GRRC March 2025 President’s Letter in PDF
March 24, 2025
Dear Members and GRRC Followers:
Yay! It’s spring! This letter recaps March club activity, highlights upcoming GRRC-related races, events, and volunteer opportunities, and provides new information.
March Club Recap
- The biggest new business the board introduced at our last meeting was the desire to focus our efforts on marketing. With our newest board member, Steve Scherer, having an active background in marketing and advertising, he has graciously offered his expertise to lead a concerted effort. We’re at the beginning of this endeavor, but you may have already seen some progress with images he produced being sent out for various events.
- The annual banquet was well attended and reported to be a lot of fun! See below for information on unclaimed RROY & MILEStone awards.
- We’ve booked the summer picnic (August 3, Towpath Shelter, Greece Canal Park, Greece) and autumn potluck (October 12, South Lodge, Ellison Park, Rochester/Penfield), so save the dates! Registration won’t be open for a few weeks yet, but at least you’ll know when and where they are.
- Rochester Runner of the Year Series kicked off with Runnin’ of the Green with about 1,700 registrants. Be sure to register for at least five to be eligible for 2025 and six to be a GRRC Frequent Participant (members only for that award).
- We got a handful of responses to our interest survey. The biggest finds are folks prefer Saturdays for special events, most people would like us to include the random offers we get for out-of-area races, and there is interest in doing social activities separate from running. Congratulations to John Osowski for being randomly selected from the 16 respondents for a three-month extension to his membership.
Coming Events
April
4/23 – GRRC Annual Spring Clinic, coached by GRRC Hall of Fame Honorees Coaches Mike Reif and Carolyn Smith-Hannah; Wednesdays from April 23 to June 4; Goal race two days after the final clinic session: McMullen Mile, a RROY race. Register for this all skill level clinic to enjoy a different kind of challenge than your everyday workout experience by going to https://runsignup.com/Race/NY/Rochester/GreaterRochesterTrackClubSpringClinicsandTrackWorkouts.
4/26 – Wild Water Derby 5K, directed by GRRC VP Martha Doody; this second-year race is a first-time participant in Rochester Runner of the Year; taking place in Shortsville, it’s part of a bigger event so there is more to see and do before and after you’re done with your 5K. Register at https://runsignup.com/Race/NY/Shortsville/WildWaterDerby5k.
Remaining RROY and MILEStone Awards
Rochester Runner of the Year Chair Jennifer Gaudino and MILEStone Challenge Chair Tina Ruhland are leading the efforts to get unclaimed awards to the appropriate people. If you are a RROY winner who is not a member of the club, please send a message to membership@grtconline.org with your contact information as we may not have it since there’s no registration for the series. Only club members can earn MILEStone awards, but it doesn’t hurt to check your RunSignup information to be sure your address is up to date. Please be patient as they are handling this in between their jobs and other commitments.
MILEStone Patch Challenge Open
Don’t let the year get away from you. Register now at https://runsignup.com/Race/NY/Rochester/GreaterRochesterRunningClubMILEStonePatchChallenge to start tracking your mileage. You can enter it manually on a regular basis or you can use a spreadsheet and upload it every so often (omitting previously uploaded date to prevent duplicate entries).
The pre-formatted spreadsheet is on our website at https://grtconline.org/spreadsheet-file-info-for-2024-milestone-patch-results/ (or in the Files section of our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/greaterrochesterrunningclub/files/files).
Even if you’re not sure how to do the data entry, if you want to be in the MILEStone Challenge, free registration is required. If needed, we’ll help you out with the data entry. Just email us at milestone@grtconline.org.
Discounts
See member discounts at https://runsignup.com/Club/NY/Rochester/GreaterRochesterTrackClub. There are some new ones there! RROY races will show discounts at they open.
Volunteerism
GRRC – Want to help and don’t know how? Contact me at president@grtconline.org and let’s talk!
Thank you for being a member or being interested enough to follow us in email and social media. Members can renew before their membership lapses and followers can become members by registering at https://runsignup.com/Club/NY/Rochester/GreaterRochesterTrackClub.
See you out there!
Vickey Beaver