The Flyers Are Dead; Long Live the Flyers!

Every year we race. Like the ebb of the tide, each year comes and goes, and each looks pretty similar to the last. The Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island Halfs. The Joe Kleinerman 10k. The Club Championships. Father’s, Mother’s, Japan Day. Etc. Sometimes a Dash is a accompanied by a Splash, and sometimes the dates change and sometimes the distances change, but it all ends up blending together after that first run at the stroke of midnight at the start of the year.

And as the year comes and goes, we keep running, and striving to set another PR. And another. And another. And another.

So what’s in it for you, in all this running? The question is rhetorical of course. No one has an answer for keeps. Each time you think you’ve figured it out, you run another race and the question arises again, if in a different way.

Rising above it all is our little club. OK, big club. Although we might run alone during the races, away from them we’re part of something big. All those races might blend together, but we relish – or hate – each and every one for their most subtle differences, and love to ponder those differences with our friends in the club. One 10k is not the same as the next, even if they’re the same race on the same course at the same time of year in the same conditions. So we tell our stories and bond together.

When it’s all done, we gather to party. We figuratively hoist our success stories on our collective shoulders and cheer, while we sweep our misfortunes under the rug and let them go. We embrace the volunteers who motivated, maintained and carried the club over the past year, and we send newly elected and appointed ones on their journey forward to lead us. At this cold, dark, and snowy (very snowy!) time of year, we can look ahead to renewal and rebirth. The days are getting longer. The temperature will rise. The snow will melt. Spring will come. And we will – our club will – set many more personal records again. And again, and again, and again.

This Saturday is our Gala. We will eat and drink. We will celebrate the year gone by. We will dance. Oh my, we will dance! We will share our love of our sport and say good bye to our past and from the night we will emerge, a new club, eyes set to the future, with one collective, uniting thought:

Go Flyers.