The strides from the Pentagon starting line past the 14th Street Bridge are too many to calculate for Army Ten-Miler runners Alisa Harvey and Lew Goldberg.
One struck victory pay dirt the first time running the course and subsequently won multiple titles. The other has perfect ATM attendance.
Both Harvey and Goldberg readily admit their best running days have been left at the Lincoln Memorial or Independence Avenue, but both will be among the 35,000 runners at the Army Ten-Miler starting line at 8 a.m. Oct. 12.
Nearly 30 years to the day of the 2014 race, on Oct. 13, 1985, Goldberg and a new National Capital Region area race bumped into each other. From the mid-1980s to the present, the race and Goldberg have been annually reintroduced- he hasn't missed an ATM start.
Goldberg witnessed the 2001 race cancellation following the 9/11 attacks and an on-the-fly course change in 2005 due to a suspicious package near the 14th Street Bridge, and he initially took on the ATM challenge during his peak long-distance years from 1985 through 1988.
From races one through eight, the then-Soldier was attending the National War College and later was assigned to the Pentagon.
Logistically, he had no trouble attending the race, but now at a robust 67 years of age, the 10 miles is a bit more problematic.
"The first one I ran in I was 37," he said during an interview in his Crystal City office - nearly a mile or two from both the ATM start and finish lines. "For the first 20 years, I ran every foot of the race. Now, I just haven't trained that much and things are starting to hurt, so I'm into walking. Right now, I usually run two-thirds of the race and walk and take breaks with the rest."
Goldberg generally downplays the comprehensiveness of his Army Ten-Miler involvement, but the Army retiree is confident to plan one final ATM multi-mile hooah. He is contemplating whether or not the 2014 race will be his final Army Ten-Miler.
"Part of me is saying this is the last one because it is the 30th [anniversary]," Goldberg revealed to the Pentagram. "The competitive part of me - and the competitive part of me says not to run it in a certain time any more - says to just do it and to feel good about doing some kind of accomplishment."
Harvey's Army Ten-Miler history started with a lightning-in-a-bottle debut and followed with multiple championships and a noticeable progression in gender equality.
A mid-distance NCAA track champion and gold medalist in the 1991 Pan Am Games, the 49-year-old Harvey participated in her first ATM in 1998. She won the overall female title that year- she won three more overall titles and three masters titles in 13 ATM starts - but she remembered distinct elements of her 58 minute and 56 second 1998 championship run.
"I jumped in the [1998] race to see what would happen," the northern Virginia elite runner said. "That was a rainy one. I was surrounded by guys. There were a bunch of men in the race."
According to Army Mile Ten-Miler staff, 31 percent of the entries - a total of 3,539 women - crossed the finish line that October Sunday in 1998. Fifteen years later, 12,008 women, or 46 percent of the race entries, finished the race last year.
"When it started, it was a men-strong event," Harvey said. "The funny thing is when I did it in '98 that opened it up for women. That brought local [women] top competitors to come in."
In her first two Army Ten-Miler appearances, Harvey took home the top female titles, but she vividly remembered the 2000 race when she was going for her third straight top finish. That Sunday produced a second-place effort but her best-ever ATM time.
"In 2000, a woman [Naoko Ishibe] I was competing against - another top runner - snuck in there because there were so many guys," she said. "I didn't see her until mile eight. Someone told me [on the course] I was the second woman. I ran my fastest ever [Army Ten-Miler]. I ran 56:49, but I came in second."
Still, Harvey has claim to a rare ATM distinction: She is the first-ever runner to win both an overall and masters title in the same race back in 2006. That year, she ran the course in an even 59 minutes.
Harvey did not compete in the 2013 race and despite a sprained ankle she suffered two months ago, she plans to start her 14th ATM.
"This has become part of me as a runner," she said of the Army Ten-Miler.
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