The above photo is of Pat Morrison's "locally made pottery tumblers" as an entry choice for the run.
Wow! What a huge learning curve RDing The New River Trail 50k for the first time has been! Earlier this week the 125 runner limit was reached-I think there is certainly interest for more runners-yet as a "virgin" race director-and guest in small town (the runners and race will be the guests too!), I need to keep things small this year with the focus on safety and quality!
Sponsors have been amazingly generous! Nathan Sports has donated 55 quickdraw pluses and numerous packs for prizes and volunteer gifts. I think Nathan is a very good fit with the "green" approach of the event with it's handheld waterbottles-each having a pocket for food and wrappers (after consumption!)and the "ditch disposables" campaign! I am also very proud to have Clif Bar as our electrolye sponsor-and we will be collecting wrappers from Balance Bars and Clifbars to recycle through TerraCycle.
Montrail is on board too and will be assisting with some logistics such as race numbers and, marking tape,etc as well as providing prizes which I hope will include a couple of gift certificates for either velocity shoes or maybe even some of their new "green" slackline shoes which we hope will be out later this year!
Local potters and growers and smaller running stores have been awesome too! I am learning more and more each day as we near race day of October 11, 2008!
Earlier this week, Mark Lundblad interviewed me for Team Inov-8 USA's newsletter and I think this interview sheds alot of my current perspectives on RDing this event. Please check out this link!
If anyone reading this is in the area of Southwestern VA and wants to assist with the event-I will welcome your assistance!
One last bit having to do with my last post. It has been 5 weeks since my stress fracture diagnosis...So I will try running for the lst time on the weekend of September 6 &7th. I haven't run or walked much since the results of the MRI-and have been thankful for my road and cyclocross bike and the elliptical trainer for keeping me from getting too "out of shape"! I MISS RUNNING AND THE WOOD AND CAN'T WAIT TO GET BACK!
