This weekend is a particularly busy one for the club, with it being the last weekend of training for the club's 16-week Army Ten-Miler Training Program, the Marathon Training Program nearing its completion date after more than four months of training and the National Capital 20 Miler and 5 Miler Race being run on Sunday, September 27.
The 10M program experienced a three-fold increase in participants over last year's program thanks to the club being named the exclusive training partner of the Army Ten-Miler Race this year, an association brought about by Program Director Emily Grossman who did a tremendous job in deftly handling the greatly increased complexity of this summer's Program. This week will feature a taper run of 8 miles at the 3 locations, the trainees having run 11 miles last week in the Program's longest run. The Army race is Sunday, October 4th. Emily has been made the Program Director for the club's upcoming SunTrust National Marathon & Half Marathon Training Program, which will kick off with weekend conditioning runs next month prior to the official start of the Program in November. Stay tuned!
The MTP did its longest run of 22 miles last week and will step back on Saturday with a run of 14 miles before embarking on a 20-mile run on October 3rd. The participants are eager to tackle their target marathons, mostly the MCM next month, and thanks go out to Program Directors Alex Barrage and Kristin Dahling, who doubles as the SLR Director, for bringing each trainee so close to the start line in a ready condition, where (gulp) the rest is up to him or her!
Sunday September 27th will see this year's running of the club's National Capital 20-Mile and 5-Mile Race on the scenic Mt. Vernon Trail south of Alexandria, The 20-Miler starts at 7:30 a.m., the 5-Miler goes off shortly thereafter. The longer race is currently filled due to a decrease, announced only last week, in the number of racers allowed this year on the trail by the Park Service, but Race Director Chuck Evans, assisted by VP of Racing Ben Richter, is negotiating with the Park Service for a possible return to the old limit of 500 runners. Stay tuned (but there will be no race-day registration in any case). Packet pickup is on Saturday at Gotta Run at 1101 S. Joyce St. in South Arlington from 11-4 p.m. If you can volunteer for this race, please go to the race's page on this website to sign up.
