Jake Klim wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. As soon as he learned the Montgomery County Road Runners Club’s bid had won, he started making plans. After all, it’s not every day the 28-year-old North Bethesda resident gets to run in a national championship.
Klim will be among hundreds of athletes, many of them from the D.C. area, competing Saturday at the USA Cross Country Championships in Derwood. And the only qualifications for the race? A USA Track & Field membership and an entrance fee.
“It’s a race where you don’t have to necessarily qualify but you still get to rub shoulders with America’s best runners,” said Klim, a member of the host club who will run with former Olympians like Meb Keflezighi, Anthony Famiglietti and Jorge Torres in the 12K open race. “If you’re not from the area… you’re not going to do it. But it’s in my backyard, so I can’t not do it. It’s an honor to have it here.”
USATF’s philosophy is this, according to Jim Estes, associate director of long distance running and marketing: If space isn’t limited, the organization tries to open up its races to as many runners as possible. Hence, an event like this summer’s U.S. outdoor championships will have time standards just to get onto the track. A cross country course, however, can handle many more entrants.
That creates a situation somewhat unusual for a national championship event, bringing athletes of widely differing skills to the Agricultural History Farm Park. While Klim is a standout in the D.C. area — he competed collegiately at Maryland-Baltimore County and ran the best 3,000 meters of his life a few weeks back — not every runner in an open event like this one will have his kind of ability. The disparity can create some problems, but the elite runners don’t seem to mind.
“As long as you have space, you can have it open to everyone. Anytime you can encourage people to improve their fitness, it’s a good thing,” said Keflezighi, who won the silver medal in the marathon at the 2004 Athens Olympics. “It’s an inspiration to see people working hard to be out there. The only disadvantage is that you might have to lap people — you have to watch out and can’t always take the shortest route possible.”
Conversely, runners used to neighborhood 5Ks and 10Ks now have to get used to competing against people they may have watched on TV last summer in Beijing.
“I’m going to try not to think about [the elite runners]. I’m more concerned with my race,” Klim said. “I know that they’re going to do their thing, and I’m going to do my thing. … But I still am going to want to watch the race go down as well as run my own because those guys are awesome.”
One professional none of the runners will have to worry about is Dathan Ritzenhein, who won the event in 2005 and 2008. Ritzenhein, who was the runner-up at the Olympic marathon trials in November, pulled out of the championships Tuesday because of the flu.
Without Ritzenhein, the mantle of favorite could fall to several runners. Keflezighi, the U.S. 12K cross-country champion in 2001 and 2002, signed up for the race right before Ritzenhein dropped out. After struggles in the past year or so — a stress reaction in his pelvis hampered him at the Olympic marathon trials and cost him valuable training time leading up to the U.S. track trials — he appears to be healthy again. Keflezighi ran a 1:01:25 to win the USA Half Marathon Championships in Houston last month, beating Ritzenhein by 10 seconds.
Other big names include Famiglietti, the U.S. Olympic trials champion in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and Jorge Torres, the third-place finisher in the 10,000 at last year’s trials.
Defending women’s champ Shalane Flanagan, the Olympic bronze medalist in the 10,000, opted not to return this year. In her stead, the favorites in the women’s open 8K include Amy Yoder Begley, the third-place finisher in the 10,000 at the Olympic trials; Emily Brown, the third-place finisher in the cross country championships last year; and Katie McGregor, who was fourth a year ago. Begley, however, has been sick this week and may not compete.
The top six in the open races earn a berth in the world cross country championships in Amman, Jordan, in March, though many of the top runners already have said they plan to decline the invitations.
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