Published by the DAILY RECORD of Morris County, New Jersey
On Sunday, December 20, 2015
NEW JERSEY RUNNERS DID WELL AT CLUB CROSS COUNTRY MEET
In 2014 the USATF club cross country championship meet was
held at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA.
New Jersey runners and clubs turned out in droves helping to make the
meet the highest attended meet in the history of the event.
That title remains although the attendance at the meet in
Golden Gate Park in San Francisco came close.
Teams from up and down the coast from Seattle to San Diego filled the
fields.
New Jersey was well represented, thanks for the most part to
the Adidas Garden State Track Club. The
clubs open men’s A team placed seventh out of 59 teams – huge move up for the
club from 19th in 2014.
Youssef Rochdi of Rockaway was a scoring member of the
team. Not only did the club have an A
team, they had a B, C, and D team that competed in the second open men’s
race. The field had reached too large a
size so it was split into an A race, that had 411 finishers, and a B race with 137
finishers. The club’s B team placed
first in that race.
The women’s race was won by former New Jersey standout Amy
Van Alstine who now competes for the HOKA, ONE, ONE team. The AGSTC women’s A team finished 15th
out of 41 teams.
In the masters races the Shore Athletic Club fielded a W40
team and a M70 team. Susan Stirrat of
Rockaway was on the Shore’s W40 team and finished 17th in the W60
division. Husband Reno, running without
a team, finished in fourth place in his M60 division. Finishing in the medals was the Shore team’s
Przemyslaw Nowicki who took third in his M70 division and Ralph Garfield who
took second in the M80 division. The team
placed third in the race and has sewn up first place in the Team Grand Prix.
JOIN USATF NOW
Now’s the time to renew your membership in USATF or if you
have never joined, now’s the time to do so.
Memberships need to be renewed by January 1st if you are
planning to run in a January first race that is in the New Balance grand
prix.
Membership makes sense for New Jersey runners although the
benefits are hard to find. The biggest
benefit is to secure a discount when pre-registering in a grand prix race. That discount can range from two dollars to
five, depending on the registration fee.
At thirty dollars for membership, you can reap the benefit
with just a handful of races. Less well
known and less well publicized are the discounts on hotels, car rentals, and
even airline fares. For some reason the
national website has hidden these discounts and the participating companies in
the members only link. I am going to
spill the beans here.
For instance, when
traveling to a city for a USATF event, both Delta and United airlines offer a
10% discount.
Choice Hotel member hotels, which include a dozen or so hotels,
offer a minimum 15% discount when pre-registering. The Hilton brands hotels also offer a 15%
discount. Subject to availability Best
Western also offers a discount.
Enterprise has a 10% discount on car rentals and National goes
a bit further with up to 20% off.
I will bet that most current members of USATF did not know
about all these discounts. I confess
that I did not until researching for this article.
To sign up for membership in USATF go to the national
website www.usatf.org and clink on the link for “Products/Services”
and then scroll down to “individual memberships”. You can sign up for one year or several.
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A calendar of USATF sanctioned events can be found at www.usatfnj.org or at www.raceforum.com for running and tri and
biathlon events.
Contact Madeline Bost at madelinebost@verizon.net.
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