How it Happened

RUNNING ANYWAY - The Unofficial Washington DC Marathon

The running community did Washington DC proud on Sunday, March 23, by conducting an all-volunteer Unofficial Washington DC Marathon, after organizers cancelled the scheduled race on Wednesday, March 19.

Starting at about 7:30 am Thursday, a broadbased coalition of running clubs, volunteers, and sponsors patched together a city-wide event in just 72 hours. The iniatators of the effort were Therese Cluck and Bob Schneider, who sent off a slew of e-mails looking for volunteers. Jay Jacob Wind wrote them to offer to help, as did many others. We scheduled a meeting for 1 pm Friday, location TBA.

On Friday morning, Phil Fenty at Fleet Feet welcomed us to his store at 1841 Columbia Road for the meeting.

Meanwhile, Grey Frandsen and Ryan W. Ozimek at PICnet wrote a Web site, Run for America, to support their friend and fellow runner Kari Shellhorn find runners who were interested in still completing the entire marathon as planned. Soon there after, the Web site was mentioned in an article in Friday's Washington Post. Jay saw the article and conference-called Ryan and Bob to merge efforts. Then Therese arranged with Kathy Freedman of Capital Running Company to handle the start, while Jay lined up Bob Platt of RacePacket to manage the finish and signed up Honest Tea as our first sponsor.

At 1 pm Friday, 25 people came to the Loya Jirga-style meeting at Fleet Feet -- including a crew from Fox 5 TV. Fleet Feet employee Renee Butler serenely served customers while we mapped out an action plan, identified specific problem areas -- Whitney Young and John Philip Sousa Bridges and arterial road crossings, and appointed volunteers for key points. We selected Kim Hedge at volunteer coordinator. Mark Mooney offered to check baggage and truck it to the finish. Phil announced a Fleet Feet GU station at Mile 18. Melissa and others confirmed that their neighbors on the course would provide water stations. Bob Meisnere agreed to be logistics coordinator - loudspeakers, tables, and radios. Grey and Ryan agreed to publicize our effort on their Web site, making this the first marathon ever organized entirely in cyberspace and via cell phone. We amazed ourselves with our collective abilities.

Midway through the meeting, Carlos Garcia Olivas arrived from Madrid, Spain, one of many international athletes who came to town for the marathon.

After the meeting, Bob Platt suggested to Jay to ask National Park Service for a permit for the staging area near the Lincoln Memorial. Jay made it before the 4 pm closing time, but Leonard Lee at NPS said the earliest they could look at an application was Monday morning.

That left us with the problem of having no official sanction from any governmental agency, which posed a real challenge at the bridges. The solution came into place Saturday afternoon, when DC Emergency Management Agency Director Peter Laporte committed to Therese to provide a small force of DCEMA cars and police units to cover the bridge crossings, so long as we agreed to run on the sidewalks, cross at the crosswalks, stop at the stoplights, and re- route a leg of the course from Independence to 7th and Maine, instead to the sidewalk around the Tidal Basin and back up the riverside Ohio Drive. Therese readily accepted the trade-offs, and Bob Platt and Bob Thurston agreed to remeasure the segments and the finish in the dark of night so that the course really was 26 miles 385 yards.

Meanwhile, dozens of volunteers rounded up refreshments from generous sponsors - - Giant Food, Safeway, Firehook Bakery, and many others who donated water, cookies, pretzels, bagels, Gatorade, bananas, oranges, and more.

On his own, Glenn Stern posted brightly-colored mile markers at Bob Thurston's spray-painted marks. Susan Maher of D.C. Road Runners Club, Maria Bertacchi of Northern Virginia Running Club, Phil Davis of Potomac Runners, and Warren Snaider of Front Runners all solicited dozens of course marshals from their clubs. With all that help, the course had as many volunteers as runners.

At 4 am Sunday, Therese, Bob Schneider, and other volunteers from Hash House Harriers tied pink ribbons around hundreds of lamp posts, trees, and even occasional fireplugs to make the course a little less of an adventure in urban orienteering. Pink ribbons seemed a better idea than red, white, or blue powdered chalk.

By dawn, more than 600 runners, walkers, volunteers, and reporters were on-site at the start. As Kathy supervised registration and TV crews interviewed Bob Schneider, Jay kicked off the festivities at 7 am sharp with his trademark "Good morning, Washington!" and introduced Kim, who thanked the volunteers and sponsors, gave runners the safety instructions, and described the course. Simultaneously, Therese negotiated on-the-spot between NPS staff, who asked that we start runners 25 at a time, and DCEMA officers, who preferred a single mass start. Making the decision was easy. At 7:30 sharp, Kim whistled the start, and we were off all at once.

A pack of eight men stuck together through the first mile, before the stoplight at 17th Street broke them up.

The course included long stretches along the National Mall, past the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Smithsonian museums, U.S. Capitol, and RFK Stadium, through Southeast and Anacostia Park, around the Tidal Basin, under the Kennedy Center balcony, past the Watergate, downtown, uptown, around Dupont Circle, by Embassy Row, past the new Convention Center construction and National Pubic Radio at Mount Vernon Square, in front of Gallaudet University, and back past the Capitol and up historic Pennsylvania Avenue to the finish near Freedom Plaza.

A few miles into the race, Paul Rades, 39, and Kevin Kozowski, 26, both of Silver Spring MD, broke away from Bob Schneider. Running together, they finished hand-in-hand in 2:55:50. Schneider, 26, of College Park MD, finished third in 2:56:34 with a mile-wide smile.

After 21 men finished, the crowd of spectators on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of Les Halles and T.G.I. Friday's restaurants broke into loud cheers as the first woman came through in 3:38:46 -- Renee Butler, 42, of Bethesda MD, wearing her Fleet Feet jersey. Now we knew the secret of her serenity on Friday.

Following her were Faith Korbel, 24, of Washington DC, in 3:45:04, and Sue Richardson, 29, all the way from Bloomington MN, in 3:45:21.

One runner celebrated his 70th birthday by running the marathon. Carline Klam, 53, of Arlington VA, ran 7:12:00 to be the last runner to finish before we shut down the finish line. About four walkers followed later.

Runners participated from 24 states, plus D.C. and Puerto Rico. Andrew Hayward, 45, from London, England, was the first international runner in 3:32:44. Carlos Garcia Olivas, 33, of Madrid, Spain, was next in 3:37:01, followed by Felipe Ramirez Gaston, 49, of Lima, Peru, in 3:54:44.

About 371 registered and 332 officially unofficially finished, including 145 women and 177 men. Bob Platt collected the results, assisted by Austin Frum and Jason Grimm, who recovered remarkably fast from his 4th place finish in 3:01:10. See http://www.racepacket.com/result03/mar03/dcmar.htm for full results.

On one of the most beautiful days of the year so far, hundreds of volunteers, neighbors, sponsors, and runners created a beautiful event for the Washington DC community.

Five bag-check items were left at the finish line; they will be at Fleet Feet on Monday.

At the same time we were running our marathon around the city, about 40 other runners ran a marathon distance of 15 laps around the White House.

Five bag-check items were left at the finish line; they will be at Fleet Feet on Monday.

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