”

And sometimes those pains help.

In the second half of the fifth loop, Kelly was suffering from blisters on his feet and damaged toe joints.

“I viewed those issues as pluses,” he said.

“I could have altered my form to avoid that but I could have slowed down in the process. At the same time, that pain is probably keeping me awake.”

Dunn says that self-awareness is crucial.

“You have to know your physical limits,” he said. “A few people have succeeded on their first try but, frankly, they’re not human.

You have to experiment a lot.”

That’s what makes Kelly’s achievement so noteworthy.

“To basically start running seriously four years ago and finish Barkley on the third try is amazing,” Dunn said.

Rockville’s Conrad Laskowski is a 2:26 marathoner, and he was floored by what he saw at Barkley. He came with Kelly’s high school friend Ed Aramayo to crew for another runner and justify being in camp to follow Kelly’s race. He checked out parts of the course and considered it against his own 45mile run on the rocky Appalachian Trail.

“That was a joke compared to this,” he said. “The running I [usually] see is efficiency — trying to run for a time — and your threshold is your speed. Here, your threshold is your humanity, your ability to tolerate being totally demoralized in every single way and still being able to move ahead. For some reason, having the mental fortitude to keep moving ahead.”

Without the benefit of GPS trackers or much communication from the course, aside from what people report from a fire tower, those at the camp are left to wonder how their runners are doing.

“We’re at camp, making a story in our own mind of what’s going on out there,” Laskowski said. “They come in for 10 minutes and we rush to take care of them, then they’re gone.

“It’s a brilliant non-spectator sport.”

It’s also a far less competitive environment than even the generally mellow ultrarunning community. With so few Barkley finishers, there’s enough goodwill that everyone wants to see people finish. When a race can go years without a finisher, runners can take all the help they can get. They share their experiences and insights. When runners drop out, they stick around to swarm the remaining runners when they reach camp and offer aid.

“People are out there trying to find what they can do relative to themselves, not

relative to other people,” Kelly said. “Sure, there’s a racing element and you can measure yourself as to how you’re placing, but for the most part it’s the internal fight against your own limitations and the course.”

For four laps in 2017, Kelly and Robbins ran together. The pair spent most of that time talking about course navigation and what was immediately ahead of them. So there were not as many deep philosophical discussions during their 48 hours together as some might expect.

“There are a few spots you can let your mind go at ease,” Kelly said. “We weren’t really chatting too much, though. You’d be surprised how little time you have to talk off-topic.”

Night of the Running Dead Assuming runners are prepared, sleep deprivation can have the greatest impact on Barkley. The physical and mental impacts of fatigue can compound quickly.

Rest is at a premium. Every second spent standing still is a second the runner isn’t moving toward the finish.

The flexible starting time presents a challenge for anyone trying to bank their rest beforehand — Kelly got roughly 45 minutes before the race started.

He slept in 15-minute increments.

Typically, runners sleep after loop three, but because the second loop ended at night, Kelly and Robbins took that opportunity to rest.

“You never ever, ever want to waste daylight doing something like napping,” Kelly said.

Involuntary naps can catch up at inopportune moments. Near the end of loop four in 2017, Robbins and Kelly were lost, trying to find the last book.

“We were standing there, trying to figure stuff out and I just fell over, into some leaves,” Kelly said.

Robbins roused Kelly, who said he instantly had laser focus and led them to the book.

“It’s funny how much that brief respite for your mind can clear things up,” Kelly said.

Those delays at the end of loop four meant there was no time to rest at the camp, and the two parted ways, heading opposite directions on the course, with some adrenaline that wore off soon after.

“I made it an hour or so, but the caffeine wasn’t helping... past a certain point it can’t do anything,” Kelly said. “I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t walk straight, I was worried I was just going to fall asleep while I was moving.”

His solution, rather than trusting his watch’s alarm, was to give himself no choice but to wake up in a few minutes. Looking for the most miserable place to nap, he climbed a cold, windy ridge and lied down.

“My body would have the choice to be incredibly uncomfortable or wake up.”

He also took a second, loop-five nap, on top of a mountain, on a rock.

“I think I hit my snooze button there and slept 20 minutes.”

Back at camp, Laskowski was sleeping in the car for a few hours at a time, and he would

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 9

reflect on the luxury he was enjoying.

“I was going to sleep, and waking up, multiple times, and every time, they were still out there running,” Laskowski said. “That was the crazy part, the sleep deprivation.”

Kelly’s battles with fatigue became legendary in 2016. Within a few miles of the start, he fell down a hill, was separated from other runners and spent the next four loops trying to catch someone else. When he reached the end of the fourth loop, the 13 minutes he had to start loop five was too short for a nap, so he tapped the gate to start his fifth loop and promptly collapsed 100 yards up the trail, in full view of camp.

He woke up and resumed the race, though he eventually turned back after retrieving one page.

“I was on top of a ridge looking down and wondering if I would be able to come back out on my own,” he said. “I turned and headed back to camp and fell asleep a few times on the way. It took me an hour to get to the first book, but four hours to get back.”

This is the Land of Confusion After alternating loops clockwise and counterclockwise — a last-minute surprise — Kelly and Robbins agreed on the directions they would head when they were forced to diverge starting on loop five. Kelly would go clockwise, Robbins, counter-clockwise.

“I’ve always thought that clockwise is the way to go for loop five,” Dunn said. “You get the stupider stuff out of the way early.

Others say counterclockwise is the way to go because you just did it and your memory is there when you’re exhausted.”

That was Kelly’s thinking, though he also picked clockwise for the scenery. The final book would be atop Chimney Top Mountain, where he could see his family’s farm.

“I hiked there a ton as a kid, I knew it really well,” he said. “I had always envisioned this grand moment when I’d get to the top, I’d rip out my last page and I’d look down at the farm and have this victory march down into camp.

“It wasn’t like that at all…”

Rather than being able to enjoy that feeling, his thoughts returned constantly to reminding himself what he was doing and to not fall asleep.

“I was starting to lose the ability to tell what was real and what was in my head.”

With an hour and 40 minutes remaining, he had the last page and was feeling good.

Then, the next thing he knew, he was down to one hour and 20 minutes and he didn’t recognize where he was.

“I don’t know if I fell asleep or if I just zoned out and wandered,” he said. “It was so foggy I couldn’t tell.”

He wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.

“Where am I? How did I get on this mountain? Is this Barkley?” he thought.

And he answered himself.

“This is Barkley. This is the fifth loop. You

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have all of your pages. You just have to get back to camp and touch the gate.”

He was able to find that last checkpoint and reorient himself. He had only been 100 yards from the trail.

It was cold, foggy and rainy. His feet were raw and the cold and pain were just enough to keep him from falling asleep. He worried that the rain and fog would make it hard to differentiate the creeks used for navigation.

“I was uncomfortably cold,” he said. “It was not dangerous cold, but if I stopped for a few minutes it would get dangerously cold. It was another factor that kept me moving, and moving fast.”

As he descended, he repeated his mantra, the only thing that mattered to him. For him, the only future he knew was, “Stay awake, touch the gate…Stay awake, touch the gate…”

Jessi was driving in from her in-laws’ house to make it in time for his finish, but almost missed it, pulling into the park when he was on the final stretch. John made it harder for her by continuing to run when he easily could have walked it in.

“I kept running because I thought if I stop, I might fall asleep,” he said. “I touched the gate and that was the first moment I was able to think about something else.”

Looking back, he realized how slim his margin was. “If I took a half-minute more per book, I’d have been over time,” he said.

Gloriously, his shower bore none of the burns familiar to distance runners. Despite his skin being carved up by briers for the last two and a half days, he felt only comfort in the warm water.

Even though he had totaled less than two hours of sleep over three days, recovery wasn’t as easy as lying down and catching up.

“You can’t just close your eyes and sleep for 20 hours,” Kelly said. “You have a lot of aches and pains that prevent you from sleeping. Your mind is still keyed up.”

From the campsite, Dunn manned the Twitter updates for the race. He started doing that in 2009, in Twitter’s infancy, thinking it was the perfect match between the medium and an event. He can connect the public with what is going on, but still leave a lot to the imagination.

“Everything takes place at the gate,” he said. “It’s the best way to provide updates and create a Barkley-like experience for people who can’t be here,” balancing the voyeuristic Barkley fans with the sanctity of the campsite.

The #bm100 hashtag is crucial, Dunn said, to gleaning the best use of Twitter — aggregating the different perspectives on the race. But even if demands increase, he plans to keep specific details, like start lists, scant.

“Less is more,” he said. “This is a race for runners, not for spectators.”

Not so fast, there JOHN KELLY climbs a hillside lined with sharp briars on his fifth loop of the 2017 Barkley Marathons.

PHOTO BY ED ARAMAYO

Kelly knows other runners look askance at Barkley, and ultras in general, as they could when extrapolating Kelly’s 2:49 marathon PR

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to his Barkley finish.

“I feel like there’s a bit of the road runner crowd that looks down on the ultra crowd, to begin with. They say ‘None of those guys running ultras has broken 2:10 in the marathon, so if one of them moved up, they’d crush everybody,’” he said. “Maybe so, but maybe it wouldn’t be so easy. You have to have such a mix of capabilities: you have to have the endurance, the navigational ability, the will power and you have to be fast. You can’t just will yourself to a Barkley finish.”

He is nothing if not sure of himself and his place in his sport.

“I don’t do Barkely to impress Let’s Run people. I really don’t care what they think,” he said. “Unless someone is specifically looking for praise from someone, it shouldn’t matter why they do it. This is an event I place high value on; I didn’t ask you to place high value on it.”

Laskowski had no doubt in his mind. He’s been around all levels of running and even after he left the foggy woods, he was sure of what he saw.

“I did not expect to walk away from that feeling like I had witnessed, quite possibly, one of the most amazing athletic endeavors I had seen in my entire life firsthand. It was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen,” he said. “I have a hard time wrapping my head around running 130 miles, period. To run 130 miles in 60 hours, with 45 minutes of sleep, in the rain, in the fog, in the dark, over that terrain. I can’t believe that there are two people on the fifth loop, let alone that they both finished about the same time. I still can’t fathom that.”

Poetic Justice Kelly will be back, but likely not as a runner anytime soon.

“I’ll never say never, but it’s a huge time commitment for myself and my family,” he said of training for the Barkley Marathons.

“The second finish... there’s just not the same added value as the first. I’d rather come down and crew for someone, help someone else do as well as they can. Get that side of the experience.”

In the camp, minutes after Kelly finished, someone approached Laskowski.

“Do you know what that is?” pointing to the orange stocking cap Kelly had found. “It’s an inmate’s hat.”

Inmates from the Morgan County Corrections Department were out on Rat Jaw, cutting back the briers from the power lines.

The race, inspired by one jailbreak, left the latest winner with an appropriate souvenir.

“I heard that too,” Dunn said. “It’s either a great urban legend at this point, or it’s truth.

“And the two often are the same at Barkley.”

Read an expanded version of this story at www. runwashington.com.

JOHN KELLY (left) and GARY ROBBINS head into camp following the fourth loop of the Barkley Marathons.

PHOTO BY CONRAD LASKOWSKI

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FROM HIGH SCHOOL TO MILITARY: MAKING THE TRANSITION

BY ANDREW GATES

TIM WARD. PHOTO COURTESY OF TIM WARD

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Military academies are some of the most revered institutions in the country. Many only take in around 4,000 students in total. Among that small number of students, even fewer compete in varsity athletics. Meet three local athletes now running at the United States’ military academies.

Dan Horoho U.S. Military Academy at West Point Like many high school athletes, Dan Horoho did not expect to fall in love with running. He started running to get in shape for lacrosse. But after one season of cross country and indoor track, he was hooked — so much so that he didn’t bother with lacrosse.

A 2017 Centreville graduate, Horoho made the Virginia state meet six times and was all-state in the 3,200 meters and 1,600 meters.

This fall, Horoho will be facing new challenges as he joins the cross country and track teams at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Choosing West Point was simple — his dad was in the Army — and Horoho was always drawn to the idea of following his father’s military legacy. After watching the Army-Navy football game on TV, Horoho says he started thinking seriously about attending West Point.

The past two summers, he attended West Point’s running camp program, and last year sealed the deal.

While college athletes struggle to balance training and school, Horoho says he’s not worried about that happening at West Point, where athletics are more heavily integrated into every student’s normal schedule.

“Everyone does a sport there, no matter what,” he said. “West Point does a good job structuring the day. Your classes don’t revolve around the team. The team revolves around your classes. West Point does a good job eliminating that fact of [sports] consuming your life. Everyone is required to do two hours of a sport every day from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.”

If his running commitments become larger than anticipated, Horoho says he will ultimately prioritize his classes above all else.

“I’m there to learn,” he says.

Horoho had not started his training as of late June, but he had his own set of expectations for West Point.

“I think the hardest part will be that it

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is different training than I’m used to,” he says. “There will be a lot more supplemental workouts than I’m used to … [the training] has a lot of core, a lot more upper body. They have a routine. It’s called ‘mahogany.’ It works the abs and more muscles than I’m used to.”

He sees these changes as positive. “I expect to look at running not as a sport, but as a science,” he says. “I’ve found my flexibility is a lot better since my core has been stronger.”

Horoho has the added advantage of knowing several of the West Point runners already.

“I know a couple of local guys that are going to be going up with me. One of them is a runner at Robinson [Secondary School] who is probably going to go onto the marathon team and another is a triple jumper at Fairfax [High School] who will be joining the cross country team with me,” he says. “My best friend is up there right now. He’s part of the marathon team.”

Briana Broccoli U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Briana Broccoli already has one year of military academy running under her belt. A sophomore at the Merchant Marine Academy, Broccoli ran one season with the cross country team but has now set her eyes on longer races, like half and full marathons.

While attending Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Broccoli loved competing in cross country. “I ran in high school under coach [Cindy] Walls for four years. It was a wonderful experience. It was awesome so I decided I wanted to do it in college,” she says.

Broccoli helped lead her high school team to four consecutive Washington Catholic Athletic Conference titles in cross country during her tenure. “That was the most fun for cross country in high school. That was a big deal in our school.”

After high school, Broccoli trained hard for her first season at the Merchant Marine Academy, putting in the miles before preseason even started. But her running schedule was interrupted by the basic training program called indoctrination, better known as “indoc” in the academy. “It interrupts the pre-season in a sense,” Broccoli says. “But after that, we start captain’s practices. We get right into it.”

Broccoli managed to win several accolades during her first season, including

Skyline Conference Rookie of the Year and an Eastern College Athletic Conference Metro Rookie of the Week award.

But as much as Broccoli loves to run, her real passion is sailing. When asked what she plans to do after graduating, she proudly says, “I think I want to sail.”

“I’m called a deckie,” Broccoli explains.

“Deckies basically steer the ship. I’ll come out as a licensed Third Mate. Hopefully I’ll work my way up to captain one day. I’m studying Maritime Logistics and Security … Basically I’ll come out with a Bachelor’s of Science degree.”

Broccoli says that finding the balance between running and studying can sometimes be a challenge. “I think it’s definitely hard to manage doing a sport and keeping atop of your academics. We go out to sea for a year, so we’re squishing four years of college into three,” she says. “I’m taking 19 credits now and that’s pretty normal … All the extra things you have on top of academics can take some of your time. It’s definitely a challenge to do both.”

But despite her successes both in the classroom and on the race course, Broccoli has no plans to return to the cross country team this year. “Coach [David Lawrence] is a great guy. He’s awesome. But unfortunately, he has this rule where you can’t do cross country without track and I do not want to be in season all year doing indoor and outdoor track because I am not a track person at all,” she explains.

Instead, Broccoli plans to run with a club team competing in half and full marathons. “I went a couple of times to practices last year,” she explains. “It’s a club. It’s student led.”

She gives some advice to high school students considering running at a military academy. “I would say, going to the academy and running cross country, they go hand in hand. Because to run cross country, you have to focus on a goal. It takes a lot of discipline to do that and you need to have a lot of discipline to go to a service academy,” she says. “Running at a college level is a good opportunity to push yourself and challenge yourself.”

Tim Ward U.S. Air Force Academy Tim Ward, a 2015 graduate of West Springfield High School, has a story similar to both Horoho and Broccoli’s.

Like Horoho, Ward’s eagerness to join the military came from his family legacy. “I’m a military brat. My dad was in the Air Force,” he says. Of course, education is also important to him, as he hopes to become either a pilot or an Air Force lawyer after graduating with a degree in legal studies.

Ward recalls the first few days on the team as the most difficult. Like Broccoli, Ward agrees that incoming military athletes are at somewhat of a disadvantage due to basic cadet training during the summer.

“With the Air Force, they treat [running] like any other collegiate program,” he explains. “We don’t get summer training going into our freshman year due to the basic cadet training.”

And the academy, near Colorado Springs, sits at 7,000 feet, adding altitude acclimation to the challenge.

Ward does not see this disadvantage to freshmen as a negative, but rather as a different way of introducing new athletes to the program. “The Air Force team puts a heavy emphasis on seniority,” he says. “I think [the two methods are] both good.”

Ward certainly notices a distinct difference between high school and military running programs.

“Coaches don’t hold your hand in anything,” he says. “It’s a more hands off [than high school]. Every week, we’re given a recommended mileage. After we send out weekly reviews [to the coach], he’ll ask us what happened [if we don’t meet our mileage], but he won’t hold us accountable each week to keep our mileage up.”

Ward says the training itself has also changed. “It’s definitely a lot more mileage,” he explains. “They bump up your mileage slowly because you don’t have the opportunity to train over the summer.”

“The mileage step-up can be a problem for some people,” he admits.

Ward also notices a distinct difference in the frequency of meets. “You have lots of opportunities to race in high school as opposed to college,” he says. That means nailing each race becomes that much more important at the college level.

“Most people who come to the Air Force Academy have a chip on our shoulder, because we weren’t recruited by the big schools like Oregon or Stanford, so we’ve got something to prove. So that’s our motivation.”

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PETER MORRIS, ABBEY GREEN, RYAN LOCKETT, PAGE LESTER, ADAM NAKASAKA, NATALIE MORRIS, MEGAN LYNCH, JACOB HUNTER, AVA HASSEBROCK, COLTON BOGUCKI, OLIVIA BECKNER, AHMED HASSAN, HEATHER HOLT, NANDINI SATSANGI, TYLER LAWSON, BEN NIBBELINK, SAMANTHA SCHWERS, DEREK JOHNSON, AVA BIR, YARED MEKONNEN RUNWASHINGTON PHOTOS BY DUSTIN WHITLOW/DWHIT PHOTOGRAPHY

BY CHARLIE BAN

With a national title contender in the Loudoun Valley boys team, a four-time Maryland state champion in the Walter Johnson girls team and a handful of runners who can make noise at the regional and national level, the D.C. area’s cross country scene looks primed for another great season.

Names like Ryan Lockett, Heather Holt, Peter Morris, Abbey Green, Ahmed Hassan, Page Lester, Colton Bogucki and more, by now familiar to locals, will likely be the talk of legions of runners, coaches and cross country fans across the country as their seasons go on and accomplishments pile up. Then, Sam Affolder did a cannonball and the pool of local talent began to spill over…

It sets up races like the Oatlands, DCXC, and Glory Days invitationals as the sites of some of the best racing in the Mid-Atlantic.

Those first races, opening the curtain to see how people have progressed from last track season, will be something to see, and there might as well be artists waiting at the finish lines to paint targets on the winners’ backs.

RunWashington’s coaches panel met for the fifth year to determine the 10 best runners among girls and boys in the D.C. area to compose the All-RunWashington team, and the seven in D.C., the Maryland suburbs

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in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties and Northern Virginia who are poised to take a shot at moving up. Those decisions were based on the performance of local cross country runners during the 2016 season, while observing trends during the 2017 track seasons. Runners who had not yet run for local teams but had moved into the area were not considered.

Legacy launching pad No season exists in a vacuum, and even though he has graduated, Richard Montgomery’s Rohann Asfaw played a big part in two Maryland runners’ breakthroughs last season.

Adam Nakasaka, a senior at BethesdaChevy Chase, took his shots at Asfaw every chance he could get, hoping one day he would break through and catch him. He didn’t, but in doing so managed to get the edge for second at the Maryland 4A state meet. He went on to finish 33rd at the Nike Cross Southeast meet, and was again runner up in 4A in the indoor and outdoor 3,200 meters. He impressed himself the most, however, with his winning anchor in the state indoor 4x800. “I’m not exactly known for my speed,” he said.

Ryan Lockett, back at Poolesville for his junior season after a year at Gonzaga, took off after he broke 16:00 to finish second at the Montgomery County championships. That gave him a jolt of confidence heading into the 3A West region meet.

“I just finally felt like it was a race I should win,” he said. “Breaking 16 minutes was a big step.”

He won, and then won again, running 16:00 at the hilly three-mile Hereford course, faster than Asfaw’s winning time in 4A. At the Montgomery Invitational indoors, Lockett took a fearless approach to Asfaw, who was “untouchable.” Lockett ran like he had nothing to lose and came within a hair of catching him. Then, a few days later, he beat him for the first time at the Montgomery County championship 3,200 meters. Lockett won the 1,600-3,200 double at the 3A state meet, but was disappointed by early season races. A surprise win in the Viking Invitational elite mile, in 4:16, raised his confidence for the Penn Relays 3,000 meters.

And he needed it, coming in as the second-to-last seed. He ran like it early, sticking to the rail in the back of the pack, but moved up steadily until he was in the lead with a lap to go. He didn’t pull it off, but

he came away having run 8:24. He followed that up with another 1,600-3,200 double at the state meet, including a 1-2 finish with teammate Andrew Lent.

“He helped me so much all year, and to turn around and see him, having blown the rest of the field away, was amazing,” Lockett said.

Lockett went on to finish third in the 3,200 meters at New Balance Outdoor Nationals.

Abbey Green has been leading the way for Walter Johnson since her first race as a freshman, and as a junior was Montgomery County’s first female Foot Locker qualifier in at least 18 years years, where she finished 21st at nationals, ahead of Heather Holt and Page Lester. “I’d never been in a race like that, where everyone is faster or as fast as you are,” she said.

Green won the Montgomery County championship for the second straight year, and remains undefeated at the 4A West regional.

Last summer, she got out of the pool and started running for her base training, rather than just swimming.

“I definitely felt stronger at the end of the

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season,” she said. “You can’t really work on hills when you’re swimming.”

She managed to catch her rival from Annapolis, Maria Coffin, at the indoor and outdoor state championships, winning the 2 mile and 3,200 meters. She later qualified for the Pan Am Junior Games in the 3,000 meters.

Triathletes and lacrosse players dominate D.C. cross country National Cathedral School senior Page Lester was the first D.C. girl to qualify for the Foot Locker finals last year following a late start to her season thanks to some injuries in the summer. She’s on the same track this year, having taken the track season off to recover from shoulder and hip injuries suffered during triathlon training.

“It’s nothing major, I just wanted to make sure I was all healed,” she said.

After starting her cross country career as a front runner, Lester started running negative splits during her races, which worked up until Foot Locker nationals, where she finished 32nd.

“People don’t come back to you much at this level,” she said. “It was more competition than I’ve ever had before.”

Trailing her most of the season was Georgetown Visitation’s Megan Lynch, who joined the cross country team as a freshman to get in shape for lacrosse. After winning the DCXC freshman race, though, she knew she had some talent. Knowing Lester was a top runner, she focused on sticking with her, sometimes falling off a lot — like at Glory Days — and sometimes falling off only moderately, when she finished second to Lester at the D.C. “state” meet, now held at Kenilworth Park.

She ended up not even playing much lacrosse, having injured her foot, but by midMay, with the help of a cortisone shot, she was back on the field and ready to go back to cross country training.

ABBEY GREEN

Cross-river friendship A Poolesville teammate of Lockett’s,

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AVA HASSEBROCK

BEN NIBBELINK

junior Nandini Satsangi, has been running since deciding that the walk to elementary school was too slow for her.

“I would run to the end of the block and then my mom would tell me to stop,” she said.

Now, she is a fan of point-to-point running, sometimes up to 10 miles to get to her pool.

She was the Maryland 3A cross country runner-up as a freshman, had a tough race at the state meet as a sophomore, but finished second at the DCXC Invitational to Tuscarora’s Ava Hassebrock for the second straight year.

“I love racing with Ava,” she said.

“Everyone in the running community is really nice, really supportive.”

Satsangi closed out her sophomore year by winning the Maryland 3A outdoor 3,200 meters.

Across the Potomac River in Leesburg, Hassebrock started feeling at home running cross country, which she picked up in lieu of playing volleyball. In her first two years, she recorded two fifth place finishes at the Virginia 5A championships, along with wins at the freshman and sophomore races at the DCXC Invitational.

“As I got better, it became something I really wanted to do,” she said. “I started to be able to judge how to run my races based on the courses, and experience has helped a lot with that.”

Tuscarora was second in Virginia 5A last year, and with George Marshall moving to 6A for the postseason, the Huskies will lose one of their big rivals over the past few years.

Hassebrock said the amount of preparation that coach Troy Harry puts in lets her focus on the technical aspects of the race and waste little time worrying.

“He lets us know who’s in the race, who we should look out for, and he can judge pretty quickly what kind of training will work best for you,” she said.

Virginia sports depth in all divisions Northern Virginia continues to cast a long shadow over the region’s cross country community, playing host to all major invitationals aside from DCXC.

AHMED HASSAN

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Despite feeling “off” most of last season Tuscarora senior Derek Johnson managed to win the DCXC Invitational junior race and finish sixth at the 5A state meet. He followed that up with a 9:14.98 3,200 meters at the Dogwood Track Classic and a fourth place finish in the event at the 5A state meet.

He was more assertive throughout the season.

“For two years, I figured I could do well, for an underclassman. Now, I just want to win. I look at the whole race,” he said, acknowledging that his earlier approach rationalized his performances and let him take it easy on himself. “When you’re racing yourself, you can spin the story, but when you race people, you can’t hide from the results.”

He has gained a solid training partner in fellow senior Ben Nibbelink, who spent most of his junior cross country at Tuscarora behind the eight ball, a little short on base training after recovering from a stress fracture at the end of the prior track season. His 23rd place finish at the 5A state meet did not portend his 9:10.60 3,200-meter win at Dogwood, ahead of Johnson and fellow All-RunWashington honorees Peter Morris and Colton Bogucki from Loudoun Valley.

“I just can’t wait to get out there and race all of these guys,” he said, during the All-RunWashington photo shoot. “I’m excited to really open things up at Oatlands and see what kind of shape I’m in.”

Loudoun Valley senior Natalie Morris recorded 4A runner-up finishes in cross country and the outdoor 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters, along with third place in both distances during the indoor season. She was 38th at Nike Cross Southeast.

She and her twin brother, Peter, have been running for three years, and she has gained a passion for it.

“I like the actual running more than I used to,” she said. “Once I got through the entire three-season cycle, things seemed familiar to me.”

She has led the Lady Vikings to two straight 4A runner-up finishes in cross country. Still, she thinks her peers at school underestimate running.

“People don’t understand how hard it is,” she said. “This isn’t just jogging, not just anyone can go win. That’s probably why I like it so much, you really test yourself.”

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DEREK JOHNSON

NADINI SATSANGI

Further East

HEATHER HOLT & AVA BIR

Lake Braddock senior Samantha Schwers had no interest in running early on, but her soccer coach’s daughter suggested she give it a try. Though she didn’t like it initially, her mom made her stick with it, and before too long the social aspect of running won her over. A stress fracture before soccer tryouts kept her off the field. She turned to track when she was healthy and hasn’t looked back.

“I’m a really competitive person, and that definitely helps me in this sport,” she said.

“Running is very mental, so if you don’t have that, it’s tough.”

She finished sixth at the Virginia 6A cross country meet last Fall, helping Lake Braddock to its second straight title, and finished 26th at Nike Cross Southeast to help the Bruins to a national berth.

Schwers feels she is best at the 800 meters, in which she was runner-up at the 6A outdoor state meet and ran a 2:12.89 personal record and won the Northern Region in that event.

Tyler Lawson was hooked on running after a few community 5k races as a kid, but didn’t formally train until joining the Lake Braddock cross country team as a freshman.

“I just really like being able to push myself, to see what I can do,” he said.

Lawson didn’t plan to run track, but friendly peer pressure from his teammates got him to stay around. He discovered he was a distance runner “in the middle of my first 800 (meter race).”

He was third in the outdoor 3,200 meters this Sping, and eighth as a junior in the 6A cross country state meet, and with champion Oscar Smith moving out of the state, he is the second-ranked returning runner, after Oakton senior Ahmed Hassan.

Hassan won the Dogwood 1,600 meters, running 4:12.87, after winning the indoor 6A 3,200 meters, getting sixth in the Penn Relays 3,000 meters (8:31.10), and finishing fifth at the 6A cross country championships.

“Dogwood was where everything was clicking. I had a high mileage week and I ran 4:12,” he said.

Overall, compared to the beginning of his junior year, “I’m much stronger now. I don’t fade in races. I’m going for the win, rather than just trying to run fast.”

Olivia Beckner joined the South Lakes

NATALIE MORRIS

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cross country team because her mother made her, then she struggled through injuries for the first two years. She broke out as a junior, finishing fourth at the 6A state meet and 18th at Foot Locker South.

“I want to be more competitive. With Heather (Holt) coming into my region, it’s going to get tougher,” she said. “And I need to be tougher. I put myself where I am comfortable, not where I could be, so I should take more chances.”

Although many of the All-RunWashington team members tended toward the Nike Cross Southeast Meet, Edison senior Yared Mekonnen, who ran Nike last year, is aiming for the Foot Locker finals in San Diego, hoping to follow in the footsteps of 2014 Edison graduate Louis Colson. He finished 28th at Nike Cross Southeast, fifth at the 5A Virginia cross country championships and seventh in the 5A 3,200 outdoors.

“I think I have the stamina to make Foot Locker,” he said. “I’ve been working on my kick, so I think if it comes down to that, I can do it.”

It’s a long season, so Mekonnen is planning to increase his intensity slowly but steadily.

“The key for this season will be patience,” he said.

Heather Holt reclaimed, as a junior, the state individual title she had won as a freshman. This time, though, her single point in the scoring led George Marshall, in only its third appearance at the state meet, in winning the 5A title.

“That was something we’ve been looking toward for a few years,” she said. “We knew we could do it, but making it happen was amazing.”

Holt honed her skills by focusing on different aspects of her race every time she was on the course, which eased her nerves.

She was a close second at Foot Locker South, and went on to finish 27th at nationals.

Marshall, along with the school currently known as J.E.B. Stuart (it will be getting a new name within two years), will compete in the 6A postseason. Senior Ava Bir will be along for the ride. She joined the Marshall cross country team as a sophomore after the taste of winning the state 4x800 meters in her freshman year clashed with the political world of soccer.

“Why was I sitting on the bench when I could be winning championships?” she said.

She finished ninth at the 5A state meet, then won the Foot Locker South junior race.

“I was getting really tired in the last mile, but I told myself to pick it up so I could break the finish line tape,” she said. “Then I got there and there wasn’t any tape. But I acted like I broke it anyway.”

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OLIVIA BECKNER

RYAN LOCKETT

TYLER LAWSON

ALL-RUNWASHINGTON

PAGE LESTER & MEGAN LYNCH

Colton Bogucki Ahmed Hassan Jacob Hunter Derek Johnson Tyler Lawson Ryan Lockett Yared Mekonnen Peter Morris Adam Nakasaka Ben Nibbelink

Sr Sr Jr Sr Sr Sr Sr Sr Sr Sr

Loudoun Valley Oakton Loudoun Valley Tuscarora Lake Braddock Poolesville Edison Loudoun Valley Bethesda-Chevy Chase Tuscarora

Olivia Beckner Ava Bir Abbey Green Heather Holt Ava Hassebrock Page Lester Megan Lynch Natalie Morris Nandini Satsangi Samantha Schwers

Sr Sr Sr Sr Jr Sr So Sr Jr Sr

South Lakes George Marshall Walter Johnson George Marshall Tuscarora National Cathedral School Georgetown Visitation Loudoun Valley Poolesville Lake Braddock

Timmy Bitsberger John Colucci David Giannini Matthew Laskowski Luke Tewitt John Travis Philip Wright

Sr Sr Jr Sr Sr Sr Sr

St. Albans Gonzaga Gonzaga St. Anselms Latin Gonzaga Sidwell Friends

Eliz. Cayenne-McCall Brennan Dunne Abigail Howell Cady Hyde Micahela Kirvan Allie O’Brien Ruth Tesfai

Jr Jr So Sr Jr Sr

Sidwell Friends Georgetown Visitation Georgetown Day St. John’s Georgetown Visitation Wilson McKinley

ALL-D.C.

ALL-MARYLAND Luke Armbruster Aaron Bratt Josh Engels Josh Fry Simeon Mussie John Riker Garrett Suhr

SAM SCHWERS

Sr St. Andrews Jr Walt Whitman Sr Walt Whitman Sr Bethesda-Chevy Chase Sr Einstein Jr T. S. Wootton So Richard Montgomery

Josephine Brane-Wright Jr Morgan Casey Jr Heather Delaplaine Sr Helena Lee So Yasmine Kass Sr Logan Rohde So Jessica Treziak Jr

Montgomery Blair Montgomery Blair Damascus Northwest Paint Branch Poolesville T. S. Wootton

ALL-VIRGINIA Natnael Asmelash Edward Cerne Andrew Delvecchio Zach Holden Mason Joiner Kevin Murphy Chris Weeks

Sr Sr Sr Sr Sr Jr So

J.E.B. Stuart Lake Braddock Lake Braddock James Madison Westfield James Madison West Springfield

Sarah Coleman Sarah Daniels Caroline Howley Chase Kappeler Nicole Re Seneca Willen Emma Wolcott

Jr Sr Jr Jr Jr Jr Sr

West Springfield Lake Braddock McLean West Springfield Chantilly Robinson Tuscarora

COACHES PANEL John Ausema Anthony Belber Steve Hays Kevin Hughes Mike Mangan Chris Pellegrini Kellie Redmond Scott Silverstein Cindy Walls

YARED MEKONNEN

Gonzaga Georgetown Day School Walt Whitman Georgetown Visitation School Lake Braddock West Springfield T.S Wootton Winston Churchill Bishop O’Connell

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 25

BY CHARLIE BAN As last season came to a close in North Carolina, Loudoun Valley’s disappointment felt cushioned by potential.

Though the Vikings failed to make Nike Cross Nationals, they were on the cusp. They made up ground on a team that had beaten them soundly seven weeks earlier and one junior, Peter Morris, had qualified for the finals with another, Colton Bogucki, one spot away.

Jacob Hunter, just a sophomore, was 20th.

“We weren’t good enough to go,” said coach Marc Hunter. “It would have taken one of those other teams to fall off. We ran well but we didn’t run great, but everybody improved, and as a coach, that means everything.”

With all of those runners and more returning, the clouds that hung over the team started to fade.

Then, in December, they parted. Jacob Hunter got a message from a kid he knew from Pennsylvania.

“Hey Jacob, we’re moving to Virginia and we might be teammates,” read the message from Sam Affolder, who had just recently finished second to his older brother Noah at the Foot Locker Northeast meet.

“Jacob, someone got ahold of Sam’s phone and was playing a prank on you,” Marc recalled telling him.

Then a month later, at the Millrose Games, the Affolder family made some serious inquiries into where they should settle in Northern Virginia for two years while Sam’s father is

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stationed at the Pentagon for two years.

“We looked around closer to the Pentagon, but my parents knew I wanted to run at Loudoun Valley,” Affolder said. “He [My dad] chose the long bus ride so I could go here.”

Marc Hunter, who commutes to Springfield from Purcellville, leveled with the elder Affolder.

“It sucks, there’s no way around that,” he said. “It’s a few hours out of your day,” but that’s the kind of sacrifice many people make to live out there.

“I honestly thought we lost him then.”

But for the Affolders, it’s a chance to do something for Sam, who has gone along from move to move, never staying anywhere longer than four years, in a house off of the installations, with a pool. He called running for Loudoun Valley “a dream come true.”

With Affolder’s transfer public in April, and a 9:02 3,200 meters to his credit, expectations shot up for Loudoun Valley.

By the end of July, two different national rankings — Tully Runners and The Harrier — favored the Vikings.

Marc Hunter is a little worried about the pre-season hype, though his wife, coach Joan Hunter, sees enthusiasm in the boys, rather than stress.

“I’ve told the guys, this is going to be harder than you think,” Marc Hunter said. “The number one team all last season got second at nationals. They got blown away. We’re a

The Loundoun Valley top eight run their home course at Franklin Park in Purcelleville. From left: PETER MORRIS, JACOB WINDLE, CHASE DAWSON, NOAH HUNTER, KEVIN CARLSON, CONOR WELLS, COLTON BOGUCKI, and SAM AFFOLDER. RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY ED LULL

broken wrist, a gym class concussion, a case of Lyme disease [all of which have befallen LV runners] from blowing this.”

“We’ve been working with these guys for four years now. Without Sam, without Connor [Wells, a junior transfer from Freedom High School], we were going to be a top 5-8 team in the country already.”

Joan takes a systematic look at it all, focusing on personal development and challenges that will combat complacency.

“We’re just trying to build them up, keep them healthy and run more miles this fall than they did last year,” she said. “Increase some of the intensity and have them ready to go in November and December. Take advantage of some of the opportunities they’re going to have at a couple of meets to run against other strong teams.”

They’ll get one of those opportunities at the Great American Cross Country Festival, where they finished third last year. In the meantime, they’ll try to survive and improve through the fall.

Morris, last year’s 4A champion, sees races as challenges to see how well the team can run as a pack and how well the team can take control.

The Vikings were no slouches before, at least in the last few seasons. Since the Hunters took over the program in 2014, the roster will have almost tripled and the boys have won two Virginia 4A titles, each time placing three runners in the top six — Morris, Bogucki and one Hunter each year (Drew in 2015 and Jacob in 2016). At the same time, the girls team has finished as runner up the last two years, with Morris’ twin sister Natalie also taking second individually in 2016. Over that time, Loudoun Valley has captured four straight individual state titles: three for Drew

Hunter and one for Peter Morris.

Even though Drew, once a Foot Locker champion and now running professionally, is no longer on the team, his influence is still instrumental to getting Loudoun Valley where it is. Had he not shown promise and commitment to running as a sophomore, his parents would not have resumed their high school coaching careers and gone all-in on making the Vikings a powerhouse.

The team’s success has fed its growth.

With 140 kids on the roster, “We’re over 10 percent of the school,” Marc said. “Part of that’s the Drew effect. They say, ‘Wow, cross country is cool. Why wouldn’t I want to run cross country. Why would I, a 150 pound kid, do fotball?”

But now, with Drew heading off to train in Colorado, it’s an opportunity for the team, and some of its individuals, to make their own history.

“We’re not in the Drew Hunter era anymore, we’ve shifted toward being a complete team,” said Affolder, who despite six months of communication with his new teammates is still getting his first look at the team in action and still brings an outsider’s perspective. “I know it’s a situation where there won’t be much disappointment from everyone else if someone doesn’t win an individual title as long as the team does well.”

Those expectations would seem to weigh on junior Jacob Hunter, who exceeded some of Drew’s freshman times but rejects expectations that he will keep that up, year-for-year.

“I’m my own person, and I’m satisfied with that,” he said. “I love the team aspect of this sport, the way your fifth man is just as important as your first, and the feeling you get after running a really hard 5k. It’s like nothing I’ve felt in sports.”

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He ran a 4:17 1,600 meters this spring.

Morris (who ran 9:12.65 for 3,200 meters this spring) and Bogucki (9:13 3,200 meters and a 4:14 1,600 meters) have dedicated themselves to aiding their recovery and body maintenance recently.

Bogucki, who remains motivated by that finisher ahead of him at Nike Cross Southeast who got to go to nationals, has cut back on meals out, and despite a demanding academic schedule his junior year, is dedicated to getting more sleep.

Morris has taken a keen interest in nutrition and cooking, particularly experimenting in the kitchen, with a focus on “basically anything you can put in an omelette.”

Those four will likely be joined as scorers by junior Jacob Windle, with senior Chase Dawson, sophomore Carlson and junior Wells in the hunt for the other varsity spots.

Joan Hunter hopes to see all of her runners increase their focus on the middle of the race, where at times they have let the pack get away from them.

“We’re strong on the starts and their kicks, but they fall asleep sometimes in the second mile,” she said.

While freak injuries can derail a season, like sophomore Kevin Carlson’s broken wrist, the Hunters don’t take any risks with overuse injuries.

“We’ve been injury free because we spend an inordinate amount of time on prevention,” Joan Hunter said. “In our first year, we would have 20-30 injured kids, and that’s who Marc would spend all of his time working with. Now, we don’t have anyone injured, particularly the beginners, and that’s tough to do.”

Marc said that buy-in from parents has been crucial to the team’s success, particularly understanding the depth of the commitment the team carries.

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“You can only coach the kids so much,” he said. “The parents have to buy in, and know we need [our athletes] at practice every day.

The football coach wouldn’t let little Johnny take the day off to go to King’s Dominion. We are as much a varsity sport as those other sports. It’s getting through finally.”

Affolder has already seen the Hunters’ commitment.

“Practice might go three hours, but they’re there for every kid finishing his workout, every kid who needs instruction on drills,” he said.

It’s a routine the Hunters have honed over 10 years of running the Nova Athletic Club, which sports runners from nearly every Loudoun County school.

“We have enough quality programs that we’re rivaling Fairfax for the best runners in Northern Virginia,” Marc said. “You used to show up to meets and see Chantilly, West Springfield, Lake Braddock and just know they were going to win. Things are changing.”

And runners are starting to notice what Loudoun County has to offer. Some travel there to run on the dirt and gravel roads that see scant traffic.

“One of the great things we have out here is a chance to get off of the sidewalks,” Marc said. “It’s a good place to live, without a lot of distractions, and a great place to run.”

They won’t be racing on dirt roads if they make it to nationals, though. They know the Nike course in Portland is muddy, so they will train with that in mind.

“I’ll ask the boys, ‘What can you give up to make this happen?’” Marc Hunter said.

“Everyone can find something they can give up. We have to sacrifice some things to overcome some things. If we break even, the sacrifice will meet the obstacles.

“I think we can win.”

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30 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | FALL 2017

Cross country is a little different in the city

BY ISABELLA TILLEY Cross country is a rough sport. Athletes brave all kinds of weather and all kinds of terrain; they run on hills, rocky trails, mud and sometimes even through creeks. Sometimes that iconic and pastoral racing environment isn’t available every day, but even in a “concrete jungle” with some of the worst traffic in the nation, many D.C. runners still log those miles.

Ruth Tesfai is a senior at McKinley Technology High School and one of the District’s best cross country runners, named to the All-RunWashington D.C. team.

Tesfai’s team runs around Eckington, the neighborhood in which McKinley is located, and they often make trips to the National Mall when they want to run longer distances. The team has access to the Metropolitan Branch Trail, but Tesfai says that that trail is usually too short for the McKinley team.

On her own, Tesfai spends more time running on trails and parks than through urban neighborhoods. She likes to run on the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail, the Mall, and also makes trips to Fort Dupont, where many of D.C.’s cross country meets are held.

“I go to Fort Dupont, if I need to practice more hills or to work on the course,” she says.

But the urban environment of D.C. has more places to run than one might expect: “D.C. is surrounded by a lot of trails, and we have the National Mall ... we have ... space,” Tesfai says.

Lionel Edmonds, the cross country and track coach for Lincoln Multicultural Middle School (Lincoln is a part of the Columbia Heights Education Campus, which also includes Bell Multicultural High School), agrees that there is enough space. The larger challenge for Edmonds’s team is that Columbia Heights does not have a track. The school has a field, but the cross country and track teams have to share it with the other teams. Instead of using the field, the Columbia Heights cross country and track teams run off track or borrow the track of nearby Cardozo Education Campus.

Edmonds says his team would frequently run up and down the hills on 14th and 16th streets, sometimes taking one of the streets down to the National Mall. For a really good hill workout, Edmonds says that the team goes to 15th street, which has relatively little traffic.

The major disadvantage to running in an urban area, Edmonds says, is the constant pounding on cement.

“My biggest concern in urban areas is the constantly running on concrete, which I know is not really good for your knees … I mean, space is not an issue, just the type of space that we’re running on,” he says. “If we were in the suburbs or something or maybe even at a private school we would have access to more wooded areas, something that’s closer to what we’ll be running in during cross country meets.”

Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, a magnet school across from Howard University, faces a problem similar to that of Columbia Heights: little track access. Though Banneker has a track, according to former cross country and track coach Michael Pryor, his teams were typically unable to use it because it is often being used by the public.

That didn’t stop Pryor from coaching several athletes to the awards podium at Banneker.

Though Pryor tried to get the sprinters access to the track as often as possible, it was common for the whole team to run offtrack together. Distance runners and sprinters alike would cross Georgia Avenue to run hills or simulate grassy cross country races on Howard University’s campus.

Occasionally, Pryor would take his team to the Capitol, where the athletes would run stairs or to parks like Fort Dupont, where they could run through the woods. Getting to parks was often a hassle, though, since they weren’t close to the school. “If we were going to a park, the parents would either have to take us or we would catch the metro, so that meant we had to leave as soon as school was over,” Pryor says. “For the most part, if we were practicing near the school, we were running hills or doing something on Howard’s campus.”

Even if the cross country athletes of McKinley Tech, Columbia Heights, and Banneker aren’t running through mud and creeks or scaling mountainous trails, their grit and dedication to the sport are just as strong as that of any other team. “[Being in an urban area without a track] was more of an advantage than a disadvantage,” Pryor says.

“It gave the kids this mindset of never giving up, because we had to work so much harder for what wasn’t just given to us.”

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 31

The clash between a running id and the coaching superego

BY ANDREA S. RUTLEDGE

Road racing is a different world from cross country and track.

It’s harder on knees, ankles and feet than other surfaces. But the crowds are bigger, the runners potentially faster and the atmosphere at many races is a wild diversion from dual meets and invitationals.

For high school runners, the road is a place to experiment, learn and challenge themselves. It is also where many will continue their running careers later in life. For coaches, many of whom raced at one time, the road is fraught with risks and dangers. There is a conflict between athletes’ enthusiasm and coaches’ wisdom.

Berni Flynn, the coach at Thomas A. Edison High School in Alexandria, is a former 400-meter runner and hurdler who moved up to distance events in college. She is clear with her athletes: she does not want them racing on the roads during the season because she worries about injury and burnout.

“I don’t think some athletes or parents understand that for most of them it is too many miles for their experience level, nor do most understand that running too much, too soon often is a common cause of injury,” she said.

In her 34-year coaching career, she has seen her younger athletes be most eager to try road racing. A few years ago, a freshman ran the Las Vegas Half Marathon as part of a family trip and spent the rest of the spring season recovering from overuse injuries.

Nevertheless, she does allow off-season road running, particularly when athletes treat an

32 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | FALL 2017

event as a tempo run, and she brings members of her team to the Crystal City Twilighter 5k as an optional activity.

There are also special cases. Last year, Patrick Brown, a junior, asked to run the Navy-Air Force Half Marathon, which was scheduled for the day following the Oatlands Invitational. Initially, Flynn told Brown he could run one or the other. Brown agreed to run the half marathon as an easy, long run and Flynn agreed to let him race at Oatlands. She then adjusted his workouts for the following week in order to ensure proper recovery.

Brown was Edison’s Most Improved Runner in last year’s cross country season and will run both events again this fall.

Brown likes road racing because there are no roots on the course and he can focus on speed rather than his footing. As he and Flynn agreed, he kept the pace easy and ran the half as his weekly long run. The experience helped him.

“Whenever I am running a 5k for cross country or te 3200 meters for track and I feel tired, I know for sure I can run a lot farther than I am currently running,” he said. “Road racing provides a big confidence boost for racing during the season.”

Lake Braddock coach Mike Mangan gave up road racing about 20 years ago. His athletes do not race on the roads during the season and he does not actively encourage it during off-season training.

“My worry for those that want to race more is that the focus is supposed to be training in

the summer and not racing,” he said.

Still, he does allow them to race on the roads once or twice during the off-season as long as the focus is on having fun. His team ran Crystal City this year and several of his athletes did well. Mangan sees their Twilighter success as the effect of good summer training rather than racing. Mike does not want his athletes to risk fatigue or injury for the fall, given that is it basically the start of a ninemonth season, when cross country is paired with indoor and outdoor track.

One of his athletes, Andrew DelVecchio, uses road races during the summer to work out at near-race-pace and to compete with his teammates in a low-stress environment.

He enters his senior year named to the Virginia All-RunWashington Preseason Team. Last Spring, he ran the 3.2 Mile Run in Remembrance at Virginia Tech with his brother, and he ran the Twilighter this year.

Andrew finds that road racing can simulate cross country races, especially for practicing race strategy.

“Road races can be crowded and claustrophobic at the start line and this is good practice for getting off the line and jockeying in a pack during cross country races,” he said.

Chad Young, the coach at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, got his start while running for his high school. His coach used an early Summer 8k as a baseline to see how everyone was doing and to identify goals for summer training. Today, Young occasionally runs the

Army Ten-Miler or Cherry Blossom, and enjoys local races that support local causes.

Now in charge of his own team, he doesn’t complement or supplement his athletes’ training with road races, and prefers that they stick to the training and racing plan.

But he is not an absolutist.

“I will work with them if there is a race they are passionate about running,” he said.

“In the off-season, I encourage them to run in a few road races and to have fun with them, but I don’t place any expectations on them.”

His willingness to accommodate road races in-season wanes as the championships near.

Laura Webb, a junior at Woodbridge High School, also ran the Twilighter. She sees road racing as a way to compete with different people in a low-intensity way while gaining experience for the regular season.

This has been especially important for her in the transition from track in the Spring to cross country in the Fall.

“Every race is a chance to gain experience, so by adding in extra races before the school season I am more prepared to compete when it counts for my school,” she said. “By running a 5K road race now I am setting myself up for success this Fall.”

The experiences of these coaches and athletes suggest that the conflict between coach and athlete over road racing can be managed. It is all about balance: manage the experience to avoid injury and fatigue, while having fun and learning important lessons.

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 33

BY KATIE BOLTON

Coaches DAVE DAVIS and BILL STEARNS got the band back together to start up Colgan’s track and cross country programs.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVIS

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 35

Cross country runners at Colgan High School in Prince William County perform drills before an August 2017 practice.

RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY DOUG STROUD

When Charles J. Colgan, Sr. High School opened last year, there were no championship banners hanging in the gymnasium. No trophies lined the trophy cases. No records existed to be broken by ambitious younger generations. Traditions, legends, the stuff of student mythology was yet to be written. So when administrators chose to field a varsity cross country program in the school’s first year, there was only potential before them.

They hired Dave Davis and Bill Stearns, two of the most accomplished coaches in local running, to build their team. Davis was a 2012 finalist for the Brooks Inspiring Coaches award and was inducted into the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame in 2011. He has won seven state titles to Stearns’s five.

Stearns, for his part, has coached a Marine Corps Marathon winner, state and national champions, and All-Americans across his career. With Davis’s longtime assistant coach Melissa Tirone rounding out the leadership, they formed a kind of coaching dream team.

Their task? Develop their athletes until they could challenge any of the other eleven schools in Prince WIlliam County.

Davis was right at home in the new halls, having built teams from nothing four times before. Stearns had tended towards floundering teams that he could transform into powerhouses, then spent over a decade as the Athletic Director at Potomac High School. On the side, the duo recently took over coaching duties for the All-Marine Running Team. Neither coach sees winning as his job, exclusively, but they’ve certainly been known to do that.

The students who came out for cross country in the 2016-2017 school year had no one to look up to and no idea what they were in for. At 14, 15, 16 years old, these young athletes didn’t know that their coaches had been training champions since before they were born.They only saw three adults invested in their well-being and progress, who ribbed and respected each other in equal measure, and who aimed to build well-rounded athletes with strong character who will succeed far beyond high school. It was enough. One by one, the youth embraced the sport, the challenge, and the struggle to grow from seed.

Gabby Layne, Colgan’s top female finisher at their conference championships last year, is a budding leader and one of very few students who chose to transfer to Colgan.

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Her younger brother was assigned to the new school, and after two years running track and cross country for Osbourn Park, Layne saw an opportunity to reinvent herself.

“Before I came to Colgan, I wasn’t really outgoing or anything at all,” she recalls. “But when I decided that I was going to go to a new school, I said, this is a new opportunity. I knew that the team would have to be worked on and we’d have to build our own team, and so I told myself that I was going to get the team to know each other.”

Their early practices were tough.

Everyone tells the same story: on the first day, the coaches asked the team to run out and back. “See what you can do,” they said. The students departed into the nearby woods.

Out of sight of their coaches, Layne recalls nearly half of them walking. Stearns caught up with them easily.

“You run?!” The students marveled.

“Yeah, I guess you don’t!” Stearns taunted.

The coaches laugh to tell it now, but it was a moment of accountability for the new team. The coaches were watching. They expected more of their athletes and they’d be beside them to make it a reality.

Having two years more experience than her teammates, Layne would often run ahead at her pace, then circle back to greet and encourage others. Some of them, she recalls, “They’d just nod their heads and kept going at the same speed.” Others would pick up their pace. “They became competitive and wanted to do better,” said Layne. “It was a great feeling because you know you’re empowering others.” Plus it gave her company until Stearns connected her to train with competitors from Potomac High School.

Though this could have created a rift in the team, Layne made it a point to learn every runner’s name “so that I could cheer for them on the sidelines whenever we were running.”

She enjoyed seeing her friends’ reactions to courses she knew well, and she feels confident in the rapport between her teammates.

Let Leaders Emerge Without full junior or senior classes, Colgan’s younger athletes are at a disadvantage. They don’t have peers reinforcing the team’s values or modeling what’s possible with hard work and patience.

Long ago, Stearns adopted a policy of never naming captains by royal decree. He would see which students took on those responsibilities and let the leaders emerge from the grassroots. They were not always the fastest runners. Rather, the were the ones that teammates admire and enthusiastically follow. With a sparse and unknown senior class, Davis and Tirone embraced the plan out of necessity, and then with enthusiasm.

Layne is an obvious example of a student rising to fill a leadership void. Stearns recalls another who once blossomed under this system: Brian Letendre never led the pack but he made friends and motivated his teammates at Potomac High School. After college, these traits led Letendre to the Marines, where he was deployed to Iraq once and later volunteered to return. Emotion creeps into Stearns’s voice here: in 2006, Letendre was killed when suicide bombers attacked his post in Anbar province. Stearns has no doubt he was behaving as he always did, protecting his team in his final moments.

Make Every Runner Better When they say they want to make every runner better, the coaches are taking a broad view.

“For some kids, that will be being a state champion or going to nationals,” says Stearns. “For other kids on the team, that will be being better as a senior than they were as a freshman.” Both goals are valid and the coaches will work with students to help them do their individual best.

Ultimately, Stearns says, “It’s nice to be a great athlete, but you want people to respect you and to appreciate you.”

Student athletes face competing priorities, demanding schedules and big life decisions looming before them. These challenges don’t disappear just because their desks are unscratched and the floors unscuffed. School records might be easy to come by early on, but Stearns believes that runners who learn persistence and patience succeed later in life. In particular, he says, athletes who never reach the podium often become doctors and lawyers, professions that require hours, days, years of diligent work without reward.

At the urging of their coaches, Colgan’s athletes are well-behaved, well-liked, academically motivated students. Stearns

thinks this approach should be self-evident, but has seen schools allow talented athletes to misbehave and coaches push for victory at their players’ expense. Ultimately, the Colgan coaching team believes its role is to build well-rounded athletes of strong character.

“We feel that being a good athlete comes, well, after being a good person,” he says

The Future of the Team At the Virginia 6A Conference 4 CrossCountry championships last fall, the Sharks inked their motto--Fear the Fin--on their calves, and junior exchange student Antonio Lopez blazed to a first place finish, later going on to place ninth at the state meet. His teammates performed well enough to finish 4th and the girls 5th in their conference, a respectable beginning for a group that could hardly run ten minutes at the beginning of the season.

This summer, the Sharks have been building their base, hoping to start the season as strong as they finished last year. Many of them ran track or competed in other sports during the school year, maintaining their fitness in the long winter months. Layne looks forward to incoming first-year and transfer students to fill out their ranks.

“I just hope that we keep our work ethic up,” she says, “that we continue to do what we’ve been doing, and to be dedicated and eating right and getting sleep throughout the year with all the tests and exams that go on.”

The coaches’ goals remain equally modest. Davis outlines a simple target and its aspirational ripples: “The emphasis is on improving the athletes so we become competitive so we have the opportunity to compete at some point in time for a title or a championship or even an individual title.”

They will continue with their athleteoriented approach and see what comes of it.

The athletes will benefit from their coaches’ decades of success and from their emphasis on process and relationships.

In sum, “Winning takes care of itself if you take care of the athletes.”

And the team did win in its first year, and will likely win more as its athletes progress. The banners, trophies, and plaques will come, as they will in other sports over time. But that will always come second to building a strong work ethic and running family on the Colgan teams.

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 37

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FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 39

By Beth Roessner Coach Herb Tolbert can’t go anywhere in Gaithersburg without someone calling out, “Hey, Coach!”

It’s a testament to his commitment to the community. A retired Gaithersburg High School guidance counselor and one of the school’s track and cross country coaches, Tolbert has been a pillar in the Montgomery County running scene for over 40 years. Still proud and enjoying what he does, Tolbert is nearing the point where he’s coaching his kids’ kids’ kids.

“It’s kind of like six degrees of Coach Tolbert,” he said with a smile.

Tolbert, 70, has spent his entire teaching and coaching career at Gaithersburg, and simply put, it’s the kids and close-knit community that have kept him there.

Running has had a huge impact on his life, and he still runs everyday — although slower than in his youth. His three dogs — Joanie, Jesse and Billy — are all named after runners. (His chocolate lab Pre passed away a few years ago.)

Tolbert grew up in a housing project in Buffalo, watching many neighborhood athletes go on to college and professional sports. Starting young, he tried to emulate the older kids and became involved in sports.

He played basketball and ran collegiately in Buffalo, and after graduating in 1972, moved to Gaithersburg to start counseling at the high school.

His coaching career began in 1973, just after Title IX prohibited sex discrimination in education and paved the way for women’s sports in schools nationwide. That included Montgomery County, and Tolbert was asked to coach Gaithersburg’s women.

“That first year was really interesting,” Tolbert said.

Not all county schools had a team, he said, and if they did, many didn’t have more than a handful of runners. There were about five or six girls’ teams in Montgomery County.

Now, the county boasts 25 coed teams, one at every high school.

That year, he also took the helm of the women’s basketball team, which drew some runners who used the hardwood for winter conditioning. The following spring, a women’s outdoor track program was added and Tolbert volunteered to coach.

“The men had to get used to the idea that the women were going to use the facilities,” Tolbert said. “We had no uniforms. We had no schedule. Going to some schools, they only had 10 kids on a team. Those first years were tough.”

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The track and cross country teams became blended in the late 1970s.

Throughout his tenure, Tolbert worked hard to ensure that his kids understood that running is both a team and individual sport.

“With cross country especially, you can have the best runners in the state on your team, and your team could be average at best. It doesn’t matter what the first person does. It matters what the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh runners are doing.

“I keep the kids that are our fourth or fifth [finishers] engaged because they are important,” he said. “They are very important.”

Outcomes are not based on the team’s stars, Tolbert said. They’re based on everyone together.

“It’s what I like about cross country. It is one of the truly great team sports,” Tolbert said.

“He didn’t think of it as an A team and a B team,” said former Tolbert runner Danniel Belay, a junior at Rider University. “Regardless of talent, he gave every single person an opportunity to shine.”

Although humble, Tolbert prides himself on his coaching style. He’s firm, but not overly aggressive. He’s friendly but still demands a lot out of his runners. He never gets angry and he never yells. After working under and with aggressive coaches, Tolbert understood it was ineffective and opted to reach out and connect with the young runners — especially the women.

Tolbert developed a good cop/bad cop strategy with fellow coach Fran Parry during the ’80s and ’90s. It was during this time that the cross country team rose to dominance.

“He was my alter ego. He was the crazy one,” Tolbert said. “There were times when he’d come up to me and say, ‘I’m going to go give that kid heck. Be ready to go talk to him.’

And I would. This went on for years.”

Tolbert would be the voice of reason and steer the student back into practice when everyone had cooled down. The two of them, along with other coaches, were inducted in the inaugural class of the Athletic Hall of the Fame at the high school in 2015.

But, Tolbert expects a lot out from his kids, said Erin Gorely Gentzel, 41.

“He gives you a summer plan,” Gentzel said. “He gives you very detailed and often personalized workouts. He gives you times specifically to your ability to hit. He expects you to give 100 percent at every practice. He expects a lot of you not as a runner but as a teammate.”

Gentzel, who ran for him in 1989–93, describes him as the voice inside her head that wouldn’t let her quit. She kept going

because she didn’t want to let him down.

“I wanted to show him that all of his effort, all of his passion, all of his enthusiasm, all of his belief in me was worthwhile. That I was worthy of all the effort he put forth.”

There was one time, however, where she distinctly remembers being thrown out of practice because she wasn’t working hard enough. That bruised ego took a long time to heal.

To this day, Gentzel still values Tolbert’s opinions and asks for his guidance when she needs it — running or not.

“He becomes a part of the family,” is a sentiment that many of his former runners share. Gentzel has invited him over for family dinners. Belay saw him turn a running team into a family, and created a close-knit running community in Montgomery County.

“He’s brought that family atmosphere to every school in our county,” said Belay, who ran for Tolbert starting in 2011. “He had that relationship that he not only connected to you on a coach-and-athlete level, but it was also like he was part of your family. Once he started doing that, he brought me closer to the sport.”

When and if Tolbert does retire, Aaron Anderson hopes to be the next Coach Tolbert.

As a current assistant coach alongside Tolbert, Anderson tries to be an encouraging and positive coach, not a domineering force.

Anderson, 33, has been coaching with Tolbert for about seven years. After high school and college, he had no desire to return to Gaithersburg, but Tolbert convinced him to stick around and join the coaching staff.

“He’s my mentor. He’s my role model.

Asking to help him coach was like my dream job,” Anderson said.

Anderson ran for Tolbert after he moved to Gaithersburg during his sophomore year of high school in 1998. Tolbert convinced him to run for him, rather than joining the school’s football team.

“He’s such a great guy; it’s kind of hard to say no to him,” Anderson said.

But when that retirement will happen is up in the air. Tolbert absolutely loves what he does. His wife, however, is ready for him to take a step back.

His views on coaching retirement go hand in hand with running. He wants to continue doing both as long as possible. Heart bypass surgery in the early 2000s didn’t stop him, so why should age? Although he’s running a little slower and not as far, he wants to remain a source of inspiration.

“I’m still running,” he said. “I hope I inspire those kids to get out and to run. I hope I can run forever.”

One more marathon Tolbert only got into distance running after college, when fellow coaches urged him to join them in races. He eventually worked up to marathons, running “around 30,” recording a 2:33 PR and finding stride as a masters runner.

While gearing up for Boston in 2001, Tolbert had trouble breathing. A day that started with a doctor’s visit ended with heart bypass surgery.

After a few years of recovery, he qualified for Boston again in 2007, but high temperatures on race day forced him to drop out. He came back two years later and finished it.

“That was a really important moment in my running to be in Boston again and finish it,” he said. “I haven’t run a marathon since.”

After having run at least one Boston in his 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s, Tolbert wants to score one for his 70s. But, he has to get the permission from his doctor first. In the meantime, he keeps running on his own, with a weekly mileage of 30 to 35. He’s tried duathlons, but has to be extremely careful in how he executes his race-day plan.

“My cardiologist and I both agree that the safest thing for me is to not get into them,” said Tolbert. “I’d rather be able to run everyday than go out and do something stupid.”

He’s so competitive, he said, that he pushes himself too hard and doesn’t know when to back off. Even when running on his own for fun, just the idea of racing gets him excited and he starts picking up the pace. For now, he keeps his runs easy, and the only races he does is with his wife, who helps reign in his paces.

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 41

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1/14/16 4:53 PM

CHRIS KELLY helps hit a customer during his last shift at 7516 Leesburg Pike, before his Potomac River Running store moves to Vienna.

RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY DUSTIN WHITLOW

One address, three running stores

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 43

By Andrew Gates “We’re moving,” reads a massive sign in the storefront window at 7516 Leesburg Pike near Tysons Corner.

To the passerby headed to do some grocery shopping, it may seem like just any other storefront. But this location, one of the the longest continuous-running specialty running stores in the D.C. area, has held a special place in the running community since 1991. That’s not to say it hasn’t changed over the years, starting as Fleet Feet Sports, then Metro Run and Walk and, finally, Potomac River Running.

It all started with Lea Gallardo, who opened the store as Fleet Feet Sports.

She describes that Fleet Feet owner 26 years ago as “the slowest runner in Northern Virginia.” Yet she had been involved with the Reston Runners, Reston Triathlon and Reston Bike Club since the ’80s.

“I had a very entrepreneurial spirit and when an existing Fleet Feet in Reston came up for sale in 1990, I negotiated to buy it,” she said. “That didn’t work out but it put me in touch with the Fleet Feet franchise company and that’s where that connection came from.”

In 2001, Gallardo’s 10-year contract with Fleet Feet expired and she changed the name to Metro Run and Walk, partly in an effort to appeal to a broader market.

“The big change in running had begun in the mid ’90s,” she said. “It wasn’t just for young, skinny guys anymore. Thanks to the new charity events, everyone could participate in running. And then, many folks, including myself, began to see the extreme benefits in walking.

In changing the name, we needed to embrace everyone. I also wanted a universal type name because I knew my brother was thinking about opening [a franchise] in South Bend, Ind.” Chris Kelly has been with the store for most of its journey. “I was actually the first paying customer in 1991,” he said. “They had very personalized service. I became a customer for life. And when I retired from my full-time job, I told Lea that I wanted to work in her store.”

Kelly has worked there for the last 15 years and has become an integral part of the store’s history.

“We like to say he came with the store,” said Derek Holdsworth, a colleague of Kelly’s at Potomac River Running.

Before working with Gallardo, Kelly was a software developer who worked on Wall

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Street, the Pentagon, and in downtown D.C. “It was really fast paced, exciting,” he recalls. “The thing I liked most about [those jobs] was if you failed, they fired you, when you succeed, they pay you well.”

“Having that type of stress was tailormade for running. I can’t tell you how many times we’d be sitting at our desks at 3:00 a.m. downtown and we had to get our systems up,” he recalls. “And someone would say, ‘Hey, let’s go for a run,” and most times, the solution would come right to us.”

Kelly ended his career in software development in 2000, but did not seek out a new job right away. “I waited a little over a year. I was very young. I was 54. I was paid very well and I just didn’t feel like jumping into [a new job].”

Kelly eventually started working for Metro Run and Walk in February of 2002 and found it easy to transition into another performance-based work environment.

“That same type of attitude was a perfect fit for working with Metro Run and Walk because the whole idea was: get the person the right shoe for them. Don’t oversell, make sure to get the right shoe and really dwell on that,” he said. “It was an easy transition for me to do that.”

In an age when running specialty stores were in short supply, Metro Run and Walk was a hot destination for those seeking quality running gear.

“Anyone who wanted to go to a running specialty store anywhere from Winchester [to D.C.] had to drive all the way in,” recalls Ray Pugsley, co-owner of Potomac River Running.

“It was so crowded. It was like a deli. People had to pick a number and wait their turn.”

“Supposedly we were the fourth-largest running store in the country,” Kelly said.

“Part of that idea was you stayed with your customer from start to finish. That was what Lea wanted us all to do … On a Saturday, the most I ever counted was 30 people waiting in line to get their gait analyzed. We had eight or nine people on staff at a time.” Today the store normally schedules two or three staff members at a time.

“As with all success, what happened then was there were a lot more running stores.

Pacers, and others, all started taking a part of the pie,” Kelly said. “Success breeds other people wanting a piece of the action.”

Potomac River Running, founded in 2003, was one of those other stores. “[Potomac River Running] ended up there because we purchased Metro Run and Walk from Lee Gallardo,” Pugsley said. “She approached us sometime in early 2009. She was ready to retire and move on and she was hoping to keep the store going … She wanted to see that it continues. She didn’t want it to just shut down … Based on our [company’s] geography and our existing business, she thought we could represent that space well.

We bought the store in June 2009.”

Pugsley was excited to include the store location as part of his company. “Certainly that location was historically a great location because it’s right in between the beltway and 66 and Route 7,” he said. “On paper, it’s a really good location. We were really excited to be in that spot that has such a history.”

Shortly after moving in, Pugsley renovated the space. “We redid the store and modernized it,” he explains. “The counter used to be in the middle of the store. Then we redid the store and moved the counter where it is [near the entrance]. And the treadmills used to be in the middle of the store and they’re not in the middle of the store now.”

It’s been that way ever since.

Kelly says it was easy to make the transition from working with Gallardo to working with Pugsley. “Now Potomac River Running is a wonderful place to work,” he said. He is especially fond of the company’s name. “I always thought it was appropriate for me to work there because I’ve always been running on the C&O Canal by the river for the past 26 years. I’ve been with these guys now for about the past seven and a half years.”

Having worked in running specialty for the past 15 years, Kelly has noticed some significant changes in the type of customer who comes through the door.

“I think that’s the biggest change I’ve noticed over time across the running store career is that now the runners are the minority for our customers,” he explains. “I would say 15 years ago, 99.9% [of customers] were runners. And then over time, Lee [renamed it] Metro Run and Walk.”

He says the simple name change helped bring in new clientele. “We had a lot of women who walked. It was incredible. And they spent a lot of money on clothes,” he said. “So we

had an avid walking community and an avid running community.”

“Running has diminished ever so small every year,” he said. “Last night I had four customers who were actual runners and I was so jacked. Today I’ve had two customers [who were runners].”

But at long last, 7516 Leesburg Pike closed its doors for good in early August this year, ending the storefront’s historic 26-year legacy. A new Potomac River Running store will take its place only four miles away at the corner of Center Street and Maple Avenue in nearby Vienna.

When asked what he thinks about the store moving, Kelly laughs. “From a selfish standpoint, I live about five minutes from the store [Tysons],” he says. “But most of the customers that I’ve dealt with in the last month and a half, I’d say about 90 percent of customers who ask us about the move are pleased. I was very surprised by that.”

Pugsley, however, is not surprised. “We feel that the majority of our customer base wasn’t living right in the direct close proximity of the store, that the majority of our customer base treated our store as a destination. And therefore, moving closer to Vienna is moving closer to the bulk of our customer base,” he said. “We were never getting people just walking over from their house. Everyone who came to shop was driving from somewhere else.”

Gallardo, now living in Florida, could see the change coming years ago.

“At that time, Tysons Station was a rundown strip center where businesses came and went on a regular basis,” she said. “That shopping center was located at one of the most incredible crossroads in the country — Route 66, Route 7 and Route 495. For years we had the center to ourselves; our customers could park and test out shoes all over the parking lot. Half the stores were empty. And that was the ‘be careful what you wish for’ moment. Along came Trader Joe’s and [that] changed everything.”

With that change comes the reality that Kelly now has to take a new commute for the first time in 15 years.

“I guess I’m old enough now to come to terms with the fact that all things change,” Kelly said. “We hate it, but they change.

There’s nothing I can do about it, so go with the flow.”

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 45

Upcoming races is not a comprehensive listing of road races, but are chosen for their proximity to the Washington, D.C. area. Listings are based largely on information provided by race directors on the free online race calendar at www. runwashington.com. Race directors should be advised to add their races to the calendar as soon as possible to aid inclusion in this listing. It is wise to confirm event details with organizers before registering for an event. Date and times are subject to change.

RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY BRUCE BUCKLEY

AUG. 26

SEPT 10

SEPT 23

QUANTICO 12K

DAMASCUS FREEDOM 5K

KENSINGTON 8K

QUANTICO, VA

DAMASCUS, MD

KENSINGTON, MD

PARKS HALF MARATHON

RUN FOR ETHIOPIA 5K

ROCKVILLE, MD

SILVER SPRING, MD

GEORGE WASHINGTON PATRIOT RUN

MASON DISTRICT RUNNING FESTIVAL

MOUNT VERNON, VA

ANNANDALE, VA

AUG 27 SOUTH LAKES 10K RESTON , VA

SEPT 1

PSV STRIDE FORWARD 5K

SEPT 16 RACE TO BEAT CANCER 5K

FAIRFAX, VA

HEMLOCK HALF MARATHON AND 10K

WASHINGTON, DC

SEPT 24

CLIFTON, VA

LAKE NEEDWOOD XC

CABIN JOHN KIDS RUN

DERWOOD, MD

POTOMAC, MD

5K 60 WHOLENESS

NATIONAL CAPITAL 20 MILER AND 5 MILER

LANDOVER, MD

POTOMAC, MD

WOMEN OF NOBLE CHARACTER 5K

ROCKS 5 MILE RUN

HOLY CHILD TIGER TROT 5K

ALEXANDRIA, VA

FAIRFAX, VA

POTOMAC, MD

KENTLANDS/LAKELANDS 5K

SPRINGFIELD KOC 5K

RUN! GEEK! RUN! 5K

GAITHERSBURG, MD

SPRINGFIELD, VA

ALEXANDRIA, VA

SEPT 2

CLARENDON DAY 5K/10K CLARENDON, VA

SEPT 3

SEPT 17

LARRY NOEL 15

REVENGE OF THE PENGUINS 10-MILER AND

MCLEAN, VA

GREENBELT, MD

20-MILER

PERFECT 10, 10 MILER AND 10K

CARDEROCK, MD

RESTON, VA

SEPT 4

SUPER H 5K

ADOPT A SOLDIER 5/10K SPRINGFIELD, VA

GREAT AMERICAN LABOR DAY 5K

NAVY-AIR FORCE HALF MARATHON/ 5 MILE

SEPT 30

FAIRFAX , VA

WASHINGTON, DC

FALL IN LOVE 10K/5K

NORMA E. BOYD 5K RACE FOR EDUCATION

WASHINGTON, DC

GREENBELT, MD

OKTOBERFEST 5K

HISTIO TY-FIGHTERS 5K AT BURKE LAKE

POTOMAC, MD

ARLINGTON POLICE, FIRE & SHERIFF 9/11

PARK

THE HAPPIEST FUN RUN ON EARTH! 10K/5K

MEMORIAL 5K

FAIRFAX STATION, VA

CLIFTON, VA

ARLINGTON, VA

FALL BACKYARD BURN 5M/10M TRAIL

9/11 HEROES RUN

RUNNING SERIES-RACE #1

ALEXANDRIA, VA

LORTON, VA

SEPT 9

OCT 1

FOOD FOR OTHERS TYSONS 5K

BOO! 10K

MCLEAN, VA

WASHINGTON, DC

46 | RUNWASHINGTON | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | FALL 2017

BORDER PATROL FOUNDATION 10K WASHINGTON, DC PRINCE WILLIAM HALF MARATHON BRISTOW, VA WE’VE GOT YOUR BACK 5K RESTON, VA

OCT 7

OCT 21

NOV 10

RACE FOR EVERY CHILD 5K

TOWNEBANK OUTER BANKS MARATHON &

WASHINGTON, DC

SOUTHERN FRIED HALF MARATHON

MCM KIDS RUN

KITTY HAWK, NAGS HEAD, MANTEO, NC

ARLINGTON, VA CROSS COUNTRY ON THE FARM XC DERWOOD, MD

NOV 12

MARINE CORPS MARATHON/10K

VETERAN’S DAY 10K & WALK

ARLINGTON, VA

WASHINGTON, DC

BLACK HILL 10K BOYDS, MD

THE DOMINION CONSULTING VETERANS DAY 5K

THE TRAIL MIX

OCT 28

ALDIE, VA

MAKE YOUR MARK MONTGOMERY 5K AND 1K

GLORY DAYS GRILL 5K

ROCKVILLE, MD

CENTREVILLE, VA

GHOST, GOBLINS & GHOULS SPOOKTACULAR

NOV 18

5K & SCARECROW SPRINT FUN RUN

TURKEY TROT 10K & TURKEY TROT MILE

ASHBURN, VA

QUANTICO, VA

OCT 8

FAIRFAX, VA

GHOUL GLOW RUN

DUPONT CIRCLE CLUB 5K - 2ND ANNUAL

ASHBURN, VA

GEORGETOWN, DC

JOSHUA’S HOPE, INC. ZOMBIE FUN RUN & 5K

NOV 19

ARMY TEN-MILER

MANASSAS, VA

FALL BACKYARD BURN 5M/10M TRAIL RUNNING SERIES-RACE #4

WASHINGTON, DC

OCT 14

OCT 29 FALL BACKYARD BURN 5M/10M TRAIL

LORTON, VA

SHEPPARD PRATT HEALTH SYSTEM STRIDE

RUNNING SERIES-RACE #3

NOV 23

BALTIMORE, MD

GREAT FALLS, VA

ALEXANDRIA TURKEY TROT 5 MILER

MATTHEW HENSON TRAIL 5K

MONSTER MASH 5K AND 1 MILE FUN RUN

ALEXANDRIA, VA

SILVER SPRING, MD

MCLEAN, VA

FAIRFAX TURKEY TROT

TASTE OF ANNANDALE 5K AND FUN RUN ANNANDALE, VA

OCT 15 HOME RUN 10K/5K

FAIRFAX, VA

NOV 4

RESTON, VA

SCHAEFFER HALF MARATHON / 10K TRAIL RUN GERMANTOWN, MD

NOV 26 FALL BACKYARD BURN TRAIL RUNNING

ROCKVILLE, MD FALL BACKYARD BURN 5M/10M TRAIL

TURKEY DAY 5K AND FUN RUN

RUNNING SERIES-RACE #2

NOV 5

RESTON, VA

FIDELITY INVESTMENTS PARKS 10K

SERIES - RACE #5 FAIRFAX STATION, VA

WASHINGTON, DC

FALL 2017 | RUNWASHINGTON.COM | RUNWASHINGTON | 47

AARON LIIVA shows off his secret weapon at the 2016 DCXC Invitational.

RUNWASHINGTON PHOTO BY CHARLIE BAN

BY ASHLEY DAVIDSON

It started by accident, but before every race, Aaron Liiva made sure he dabbed a little bit of marinara sauce on his spikes.

He didn’t use any particular type — although the Blake alumnus mentioned he’s partial to Costco’s Kirkland Signature brand.

Usually, he just made it a point to save some of the sauce from his pre-race spaghetti.

It began when Liiva spilled marinara sauce all over his uniform right before a race.

But that day, he ran a 40-second PR. Since then, he’s added the ritual to his long list of pre-race routines, which also include placing an oak leaf in his right sock and wearing the same bandana.

“I have a lot of pre-race rituals,” Liiva said, pointing to his bandana. “I started wearing the bandana, so I don’t want to not wear the bandana because it might be bad.”

The field at last year’s DCXC Invitational was full of traditions and superstitions.

Some are calming and serious.

“Our coach always says to close our eyes and pictures ourselves as the champions,” said Junho Kim-Lee, who graduated from Sidwell in June. “That’s something our coach has always done. And I like how he does that.

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I think it really helps to take a moment to think about how you want to run.”

Other superstitions and routines can make a person shudder to think of them.

“First, I have to crack my [right] hip. I can run without doing it, but it’s just something that I feel like I have to do. I started doing it my junior year and that’s when I started getting good at this,” said Maya Jacobson, then a senior at Quince Orchard. “I’m also convinced that if I don’t wear this bracelet, something really bad is going to happen. The one time I didn’t wear this bracelet, I put myself in the slow heat of the mile of indoor track and I ran really slow.”

And some runners and teams swear by just loosening up with laughs.

“We say, ‘Are you ready to get nasty?’ then we are like, ‘Yeah, we are!’ And we get a banana and throw it around,” senior Colin Affterton said of the Westfield team, adding that they’ve dubbed “Cooking By The Book” — a rap remix of a song from a kids’ show — as the official team song.

Whether any of it helped them run faster is up for debate.

“We just have a lot of fun doing it,” he said.

Which, in the end, is why people do a lot of things.

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