The District is known for its elite athletes. It's been a breeding ground for some of the nation's best boxers, and football and basketball players since the turn of the century.
And now, the concrete jungle that is D.C. has evolved in its athletic development, producing some of the nation's best cross-country runners.
Did I say cross-country runners?
Yes, I did. Somehow, the men's distance runner scene in Washington is thriving, if official NCAA results are to be trusted ... and they are reliable within a 20 percent margin of error.
Your very own Eagle men finished second in the NCAA's Mid-Atlantic regional Saturday, putting them among the 18 best teams in the country. And the school that beat them? None other than district rivals Georgetown.
While the achievements of the Red Sox and the Curacao Little Leaguers were impressive this year, the one-two District sweep ranks among the most remarkable achievements in sports history.
Sure, to the average couch potato - me prior to the fall semester - it would simply seem that Georgetown and AU rock at XC. But to the HFIT-130 Walking and Jogging student - me now - the feat is unfathomable.
Why?
Well, after a couple weeks of class, HFIT-130 students are exiled from the Reeves Track and forced on the mean streets of Upper Northwest. There they learn three things.
1: Civil engineers avoid D.C. like the plague.
2: D.C.-area cartographers likely make up 40 percent of all area psychological patients.
3: Walkers and joggers make up another 40 percent.
The District road and sidewalk grid is a chaotic, frightening place, where simple directions, like "take a run around the block," require the assistance of either a psychic or a Sherpa. Novice runners are sometimes seen navigating the Ward or Dupont circles for days at a time, completely clueless as to how to get home and to why Washingtonians call an ellipse a circle.
Now if you are 45 pounds overweight, like me, you've at least got the luxury of being slow. So the usual dilemmas - such as crumbling sidewalks that vanish randomly and insane black squirrels that confuse your big toe for a walnut if you let them - can be escaped by slowing to a stagger and changing course.
But imagine you're sophomore Brendan Fennell, AU's top individual finisher, who completed the 10-kilometer course in 30:47, at a pace of 4:57 a mile. That's over 12 miles an hour! Between sunset and sundown, District streets can't handle cars that fast, let alone people.
And, if running is anything like it was in my high school track, Fennell runs with a group, while I say, "screw it" and stop at 7-Eleven.
On Saturday, freshman Steve Hallinan and seniors Sean Duffy and Patrick Macadie all finished within seven seconds of Fennell. I'm guessing those guys and a few others must train together.
So basically, you've got a herd of lanky, speedy guys trotting around city streets, eluding pesky animal control employees who swear those guys are stray deer from Rock Creek Park.
And these four guys are trying not to jaywalk, stop at one of a dozen Starbucks along the route or get caught in one of Metro Police's speed traps, all the while being kind to street musicians, beggars and socialist Jeff of the Tenleytown Metro stop.
Meanwhile, competitors at rural schools such as Bucknell, Colgate or, yes, George Mason, get all the running they need in a dash to the nearest non-carding liquor store.
And despite all this - not to mention slow punks in someone's HFIT-130 class hogging all the sidewalk - AU and Georgetown XC are going on to nationals. And if the sports scene on the other end of Foxhall Avenue is anything like it is here, not enough credit is being doled out for it - to the athletes, the coaches and the global positioning systems.
But it shows you exactly what this sport is all about, and indeed what all sports are about at their best: thriving in elements that seem infinitely opposed to your ultimate goals.
In related news, the swim team will train over Christmas break at the Alkali Salt Flats.
