On Saturday June 5th, John drove me out to Algonkian Regional Park down in Virginia on the Potomac River for the 5:00 a.m. start of the North Face Endurance Challenge, Washington D.C. edition 50 mile trail race. 
On the morning of Saturday April 10th I drove down to Hemlock Regional Park along the Occoquan River in Clifton, Virginia to run my second Bull Run 50 Miler (see previous post from the 2009 race below). The Bull Run Run is a 50.4 mile trail run in the rolling hills of the Virginia countryside alongside the Occoquan River with two out and back loops (see the map of the course below) that includes ~6300 feet of climbing throughout. "The BRR is a beautiful, tough run on the Bull Run Trail in 
Northern Virginia sponsored by the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club. The run's unique character includes a Civil War theme that respects the battles that occurred here many years ago. The BRR is a difficult challenge, but many have finished it. It is not easy, but it is not brutal. The BRR is not for casual runners, but if you like to run trails, come enjoy a day in Virginia's spring beauty as we honor those who fought here many years ago."
On Saturday March 6th, 2010 I drove the 20 or so miles out to Riley's Lock in Seneca, MD for the Seneca Creek Trail Marathon & 50k. Finished in 5 hrs 39 min. 
Since starting school at Georgetown in 2004, I had successfully run and biked through 5 winters in Washington D.C. without much consternation... until the winter of 2009/10 arrived. On the night of Friday December 18th, the weather forecast was calling for a massive snowstorm of 18 inches or more starting after midnight and continuing all day on Saturday. Sure enough, come midnight the snow starting falling. Excited to go out in some fresh powder before it all melted, I laced up my running shoes that night around 3:00 a.m. and set out on a quick 6 miler out-and-back on MacArthur Blvd. There were a good 4 to 5 inches on the ground already. It was so much fun slip-sliding through the fresh powder. Turned out to be one of the most fun runs I can ever remember. Got cheers and honks from the many snowplow drivers - I felt like I was Rocky Balboa training for a prize fight through the streets of Philadelphia. Little did I know when I went to bed that night that this was not to be the last run through the snow this winter.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Yates Field House at Georgetown University, a 30 miles in 30 days swim challenge was offered in the natatorium. I decided to give it a shot. The Yates lap pool has 8 lanes 25 yards in length and is 3.5 - 5 feet deep. One mile in the pool equals 1650 yards or 33 laps in this 25 yard pool. I would thus have to average 33 laps per day in order to swim the required 49,500 yards (990 laps), and I would also have to factor in a couple rest days before the Marine Corps Marathon I was running during the first week of the challenge. Here's my daily swim log:
I ran my 3rd Marine Corps Marathon and 4th big city marathon on October 25th, 2009. I got to the start line in plenty of time this year and was able to m
eet up with the 3:10 pace group, who if I could manage to keep up with through to the finish would qualify me for Boston. The gun went off at 8:00 a.m. on schedule and I crossed the start line just a few seconds later feeling pretty well trained and confident that I could actually do it this year.
The course passes the Kennedy Center and takes runners into Hains Point at approximately the halfway point of the race. Outside Potomac Park, runners pass the Jefferson Memorial before entering the National Mall and running by the Lincoln memorial, Washington Monument, and the U.S. Capitol. Runners continue along Jefferson Drive and then cross the 14th Street Bridge back into Virginia at mile 20. For the last 10K runners venture through Crystal City, pass the Pentagon, and charge the hill to the finish at the Marine Corps War Memorial."
or so who for the large part had similar hopes for the day as me. It was rather uncomfortable running on the heels of such a large group and always maintaining their subtle shifts in pace so by mile 5 or 6 I broke away and got a few hundred yards ahead of them. John and the parents were out to cheer me on when I came over the Key Bridge into Georgetown around mile 4 and again when I came down MacArthur Blvd past my new apartment around mile 8. I was feeling strong running down such familiar stomping ground but still had some doubt about my ability to maintain the current pace over the length of the course. The 3:10:59 time to qualify for Boston translates into 7:17 min/mile pace and 22:37 per 5k. My splits from the race are below:
tely not a conscious decision to let them go. Looking back now I can clearly see that I ran out of energy about mile 19 or 20 and should have been getting more calories throughout the race so as not to have bonked so hard so close to the finish. I wound up fighting my way through the last few miles, ran up the final hill to cheers from the family, and crossed the finish line at the Iwo Jima Memorial at 3 hrs 20 min 25 sec in 740th place out of 21,405 finishers. I know it is a great feat to have run the 26.2 miles on this beautiful day in 3:20 but I was overwhelmingly disappointed that I didn't keep it together for the last few miles and finish just 9 min 26 sec faster. But I know there will be many more chances, such as next year's race on October 31, 2010.
At 7:00 a.m. on Friday July 3rd, Sarah and I packed up our touring bikes with sleeping bags, a tent, and some food, and then set out on a biking expedition that I will not soon forget. We crossed the Key Bridge into Virginia and then took the Custis Trail 4 miles to the start of the W&OD trail in Shirlington. The W&OD trail is a 45 mile paved trail once occupied by the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad from 1859 to 1968. We busted our way down this mostly flat trail with only a brief stop for some Twizzlers at "The Stretching Post". The first 10-15 miles of this trail were rather crowded and had several street crossings that really slowed us down, but the last 15-20 miles were much more rural with few interruptions that allowed us to make it into Purcellville at the trail's end by lunchtime. A nice gentle-bicyclist-man that we rode the last few miles of the trail with directed us to the grocery store in town where we got some sandwich material and fluids for the water bottles that were rapidly being emptied on such a hot and humid weekend.
We spent the better part of that afternoon biking about 40 miles of rural Virginia roads from Purcellville into Front Royal, the entrance to Shenandoah Natio
nal Park. Highlights of the ride included an alpaca farm, buying ice cream sandwiches at a gas station we passed, and playing "I'm biking to Shenandoah and I'm bringing Apples, a Bandana, Cherry Chapstick, ... Fish of the swedish variety, Jokes to tell, a Kite to fly, Lovely Lipstick," and on and on." When we got to the entrance station of Shenandoah National Park at Skyline Drive, we were denied access to camping because we did not have a backcountry camping permit and did not have locks for our bikes. So we wound up 
biking a couple miles down the road to an RV campground where we were allowed to pitch our tent for the night. The campground turned out to be awesome as they had showers, miniature golf, trash cans for empty beer bottles, and black bears! We had to tie our food up in the tree at night so as not to attract bears but it turned out not to matter much as bears were trolling around the campground throughout the day regardless.
On day 2 of our adventure, we left all our gear at the campground and rode our bikes sans heavy gear back to the beginning of Skyline Drive at the entrance to Shenandoah Park. Skyline Drive runs 105 miles north-south along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains and is the only public road in Shenandoah National Park. This road traverses up and down 3,500 feet tall mountains and has numerous 
white-tail deer and black bears that occasionally wander onto it. It turned out to be a great day of riding with incredible ups-and-downs and beautiful scenic views. Literally, the first 8 miles were straight uphill without rest, immediately followed by an amazing downhill journey with dangerously fast speeds. We took a rest at the Elkwallow campground, very popular among the cyclists in the park. We met an awesome old guy with jacked legs who was riding a single speed through the park - I don't know how he was making it up the mountains without gears - and Sarah got a picture with him that turned out to be a Facebook profile pic for quite a while. Sarah is quite the beast on the bike and I'm not quite sure how far she made it out Skyline Drive that day before turning around, but I made it to the 34 mile marker before I decided that I had better turn around for fear of not making it all the way back to the campground before dark/death. There were fireworks that raged late into the night that night for the 4th of July while we tried to sleep in the tent before the 90 mile journey home the next day.
was raging and ready to bike as always. The miles back to Purcellville flew by with a quick stop for pictures (that can't be shown on this blog) outside Naked Mountain Winery and a concrete sculpture garden in some rural Virginia town. The ride home on the W&OD was excruciating for me as I was just not in the bike shape required for doing hundred mile days while carrying tons of extra weight on my touring bike. Needless to say I was pretty happy to make it across the Key Bridge back into D.C. in one piece after 250+ miles over 3 days on the bike and some great memories to boot.
On Saturday May 9th I drove down to Lake Anna State Park in Spotsylvania, Virginia to participate in the Kinetic half-iron triathlon on Saturday 5/9/09 at 7:00 a.m. and the Kinetic sprint triathlon on Sunday 5/10/09 at 9:00 a.m. These were my first big triathlons of the season and outdoor swims in my wetsuit. I had been training hard running and swimming but had very little mileage on my bike so far this 
year coming into this weekend, so I was pretty unsure of how the races would go. 
finished in 5:41:13
tent at 7 a.m. the morning after a half is not the ideal conditions for competing in a sprint but I survived. The end-of-the-year Georgetown Triathon Team party when we got back to D.C. that Sunday night was definitely a blast. 
On Sunday May 3rd I rode my bike down to Freedom Plaza (located just on the east side of the White House) to run in the Race for Hope, a 5K run/walk around the streets of D.C. to benefit the National Brain Tumor Society and Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure. My last three years of PhD research in the Tumor Biology Training Program at Georgetown have been spent analyzing the cancer genome of the deadly brain tumor called glioblastoma multiforme that afflicts ~10,000 Americans each year. I have been identifying new genes that drive the pathogenesis of glioblastoma in the hopes of discovering new successful therapeutics for this uniformly lethal brain cancer. For more information on my research, please see one of my recent publications "Identification of p18INK4c as a tumor suppressor gene in glioblastoma multiforme" at http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/68/8/2564.
"This is the Run Amuck Mud Run! The Mud Run is a challenging 5K run in Rockville, Maryland with hills, tire obstacles, river crossings, walls, ropes, and MUD PITS. This is the most fun you can have running a 5K! View the course map at www.runamuckfestival.com. Race individually, as a couple, or as a member of a 4-person team. 
Choose the Open category with no restrictions on attire and footwear, or the Costumed category, which requires your own zany costume or matching costumes (for couples and teams)."
However, we did win best dressed, most team spirit, most covered in mud at the finish line, and best dance 
moves at the afterparty. What could be better on a Saturday afternoon?!?
