Engagement
Congratulations to Dirk Sweigart and Sheri Herrmann on their announced engagement. More and more it appears that Facebook is the go-to medium for up-to-date news. Since both earned free club membership through their participation in MA-USATF events, there is no validity to the suspicion that their engagement was done to cut their dues down to one family membership. 😉
From President Ray:
Renew PCVRC Membership for 2013
Please renew now for 2013. Thanks to the many who took care of it at the Holiday Party. You’re also set if you ran the 4+ races on our USATF team or if you joined for the first time after Sept. 1. Either mail $25 check payable to “PCVRC” to PCVRC, PO Box 3259, Wilmington, DE 19804 or pay $26 online by credit card at www.pcvrc.com/join.php
Consider inviting someone new to join. List of some of the benefits (shirt, free food & drink, discounts, …) appears at www.pcvrc.com/joinbenefits.php
Nominate Members for Awards
Your input is needed for potential award winners for 2012. Please submit names and reasons before January 1. It’s OK to nominate yourself if others aren’t familiar with you. See www.pcvrc.com/awards.php for summaries of recent winners.
Annual Club Awards Banquet is March 2
Please note Saturday 3/2/13 on your calendar to join us for the banquet. Location will be announced in January. We had 70 people last year and would like to see as many as possible, especially if you haven’t fit in many club events! It’s also important since we’ll be electing club officers.
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Note from Dave McCorquodale
This E-Bulletin marks my last time as editor of our online newsletter. I became editor of our Pacer newsletter in late1996, so this wraps up sixteen years of editing.
I remember wanting to help Pike Creek Valley Running Club grow. Writing and editing were my strengths from my high school and college days. (Anyone who is interested could find The Heterodoxical Voice, the local “underground paper” published from 1968 through 1970, which I helped edit, on microfiche at the University of Delaware library. I also have the entire file on my computer.)
So becoming editor of the Pacer was a chance for me to get back to an activity I loved. My writing skills had not been used in years and the renewed writing help me hone them. Some have told me that I’ve written interesting articles lately, as I’ve recounted some marathon experiences.
But starting to edit again was not the same as what I had done decades before. Gone were typewriters and white-out. Instead, I had to use a computer. I had just gotten one in 1996 and had no clue how to use it for editing. To my eternal gratitude, then club president Lois Johnson took the time to come over to my home and give me a couple tutoring lessons about Microsoft Word and Excel programs.
Still, the first newsletters were primitive and full of errors. I was back to using cut and paste in order to make a newsletter. Later, Mark Deshon contributed his professional skills to do computerized layout. The newsletter looked much more professional with a masthead and pictures.
My friend Stew Whisenant contributed his skills as a photographer. The culmination of The Pacer was several professionally printed slick paper editions, done especially for the results of the Delaware Distance Classic.
I will posit that during some of the leaner years for the club (late 1990s – early 2000s) the publication of The Pacer was the main thread holding the club together.
I still have a box full of the extra copies of the old Pacers. I’ll bring them to some club functions and will indicate which have many extra copies so that they can be taken by those interested in such memorabilia.
As time passed, a couple developments led to the decision to switch to an online publication. First more and more people were using e-mail. Second it was a lot of work to prepare a publication and the lead time required meant that, except for planning an event at least a month in advance, all the information being conveyed was “old news”. By 1999 club member Wayne Kursh was posting the results from the races he directed online. Other race directors followed suit. So the idea of posting everyone’s race results in a newsletter was somewhat less important. A monthly newsletter sometimes meant pages and pages of race results. Finally, there was the expense involved in preparing and mailing.
All of those factors led to the decision to transform The Pacer into the Pike Creek Valley Running Club E-Bulletin. Over the years it has gotten to the point that the E-Bulletin has been published on an almost weekly schedule. This has been possible partially because I retired almost six years ago. It remains to be seen what schedule will be adopted by incoming editor Dirk Sweigart. But even as I write this, our methods of communicating are still changing. Now the club has a Facebook page. So anyone can transmit news immediately.
As I make way for Dirk, I’ll add that I won’t stop writing. As some know, I have a blog, http://mccorq.blogspot.com/, where I post some of my marathon articles. I generally do that when the articles go into more details other than the running and when the article focuses too much on me. Some may feel that during my time as editor, I’ve focused too much on me. Probably true, but I like to write, and ME is my main subject. I’ve pleaded over the years for others to put down their thoughts. Lately we’ve gotten that sort of contribution to the E-Bulletin. I hope it continues.
Dirk has also asked me to continue on as the person who collects the race results. I’m happy to do that as I am somewhat of a numbers geek. But remember that unless I’m instructed by the board of the club to proceed differently, I’ll continue to post only certain results UNLESS ASKED BY A PERSON to list a result. I explained that policy recently, so I’ll assume there is no need to repeat it here. Keep my address, , is you might want to report a running time for the E-Bulletin.
My goal in becoming editor was to help PCVRC grow and thrive. I feel I helped do that. The club is much, much more vital today than 16 years ago. Part of any organization remaining vital is for newer members to step into leadership roles. My stepping down as editor is part of an exciting transition that is coming to the leadership of the club this coming year. I still see the potential of the club to grow exponentially, but that won’t happen if the entire leadership appears to be a generation and a half older than the youthful runners the club hopes to attract.
Having started late(age 48) as a runner, but having been a runner for 20 years with still relatively few physical problems to stop me from running, I count myself extremely lucky. I consider running the activity foundation of my health. I think most people who’ve run for a while get that. You can see it in a glance from a runner going the other way. Someone you’ve never seen before can momentarily give a nod of acknowledgment that you and that person are part of “the running tribe”, which affords you the health that so many these days don’t have. Ultimately, I want to see that “tribe” expand. Anyone who runs is simultaneously intensely involved in personal activity, but setting an example for others by his or her mere presence.
For several reasons I’ve gravitated toward doing marathons as my preferred race. A main reason is that doing long runs are the foundation for doing marathons and my weekly Sunday long run is the most important run of the week for me. It is during longer runs that I get into a groove, an almost mediative state, where you are in the moment, aware of the signals from your body, but mostly free from the daily worries that occupy the rest of one’s life.
Many of my long runs have been in White Clay Creek State Park. It’s during those runs, out in a natural setting, when I’ve had experiences I would describe as spiritual. I coined a phrase: The Church of the Long Run. So, yeah! I’m a true believer and I’m out to convert others. As Neil Young said so eloquently (I ignore the fact that he was singing about an old car and slightly alter the lyrics):
Long may you RUN!
Long may YOU run!
Although these changes have come.
With your warm heart beating,
In the sun,
Long MAY you RUN!
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Race Results:
Here I’ve departed from my usual policy of not listing every club runner in a 5K. There were no results to report and this event, quickly organized to raise funds to support the community of Newton, brought an impressive club turn-out.
Newton Charity 5K Run:
17:46 Greg Cauller, 5th Overall, 1st 50-59
18:33 Matt Cutrona, 2nd 40-49
19:27 Epi Camacho, 2nd 50-59
19:45 Sarah Rusk, Overall Female Winner
19:45 Kelly Horowitz, 2nd overall Female, 1st 30-39
20:15 Lynn Knothe, 3rd overall female, 2nd 40-49
20:35 Kristen Stump, 1st 19-29
21:08 Dave Farren
22:13 Dave Baca
22:27 DJ Farren, 3rd 1-13
22:50 Jack Horowitz
22:56 Andrea Ladany
23:32 Liam Kaufmann
23:36 Theresa Kaufmann, 2nd 50-59
25:14 Connie Montana
25:32 Bruce Hubbard
25:33 Darlise DiMatteo
26:32 Denise Boyle
29:36 Vince McIntosh
43:40 Ralph McKinney