Dear AARC Members, Winter has arrived with occasional hints of early spring weather. One of my favorite things about winter is the addition of about two minutes of sunlight each day. Of course winter also means Frostbite 5 Miler, now The Fireside Frostbite 5 Miler. Preparations are going well. We have a great new logo and we hope to surpass last year’s entries.   The social committee has been very busy.  The Wine and Cheese reception went very well. We plan on continuing this yearly tradition at The Ambler Theatre in mid November.    At the Philadelphia Marathon, we had about 20 club members volunteer for an AARC water stop. We also rented a boathouse near the start/finish. Feedback from those that used the boathouse was very positive and we hope to make this a yearly event for the marathon. Broad St. registration will most likely be in mid January. Last year the race sold out in four days. Team registration was confusing. This year, we hope to be better prepared. Tom Jennings has agreed to coordinate AARC teams. If you would like to be on an AARC team, please email Tom atthomasj343@aol.com. You will still need to register, but if we can coordinate teams prior to registration, you can register on a team at the time of initial registration as opposed to trying to add on later. AARC will cover the difference between team registration and individual registration (you will pay the total and AARC will refund you).   This month’s traveling fun run will be at Mondauk Park on New Year’s Eve Day starting between 7-8AM for those who aspire to run 26.2 laps. For those going less, a little later arrival is okay. In January, AARC hosted a race director’s symposium at The Ambler Theatre. 60 local race directors attended, participated in four workshops, and all reported having learned a great deal from speakers and from other race directors.  An ongoing consortium of race directors is in the planning.  One of AARC’s missions is to help promote running within the community and this is just another example of how AARC helps with promoting running and racing.  If you'd like information about how you can help this effort, see Nathan. The spring general meeting will most likely be in late March. Our guest speaker will be Todd Wiley. Todd is a national class triathlete and a personal triathlete coach. Since we have several members venturing to the “dark side” (the triathlon), Todd will be speaking on beginning training techniques, with most of the emphasis on the bike, swim and transition (we have running mastered!!). Board elections will take place at that time. There will be an opening on the board, as my term is up (yes we have term limits). As in the past, the board did find a replacement to fill the ballot. However, any club member can run for the board. If you would like to run for a board position, please email me at pres@aarclub.com. Last is that I’d like to congratulate Mike Kaucher and Tim Schroeck on both dropping a minute off of their 5k PRs this year. Last year at this time they thought they could only maybe run under 20 minutes, This month they both broke 19 minutes! Training year round certainly paid off for them. Train well and enjoy the pleasant (so far) winter running weather. And remember, we always need members to volunteer for committees and races.   Yours in running,   Ira  (president@aarclub.com )