11/24/2024
The wind finally settled down this week and made for pleasant race conditions for record-breaking numbers at the 2024 Furrow Euro Cross Country Run!
Thank you to everyone who has run with us before and returned again this year. I saw a lot of EPGXC alumni back for the race (see pic I stole from Mrs. Meyer), as well as Olympia high school teammates, IWU college teammates, and even some college "rivals" who came to race. Big thanks to my fellow HOI Conference coaches for supporting- I saw coaches from Fieldcrest, Heyworth, DeeMack, Tri-Valley, and Eureka- I love the supportive atmosphere of the HOI, y'all are the best. Thank you for understanding if I didn't get to spend much time with each of you, but I sincerely appreciate you making the effort to come out.
Welcome to those who chose to race with us for the first time this year, we hope your experience was worth coming back, and maybe you'll even bring some friends to share the race and soup!
Word of mouth is our best advertising, although I saw Jim Mattson again this year, so watch for some footage on the local news soon, and keep telling everyone to make a plan to race with us the Saturday before Thanksgiving every November.
Special shout outs to our registration team, who got over three hundred folks set up with bibs and sweaters with minutes to spare before the race. Shout out to Perfect Pace Race Management for providing timing services. Thanks again to my parents and their friends who prepared enough soup and grilled cheese and brownies for an army- I was told it was our most delicious soup ever! Thanks to my in-laws for letting us use the Farm for the race and helping get the place in good shape and setting out the straw bales. Thanks to my brother and sister who helped clean up the course after the race (and Landon and Matthew for helping clean up the third crossing).
With all that cleanup assistance, I can now get ready to host some progress tours at the Project XV Museum tomorrow afternoon. When I'm not teaching, coaching, or inviting a few hundred people over to my house to run through creeks and eat soup together, I also am also working towards opening a museum here in El Paso, focused on voting rights and civics education and telling the story of the first African American voter (and El Paso resident) David Strother. You can find us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ProjectXVMuseum, or our website, www.ProjectXVMuseum.com. If you want to see what we've been up to, you can stop by tomorrow afternoon and I'll give you a tour (there are no creeks, nor soup, but there will be snacks!)
Results from today's race can be found at this link https://www.arrowliveresults.com/FurrowEuro2024
Feel free to follow page for the Furrow Euro at, https://www.facebook.com/FurrowEuro/
We will post pictures, links to other races, and other things throughout the year.
While next year's race is still almost a whole year away, I'm already jotting some notes on how to improve on the race experience:
1. I announced a couple guys in the 14 & under age group as winners, when they were actually 16. Luckily, they confessed their true age and I realized I was just looking at the wrong age group, *facepalm. I'll fix that by learning how to read better before next year.
2. Some folks had trouble pulling up the link for live results, so next year we are going to try to post paper results by the large map.
3. I understand that at least one bib chip did not read, while we cannot help that a rare bib will slip through the RFID coverage, I think having the paper results posted before the awards ceremony will help fix those rare unfortunate circumstances beforehand and help make sure the right awards are handed out to the right people.
4. The line for pre-reg pickup A-L got a bit long, so I think I'm gonna divide packet pickup into three lines next year and separate them a little more to alleviate some of the crowding.
5. The soup line was long. I'm not really sure what to do about that. You all had fantastic attitudes about it, and at least the soup was worth the wait! One last shout out to my parents for providing one of the best post-race spreads that I've been to!
If you have any notes to add on how to make 2025 even better, we are always open to constructive criticisms- progredi vel mori.
THANK YOU!
Michael
