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Running: Navy marathoners raise eyebrows in Boston
By Joe Shafran, For The Capital
I can picture this next Tuesday. The head people at the Boston Athletic Association reviewing the tapes of this coming Monday’s Boston Marathon wondering what we feed runners here in Annapolis to make them finish among the top one hundred or so.
If things work out the way they should, a bunch of runners listing Annapolis as their places of domicile (where they actually sleep), should finish the 26.2 mile run in just under or just over three hours and that alone will cause some eyebrows to be raised in Boston. There will be thousands in the race.
And when they begin to investigate , they will recall that this Annapolis phenomenon showed up on their screens last year at the Boston Marathon, but they didn’t pay that much attention to it.
The phenomenon of which I speak is the U.S. Naval Academy Marathon Club, midshipmen, men and women, all in their teens and early twenties, who with some rigid training , and with vim and vigor that military life instills, are causing eyebrows to be raised at many races,not just Boston. For years the Boston Athletic officialdom thought they had this running business down to a science. They could depend on people like Bill Rodgers of Boston and some from foreign lands to either win the race in a bit over two hours or be among the top fifty in this premier marathon.
But while the winner can be projected, the early finishers are a changing breed. Now, running groups such as the one from the Naval Academy and various other institutions such as West Point and universities are sending their people to the marathons and in their youthful exuberance, running them with ease in well under three hours.
Over the past year, in addition to seeing the Naval Academy team do its stuff in the local races, I’ve begun to notice, a brash bunch calling themselves the Red and White or The Terp Club, of course from the University of Maryland and I wouldn’t be surprised that some wearing the red M, might just run the Boston. And don’t think that Army isn’t into this running thing. They too, will show up at the Boston start line.
The Navy club starts its training at 1600 hours ( 4 o’clock) on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s from early spring through late fall and local residents are beginning to set their watches when the Mids file out of Gate One downtown, and run the streets and roads of the City and County. Their head coach is 29 year old Nathan Nudelman of Annapolis, (the Mids call him Nate) a volunteer, an accomplished marathoner and a member of the Annapolis Striders, which encouraged the coaching and some of whose members are Academy graduates. Tom Hattar, the Doctor from Annapolis and Jon Schoenberg, who headquarters at Fort Meade assist with the team and who along with Nudelman, actually run with the team, including the Boston, a bit unusual in itself. While Nudelman and Hattar sort of lag behind urging on the stragglers, Schoenberg, as noted in last Sunday’s Cherry Pit run, sets his sights on the finish line and is not to be denied.
I”ve mentioned this group before, but the more I watch them, I find it most interesting. This is what is known as a club sport at the Academy. While there is military oversight, it’s one of the only sports in which the coaches actually participate with the team. The other interesting thing about the club is unlike most other sports, there are no “home” games, so to speak. They are all away from the Academy grounds. The club chooses the marathons (usually three) and other runs, such as the Annapolis Ten Miler or the Cherry Blossom in Washington or most recently the 10 mile Cherry Pit run at Edgewater last Sunday. Their fans must get to a race to see them. They will do Boston on Monday, then the Chicago and the third is to be chosen and if all goes well, when they finish the third marathon, many of the Mids will just keep their shoes on and do the JFK 50 Miler in Western Maryland the following weekend. I talked to some of the Club runners at Edgewater last Sunday about Boston and the consensus was that the infamous Heartbreak Hill at the “wall” or the twenty mile mark, will be nothing more than one of the steep hills on St.Margarets Rd. in the County they do almost every week.
At Chicago, there will be more than 30,000 runners, so it will be interesting to see if the Club can hold it’s own. They run in a group, paced by someone doing about a 6 minute mile for most of the way. Ah, youth..
Monday, the Boston marathon itself, can be followed on the internet at www.bostonmarathon.com. We wish the Mids from the Academy and their coaches, lots of luck. As they say, Full Steam Ahead and Beat Army!
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Next let me talk a bit about running and the late Pope, John Paul II. I don’t think he was a runner, but I have a running story to tell about John Paul. Last week in his dinner address to the Radio and Television Correspondents Association in Washington ,Vice President Cheney rather than using his five minutes to crack jokes as is usually the routine, talked about the Pope and his accomplishments. He said that it was his opinion that if anyone was among the many millions throughout the world over the years who may have personally set eyes on this man, one can consider oneself blessed.
I recalled that I had set eyes on the Pope many years ago in Washington, D.C. but not being able to recall the details. I stopped by the office of my walking encyclopedia at the Capital, Frances Jacques and of course she had the answer. Yes, the Pope preached a mass to thousands gathered on the National Mall in the fall of 1979. She also, off the top of her head reminded of other visits such as the one in Baltimore ten years ago, but it was in Washington in 1979 where I set eyes upon the man, then a robust man of the cloth in his fifties.
Back in 1979, my daily running route was right down the Mall in Washington and that Sunday, the Pope was in town. Was one of the final days of my training for the Marine Marathon a couple of weeks hence, in which I was going to try to qualify for Boston. So Pope or no Pope or thousands or no thousands, gathered on the Mall in front of the Smithsonian Castle I had to get that run in. Ordinarily, my runs along the Mall were fast paced, non-stop, but on that day, something made me come to a full stop and from a couple of blocks away, I stood there and for a minute or two witnessed history. Then it was on to the Lincoln Memorial, across the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River taking a sharp left and running down the river on the Mount Vernon trail for another 9 miles to the Belle Haven Marina below Alexandria, my 13 mile point. There I would eat a Good Humor, swigg a cola and run back up river, 13 miles to a few blocks past the Captol. Anyway, I did run the Marine a couple of weeks later in 3 and a half hours, which was ten minutes short of qualifying for Boston. It took two more Marines, with no John Paul II , to get it down to 3:20 which qualified me for my first and only Boston in 1982. My luck, twenty years later, the BAC gives a five or ten minute forgiveness for some in the older age groups but I see that for the youngsters, it’s still 3:20. I noticed that in the recent story about the 42 year old man from Lothian, Doug Elmore, recovering from back surgery, is going to run the Boston for a cause and who has been given forgiveness of 4 hours and some minutes to qualify, but for anyone else , it’s still 3 hours and twenty minutes.
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At the Cherry Pit race Sunday at Edgewater, I did get to talk with the winner, Arturo Fernandez, who speaks with a bit of an accent. He’s lives in Bowie and teaches at Catholic University and was more of a fencer d. Also a note about timings in the Cherry Pit. Will Myers, the school principal and noted marathoner ran at a little slower pace this time. He has had an eye problem and didn’t want to shake anything loose, so took his time, and Peter Salmon-Cox a consistent competitor wanted me to know his slower time and odd running style can be attributed to knee surgery.
Race results. the Cherry Pit Ten Miler, Edgewater, Md. Sun. April 10, 2005, 273 Finished. Taken from the Striders web site which at press time was using the word “unofficial.”
Men
1. Arturo Fernandez, 33, 57:03: 12( Web site lists him as 22)
2. Dermot Killian, 21 ( Midshipman) 57:35
3. Jon Schoenberg, 41: 58:09
4. William Uffman, 24, 1:00: 01
5 Matt Mace, 44, 1:01:57
6.Josh Dorsey, 23, 1:02:15
7.Michael Kattula, 21, 1:02:59
8. Jens Berdahl, 20, 1:03:00
9. Paul Serra, 49, 1:03:18
10.Jonathan Shoemaker, 30, 1:04:36
Women and their overall placements:
26, Andrea Williams . 33, 1:07:
63. Cheryl Gilman, 36, 1:13:27
70. Jennifer Penzelli, 28, 1:14:33
72. Lavell Bell, 43, 1:15:04
78 .Yvette Davids, 38, 1:16:00
84. Shelly Wisanhant, 38, 1:17:47
94. Lean Shuck, 35, 1:18:40
102.Elizabeth Kealey, 21, 1:19:15
103, Holley Marcum 38, 1:19:37
108 Jennifer Lundeen, 45, 1:19:37
Running Calendar
April 17, Sunday. 8 A.M. Washington D.C. West Potomac Park. 22 nd annual Sallie May 10K , 2K, walk and wheelchair race. Call 703-533-4849.
Sat. April 23. 8 A.M. Bates School Track. Spa Rd. Annapolis. (behind Maryland Hall)
First session of the Annapolis Striders Lean to Run Program . Ten week course.
Meets Tuesdays and Thursdays in the evening and Saturdays at 8 A.M. Call 410-451-4155.
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