As we look towards 2020, it’s important to look back on 2019. Oh man, what a crazy ride it’s been.

Just looking at the spreadsheet we use to populate our run calendar, there have been 124 runs or other events offered to the group (and that’s only between Jan 26th and Dec 21st).

I love sharing new trails and routes with people. It’s still awesome to me when we get a new runner and they see the view from the Cross Country course for the first time.

Also, it’s been awesome to see a lot of the run club members become considerably faster! Incredible job guys.

One of the most interesting challenges of 2019 was trying to figure out the runs that would be best received by the group.

• Are we running too many hills?
• Are we changing locations too often?
• Are we running the same routes too much?
• How do we make sure to keep everyone involved?
• Do we add a weekday run?
• Some people can’t make Tuesday, what about Wednesday?
• Do we make the runs earlier? Later?
• Should we add a longer run? Shorter run? C25k?

These are just some of the things that were discussed during runs, over coffee and at our board meetings.

It’s very important to listen to what the group has to say. However, it’s also important to gather a lot of feedback and use that to make the best decision for the group. How do you let people know that they are being heard, when that specific suggestion may not be well received by the larger group?

Slowly but surely we listened to the feedback and made incremental changes.

We added a bi-weekly weekday run and then made it every week. Some people wanted a flatter option, so we tried out the Bay Trail at Redwood Shores. We tried a new route for the weekday run, but it had mixed feedback causing me to search for another option. Some runners were interested in having organized interval workouts, so we added track workouts to our schedule on Thursday (big shout out to the Wilde’s for making that so successful!)

I think that over the year, the group has found our sweet spot. I’m really looking forward to seeing what direction this group goes in 2020.

Like always, if you have a route that you love or a recommendation for a group run – just let me know! I’m definitely open to any sort of feedback.

Happy running,
Jon