2026 Club Challenge Wrap-Up

visualization of a quadratic function on a Cartesian system with the caption "working on my quads" which is attributed to the Mathletics Department
I think every race should happen on a college campus

This past Sunday was a successful day for the club. Thank you to Ruby Len, our Volunteer Coordinator, for organizing the team, the transportation, and the beer and snack delivery for the 2026 MD-DC RRCA 10 Mile Club Challenge. Here is a digest of Sunday’s race from Ruby:

The RRCA Club Challenge 10-Miler, hosted by the Howard County Striders, is a long-standing, team-focused race that has been held annually each February since at least 1980. The event takes place at Howard Community College and features a challenging, hilly course that brings clubs together to compete for bragging rights.

This year’s race had 16 member clubs participating with 552 finishers, who toughed it out in cold, rainy weather with temps in the upper-30’s throughout the morning.

DC Road Runners logged 56 finishers, with the club taking home the following awards (there was much hardware):

  • First place male team overall
  • First place male overall
  • First place male under 40 team
  • Second place grandmasters men team
  • Fourth place grandmasters female team
a group of DC Road Runners members standing in a line while holding the first place male team and first place male under 40 team trophies
This was fun!

Special thanks for our amazing volunteers: Abdoulaye Maiga, Roxann Dzur, Nate Rathjen, Julia Tier, and Jennifer Vu (bus captain). Also shoutout to Big Guy for continuing a long-standing tradition by generously providing beer for our club participants to enjoy, in absentia. Hope to see the club out in force again next year!

three DC Road Runners members smiling and celebrating while holding the first place male team and first place male under 40 team trophies
It is worth celebrating!

The full results for Sunday’s race are available. DCRR Members can check their standings in this year’s Snowball Series, the results of which will be updated on a, ahem, rolling basis.