Salisbury, North Carolina
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President's Greeting |
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Greetings
Imagine a 5K that has a pre-registration of $40 and a race day registration of $60 (no shirt). This particular race has 10 year age groups, and trophies for the age group winners, yet medals for the 2nd and 3rd place winners. And the race day registrants can buy a shirt for $10 more. Hard to believe, but true. Contrast that with Bare Bones 2008, directed by Jim Hughes. Bare Bones was begun as a way to say thanks to the running community, and is presented by SRR without sponsorship. The best buy around at $15 pre-race and $20 race day, and the runner is still treated very well. Is racing going the way of gasoline prices, and has the dollar devalued to the place where such an exorbitant fee will be accepted? I hope not, at least for years to come. Frankly I was amazed when I received the flyer by mail, and then subsequently multiple e-mails. This particular race is in the beach area.
I want to invite each and every member to come to a general meeting on April 14th at 6:30 PM at the JF Hurley YMCA in Salisbury. This will be our first general meeting since Christmas. We'll have an exciting speaker in Tracey Glenn, who has joined SRR after receiving a masters degree in Exercise and Sports Studies from Ohio State University. Steve Clark told her that it was a pre-requisite for club membership. Tracey was Deena Kastor's physical trainer for the Olympics. Deena won the bronze medal as the first American woman since Joan Benoit Samuelson to place in the Olympic Marathon. She has a marathon PR of 2:19:36. Deena returned the favor and coached Tracey to her first marathon adventure. Tracey will share some of her experiences and give us some of her strength and conditioning tips. We will have a short business meeting also. There will be pizza and soft drinks provided, so please RSVP to Jenny Buchanan at jbuchanan@rowanymca.com .
Our new slate of officers has presented by the nominating committee and the board to the membership. These officers will take office in May 2008 and serve for one year. The slate includes David Freeze - President, Steve Clark - Vice President, Jenny Buchanan - Secretary, and Dan Roseman - Treasurer. David Abernathy has already been installed as the new Membership Director.
The club will have a busy time in April and May. April 12th is Healthy Kids Day at the East Rowan YMCA. All of our afterschool running volunteers will be there to complete a mile with their school groups. Next, on April 19th we will provide timing and results for the Marti Estes 5K in Mooresville. Marti was an avid runner who died on a training run, and the local churches have decided to honor her memory with this race. May has Peter Asciutto's Beach Blast 5K on May 10th, Elizabeth Cook's Mission Run on May 17th. Last is the 2008 Bare Bones 5K on May 24th. Once again, these are all fund raisers for the club and will go a long way toward paying club expenses. Please volunteer or run in as many of these events as possible.
Not to be forgotten is the 2008 Peace Run on April 23rd. Jim Duncan will lead the club and friends on a ceremonial run from Salisbury to the China Grove Middle School. This is about 9 miles at a very relaxed pace, complete with water stops. It is always fun and rewarding to join the foreign runners who traverse the world and the US to advocate peace to all. We will leave at 8:30 AM from the Bell Tower in Salisbury and arrive in China Grove at 10:30 for a planned program with the students.
Our Adult Beginning Runner program is well underway. We have 8 participants as well as Kathy Vestal and Steve Clark as regular instructors. So far, Peter Asciutto and Tracey Glenn have joined the group as program instructors. This program continues on each Tuesday night till April 29th from 6:30 till about 8 PM at the City Park Office Building. Our afterschool volunteers will be doing fitness testing with the kids between April 14th and May 1st. Our goal here is to show that the kids have increased their fitness because of this program. Food Lion has graciously helped sponsor the afterschool program along with Road Runners Club of America.
Last item for May 1-4 is the RRCA convention in Cincinnati where I will be doing a presentation on the kids’ afterschool running program. Hopefully, there will be some more new ideas worth sharing when I get back. The RRCA convention is well worth your time if you should have any desire to attend. This year, our own state representative Lena Holloman is being honored as the rep of the year nationally. I have details if you are interested.
Last piece of news for the month. I had the race truck washed, cleaned and detailed. Don’t believe it? It really happened. We found $15.78 in change. Good for about 15 more powerbars. If our club photographer was not on another cruise, he could include a picture in the newsletter.
Honorary member Mark Twain dropped by the other day and left us with one of his quotes,” Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than the things that you did. So throw off the bowlines and said away from that safe harbor. Catch the tradewinds in your sails.”
Explore, dream, discover!
See you on the roads.
David Freeze