Runners,

It is almost Christmas and this is one of our favorite times of the year! Everyone seems to be in an upbeat mood this time of year and one of the reasons is the beautiful Christmas lights we see around town. Because of this, we are planning a run/walk to view the Christmas lights on Tuesday Dec 11th at 6:30 PM. We will meet in Cumberland Park at Salisbury and Cumberland St in W. Lafayette. From there we will head out to University Farm and Arbor Chase. Please join us and if we can find a person to lead, we might even sing a couple of Christmas carols as we run. If you want, bring the family along.

We plan to go to Camille’s in the Pay Less Plaza off of US 52 for coffee, hot chocolate or more for anyone that wants to socialize afterwards.

Since it is getting close to Christmas, that means it is also close to the New Year, which brings us to one of our biggest events of the year, Run in the New Year at the Hilton Garden INN on the Levee in West Lafayette. This will be on Jan 1, 2013 at 10 AM. Registration will start at 9 AM. There is also a sign up sheet on the website for any members that want to mail their registration in advance. The price for this event is $20 per member, $15 for each person after that, unless they are under 14 years of age, then it will be $10.  This price includes your WRRC membership for the next year and the Breakfast Buffet after the Run/walk that morning at the hotel.

We would like to take a group photo before the Run/walk so if you have a WRRC T-shirt, we would encourage you to wear it.  Also we would like to have one of our excellent photographers volunteer to take this photo. We are planning to use this for the Club website and Facebook page.

We would like to get feedback from the members this year, and to do this, we have created a survey you can take here.  We’ll also have copies at the RITNY – though the online form would be the easiest to use to pool the answers.  This is just for our use to consider changes that the members suggest. We may not use all of them but we will definitely discuss them. In this way, we can make WRRC a Club more tailored to the needs and desires of the members. I have attached a copy of the survey in case you want to fill it out in advance and turn it in at the RITNY.

Also, looking ahead, Joe Ely has done an excellent job of planning and originating the Circular Logic Marathon which is sponsored by WRRC. The route was certified by the USATF this year and is now Boston certified!  This race has exploded in popularity in just one year. At this time there are only 22 individual spots left in registration, the limit is 105. There are also a limited number of spots open for relay groups. We are very proud of Joe for his foresight in seeing that West Lafayette could bring in runners from all over the country to run a Marathon. The second Circular Logic Marathon is scheduled for March 23, 2013.

Since this is sponsored by WRRC, we would like to ask again for volunteers to help at the Marathon. We got an amazing response from the Purdue Half Marathon when we requested volunteers and we hope we get just as many to help with this race. I realize this is pretty far in the future, however, we want everyone to start thinking about it and if possible planning for it.

We have had an amazing year and I hope all of you have enjoyed it as much as I have. Hopefully we will see you at the Christmas lights run and the RITNY!!

Keep runnin’ and keep happy,

Cyndi Meacham
Wabash River Runners Club President