With temperatures in the 70s this year, the DC Road Runners George Washington’s Birthday Marathon through Greenbelt challenged runners still weeks away from getting acclimated to heat. In times of the year when temperatures are predicted in that range, races start hours earlier than this race’s 10:00 gun. But hey, they could have been trudging through snow.

Not to mention that it was a great day for us Greenbelters to enjoy the show, which started on Northway, wound through BARC three times and ended at Crescent Road across from St. Hugh’s.

After the race, runners walked to Greenbelt Youth Center for refreshments and socializing.

According to race organizer Ben Richter, this was the Marathon’s 56th year, at least 12 of which have been running the same course. Always in Greenbelt, the course previously ran through the NASA grounds. It’s a certified course (of course) and finishers are carefully photographed with their times as they cross the finish line. This year there were 153 individual finishers and 31 relay teams crossing the line.

The relay team option, which certainly make the Marathon accessible to more runners, works like this: teams of two or three divvy up the three loops of the race (9.7 miles, 7.3 miles and 9.2 miles) any way they want.

About DC Road Runners

The club has approximately 1,000 members, plus who knows how many nonmember runners. (The races are free to members and just $5 for nonmembers).

DC Road Runners puts on 19 races throughout the year but this one is the club’s most complicated. Its other Greenbelt race is the 15K (9.3 miles) race the day before Labor Day, as part of our festival. It starts and finishes at the same locations as the Marathon.

The club granted Greenbelt Online blanket permission to raid the hundreds of photos of the race on their Flickr albums (Parts 1 and 2) so readers, here are a few more finish-line gems.