A couple of weeks ago, still in Argentina, I get this email
My name is blah blah, and I’m part of the committee that selects New York Road Runners’ Runner of the Year nominees and winners, awarded annually at our Club Night celebration in early March.
ahaaa, whaaaaat?
I’m in the process of putting together this year’s committee for our meeting, and my colleague blah blah suggested that you might be interested in participating this year.
what? me??? WHAT? yes!!! yes! YES? Yes. Me?
If you’re interested, I’d like to have a book of the data we use to make our selections sent to you in advance of the meeting, so you have a chance to look it over and think about things before we all meet. blah blah
AAAHHHHHH. I scream.
My dad: Queeeee?
Me: there’s this Runner of the Year thing and they invited me to help with the selection!!!!!!!!!!!
My dad: do you get paid for that?
Me (super offended): No!!!
My dad: meh
Me: But, it’s like a super honor
My dad: but, are you gonna be the runner of the year then?
Me, eyes rolling into infinity…
Every year, NYRR hosts a Club Night, where the runners with the biggest achievements in the previous year get celebrated and awarded. It’s what a club night should be for any runner (and nothing at all like when I used to club in Buenos Aires. Ehem).
Because I was in Argentina until last night, I missed UPS and all their deliveries of the super top secret and important and scary binder, so I offered to pick it up at NYRR’s offices, since, hey, they are on my street!
But, I guess things change fast when you’re in a different time zone; they moved!
So I marched over to their new offices, but no one is at the door. Someone signals us (you know I don’t walk alone!) to a door where there’s people and chatting and food and stuff. Soon we walk into a happy hour where I know pretty much everyone. They were toasting their new offices… which is something to toast about too! There’s big posters of the marathon and even a HUGE wall with the five boro course. HA. I wanted to move in. Everyone had their names in their cubes in the format of elite runner’s bibs. Ah. So, everyone was there (including MaryW), eating, drinking, and being merry. As it should be in any office, friday afternoon.
I located my guy and my binder. Eeeeeek, big, and it’s ALL numbers.
It’s basically two hundred pages with the rules of who qualifies and how they are rated, basically race times normalized to 10k times, substracted from an absolute value (Purdy tables!), then they are assigned point values (based also on course difficulty). Should be fun. I said some hellos, some byes, they handed me a shirt they were all getting (though I am not an employee!!), you should see it, the text on the back of the shirt is PRICELESS:
Soon, binder in hand, I was on my merry, though tired (as I slept on a plane last night and went straight to work today!) way.
On the way home, I went through it, and was so surprised, not only to know pretty much everyone in there, but that a LOT of my friends were there (shh, don’t ask!). This is gonna be fun!!
runningandthecity 