Officials at the National Marathon will announce this week that next year’s race will be run entirely in the District.
That will be a huge departure from last year’s inaugural 26.2-mile marathon, which covered the streets of Prince George’s County for much of its second half.
The new course will, like last year, begin and end at RFK Stadium and will take in the monuments, the National Mall and the Southwest Waterfront. However, the 2007 course also will take runners through Anacostia and up into culturally-diverse Adams Morgan as did the first series of D.C. Marathons in the early- to mid-1980s.
“This is a mixture of what you would expect from D.C. — all the monuments and memorials — but also the neighborhoods of the city like Adams Morgan and H Street, which is not typical of a marathon course,” race director Keith Dowling said. “For people from out of town, I think they will like the idea of crossing the Mall at least three times.
“They’re literally going to see where the [Washington Nationals] stadium is being built, and they will look back and say ’I remember running by the stadium when there were only pillars,’” Dowling added.
The former elite marathoner said he spent every Wednesday this summer driving the course, while also using an Internet-based mapping program called GMAP.
Last year, Dowling worked hard to produce a course similar to the Boston Marathon in elevation profile, which is where he set his personal best marathon of 2:13:28 in 2002. But last year’s course ended up with challenging hills that started at 11 miles and continued for much of the rest of the course.
“This course is almost exactly like Boston on the elevation profiles,” he said. “Based on the elevations, I think it will be a faster course [than the 2006 course]. The main elevation gain on the course is between miles 19 and 20.75 up to Adams Morgan, like Heartbreak [Hill on the Boston Marathon course].”
Like last year, the marathon and half-marathon runners will run together until around 11 miles when the half-marathoners head back to the finish.
The race is slated for March 24 and will be capped at 5,000 runners combined in the marathon and half-marathon. Runners must qualify with a previous marathon of five hours or better, a half-marathon of 2:30 or better, a 10-miler of 1:50 or better or 10K of 1:05 or better.
Meb commits — I caught up with American marathon great Meb Keflezighi last week, hot off his close second-place effort at the New York City Half Marathon on Aug. 27, his first official half-marathon. Keflezighi just announced he is committing to run this year’s New York City Marathon in November, his fourth appearance there.
Keflezighi, a naturalized American who was born in the small African country of Eritrea and trains in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., has been one of America’s top marathoners for years, with only former Moroccan Khalid Khannouchi running faster times.
Keflezighi ended American distance running’s 28-year Olympic medal drought with a silver in Athens in 2004. He was ranked No. 2 in the nation that year and No. 1 in 2005. Already this year has been a banner year, beginning with a third-place run at Boston in 2:09:56, continuing with a runner-up effort in the USA Outdoor 10,000 meters (28:18.74) and the NYC half-marathon, a perfect setup for New York City in two months.
“My preparation [for New York] is very similar to 2004,” Keflezighi said last Wednesday. “I had three marathons in 2004 and in this year two marathons. This year, the Boston Marathon was great, did my best, close to my PR, within three seconds. Then I was getting ready for some track races and then I will end my year with another marathon.”
He credits the fact that this year, like in 2004, he has been injury-free and has trained more consistently than last year. However, he said his sights are set on the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Look for Keflegizhi’s motivational story of survival in an upcoming book written with famous running writer Kenny Moore. His Web site, meb.com is almost online, he said.
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