UFT Runners

We patted eachother on the back, we complained, we celebrated, we bemoaned, we reminisced.   Dom Morea, a member since before time, retired for 17  years but still substituting, regaled us with tales of being a teacher “back in the day” when “back in the day” was truly “back in the day.” At the October 24 meeting we reviewed our 2008 year, our first year running after 2 years being out of commission.  Richie Orazem went from Chair of the team to Past Chair of the team which means he is now 51% responsible.  This year over 50 new teachers ran races with us, including 5 new men who run a 5:25 pace or less for 3.5 miles and 5 women who run a 7:00 pace or less for the 3.5 mile distance.  We did lose two of these elite men by September.  We have confidence, however, that our website and fliers publicity will bring in more by next March’s sign up time for the Corporate Challenge series.  We found that more teachers were dying to run the June Corporate Challenge race than we had slots for (they only gave us 70 slots) and teachers were luke warm for other races.   Few people due to family, afterschool, and/or training responbilities have been able to pitch in to keep the team rolling. 

This year we ran and ate many portions of complimentary corned beef and Guinness at Coogans in March, blew away the field and celebrated well into the night at both the Central Park Chase Corporate Challenge Qualifying race in June and the Jones Beach Workplace Challenge race in July.  And we surprised ourselves and others by placing 3rd for the Women and 6th for the Men in the Chase Corporate Challenge International Finals in October.  Matt Panetta has taken on responsibility for fliers and contacts for other New York Road Runners Club races.  Kevin Miller has been managing the website with great help from Joyce Holohan.  He plans to also coordinate the Chase Corporate Challenge racing series this year, along with possibly the Coogans race.  Josie Piccinic, along with her longtime buddy Ellen Brach took on the Jones Beach Workplace Challenge Friends and Family race in July and plans to do so again next summer.

Our showings at the May Bronx Community College and June Prospect Park Kenny Dolan race was a bit of a bomber, but we did represent as best we could.  There has been interest in running the Milrose Games (which we have done in the past) and possibly the Penn Relays.  Should people be interested, though, we would need others to take on responsibility.   All in all it was a fabulous year, as evidenced by the article front and center on the Chase Corporate Challenge website.  And/but it will basically be a team focused on the Corporate Challenge racing series should others not be able to pitch in.