ARLINGTON, Va. – It’s one of the largest 10-mile races in the world, and about 35,000 people from all over the country ran the Army Ten-Miler on Sunday. Military service members and civilians jogged shoulder-to-shoulder from the Pentagon, across the Memorial Bridge and around the National Mall.
“I’ve been in the military for 32 years and three deployments,” says Frances Tate from Kansas City, Mo. She served in Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Kuwait with the Army, and that’s where she met Army reservist Florence Erickson. “This is the first year we’re back, so we wanted to run it together,” says Erickson.
They’re in good company. Organizers say 63 percent of the runners are active duty, reserve, guard, retired military, veterans, military family dependents or Department of Defense employees.
Artur Korniluk, from Haymarket, is running the Army Ten-Miler for the fourth year in a row. “I just love it. No better place to run and race than in Washington, D.C.”
If the partial government shutdown had continued into this weekend, the course would have been altered to avoid federal land. Runners say they’re relieved that the course was not changed.
“Love it. Love it. Love the idea that they went back to the original course,” Korniluk says. “But then again, even it was a new course, it would have been just fine as well.”
There are 19 official shadow runs overseas, including in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, Cuba, Kosovo, and South Korea.
All of the proceeds go to the Army Morale, Welfare and Recreation Fund.
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