April 2019 President's Letter

April President’s Letter
 
Fellow USATF New England Members:
I hope everyone is enjoying the first month of spring. We have had much better weather then last
spring for track and road races, which has gotten the year off to a great start. Congratulations to
everyone who ran in, volunteered at, or watched the Boston Marathon last week. It was another
amazing classic!
Just a reminder that we have kicked off our Sixth Annual All-Terrain Racing (ATR) Series. The ATR Series trail race, the Ralph Waldo Emerson 3.9M (short course), is a fun trail race that is ideally suited for first-time trail runners. The race is on May 11 th , so please sign-up soon if you are participating in the ATRSeries this year. As we did last year, we are awarding hi-tech pullovers to members who complete 4 or 5 of the ATR races.
 
As a reminder, the 2019 ATR Series will include the following races:
- Trail: 5/11 Ralph Waldo Emerson 3.9 Miles (NH)
- Mountain: 6/8 Ascutney Run Up 3.8 Miles (VT)
- Track (if did not run the 800M on 1/28 or 2/17): 7/28 USATF-NE Championships 800M (MA)
- Road: 8/10 Bridge of Flowers 8K (MA)
- XC: 11/10 USATF-NE Cross Country Championships (MA)
If you would like to enter this year, please go to our website at:
http://newengland.usatf.org/Events/2019/2019-USATF-New-England-All-Terrain-Runner-Series.aspx
As you all know by now, I was elected to USATF’s Board of Directors at the 2018 Annual Meeting to fill the General Competition Board Seat, which represents Associations and Masters Track & Field. I have been working hard to improve our sport for both Associations and Masters Track & Field. On the Associations front, I am pleased that the USATF National Office has just announced the hiring of ThunderTech to lead the redevelopment of the USATF website and content management system. 
On the Masters Track & Field front, I helped launch the World #1 Program, which provided $75,000 of financial assistance for US athletes to travel to the WMA World Masters T&F Indoor Championships in Poland this March. The World #1 Program was a huge success as twice as many US athletes, including many from our Association, were able to travel to WMA Indoors than could two years ago, which led to the US team finishing second in the gold medal count! Finally, as many of you know, the suspension of the USATF President was not resolved at the USATF’s February Board Meeting. While this is disappointing, I hope that we have a path forward to resolve this in the near term. I will continue to keep you updated on my successes and challenges.
As always, feel free to email me with any questions at president@newengland.org.
Chris Pasko
President – USATF New England