It has been quite a year for the club and for me personally. We have had lots of new members join us and have seen the power of these numbers in the support we all receive at the races. I see the notes on the forum which indicate that there are more and more communications about our experiences, training options and techniques for improvement. I see events where our "Team" is up on the podium for a broad spectrum of Age Group awards as well as overall places. I see new folks coming in and finishing their first race successfully and looking to the club for help in getting to their next level. This is what I envisioned when I suggested the club about 5 years ago. The next question is "How do we move forward from here?"
This year, we had significant numbers of members doing IM or 70.3 races and it is exciting to see these results and successes. However, doing longer races has a downside and that is the requirement to stick to a schedule for each particular race. I suspect that we have lots of folks who end up putting in long hours of training alone because we all tend to have full lives and tight schedules and fitting in a 3-6 hour bike ride has to be done when time permits rather than when a group is planning to meet. I wish the club could do better in terms of providing training opportunities for everyone but it is tough to be flexible enough to meet everyone's needs. Meeting and talking about options might be a good start, but, honestly, I haven't had the time to get this going.
I had a very good year for racing in Tri's and Duathlons, and that was important for my health during a very tough year for my family. Unfortunately, I realize that the numerous pulls at my time have made me less able to provide effective leadership for HEAT. I feel it is time to bring in some new blood to take the club to the next level. Looking forward, we need folks to step up to assure that we are able to provide the programs and training options members expect. The more folks who are able to step up and help, the less each particular person will be responsible for. More importantly, we need someone to lead this effort.
Getting an event committee started would be another great thing to keep club momentum going and to provide members opportunities to meet and socialize as well as train. Maybe it's time to set up a monthly club meeting to socialize and talk about what else we can do. So, what else do you think we can do? The first step that I suggest is that we take some nominations for new leadership for the club. I am willing to continue to help out as part of the board, but would love to have someone help take us to the next level.
