Saturday, November 7, 2009

We cannot walk alone.

I haven't been running much the last six months, ever since I assumed the presidency of my running club, even before I got injured at Army. (I haven't run since.) Too busy.

However, being a site director for my club's Ten-Miler Program, I did run about ten miles each Saturday with my trainees, and then about ten more the next day in support of the Sunday site director. That was like my guilty pleasure.

But as president, in addition to the public stuff I detailed in the last post that were accomplished on my watch in the last six months, along with writing the club newsletter every eight weeks, there were the hidden every-day occurrences I administered to like attending innumerable meetings with finance committees, race directors, advisory boards, etc., communicating with countless persons in endless phone calls and emails, maintaining club property such as undertaking several trips in the club van to get it fixed after a RD damaged it in an accident, driving around the beltway in my pickup to pick up 15 boxes of racing t-shirts and deliver them early the next morning, going to a race packet pickup site to restore order when no one showed up for over an hour except for five dozen increasingly angry runners, participating in the ATM Expo to answer questions about pacing, safeguarding the runners' bags in the club tent at the MCM finish line during those lonely hours when the club runners were out on the course...well, you get the idea.

And then there was one last meeting earlier today to hand over the reins of power for the last six months of my reign (I just made a series of jokes, BTW) to the club VP of Ops so she could be the adult in the sandbox for the rest of the way.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best when he said, "We cannot walk alone." He concluded that iconic speech by reciting, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

That's pretty much how I feel about it.

1 comment:

Anne said...

I had to assume leadership of a program in my track club and completely understand the relief you now feel. I am looking forward to the same at the end of the year. Thank you for doing all you've done for people who probably have no clue.