Day 12 of Gratitude - Night Moves Running Series
31 Days of Gratitude - In an attempt to publicly express my gratitude for the people that have impacted me in some way in 2015, I'm setting out to write one post a day sharing what I appreciate about them or what moment that marked me. Some of these people I know well, some I've only met, and some I'm just getting to know. There is no ranking to these posts and they aren't meant to put anyone on a pedestal. They, like you and I, are imperfect people with their own flaws, some you may have experienced. Despite those flaws, I believe we all need to have our positive characteristics called into light and celebrated. This is that attempt.
Starting line at Race 6 on 12.11.15 - 65 runners hit the course at Franke Park as part of the Fantasy of Lights display.
I created Team NeighborLink 5 year ago after a neighbor and I decided to do an Xterra off-road triathlon as well as mini-marathon. I realized as the executive director of a non-profit, I should probably be promoting my organization on my shirt rather than nothing as all or at minimum, the brand of the shirt I was wearing. Since then, it's grown into something pretty incredible. Today, we have 60 cyclists & triathletes and dozens of runners and CrossFit athletes on the team. We're more of a grassroots team that encourages people to purchase and wear our gear on runs/rides/races wherever they are rather than just doing big events.
However, a couple of years ago we started doing bike events and this year I determined that we needed to do more with running. I also decided at the beginning of 2015 that if Team NL didn't start generating revenue/donations, then at the end of 2016, I'd pull way back on the amount of time I was spending on it to focus that energy on things that were a bit closer to our mission. The team expanded this year, we started having team members raise lots of money on our behalf, and we create a phenomenal running series called, Night Moves.
This video will tell the story, but Night Moves has become a 6 part running series that has runners start running at 10p through the streets of Downtown Fort Wayne, historic neighborhoods, and the Fantasy of Lights display with trails at a local park last night. I had no idea how to run a running event nor whether anyone in Fort Wayne would think that running at 10pm at night with an unmarked course would be fun enough to do, let alone pay to do.
The Fort Wayne running community surprised me and we've been selling out each race and beyond ever since. The past three races we've had over 60 runners show up. That may not seem like a lot based on the 5k runs you've done, but they are designed to be intentionally small and targeted towards a certain type of runner within the community. I've considered them to be highly successful for accomplishing our goals.
I'm grateful for this series and all the runners that have trusted us to create great events. There have been 20-30 people that did more than 3 of the races and keep asking for more. When you're doing something that you have an idea that would be cool, but not sure if anyone agrees with your ideas succeed, then you feel like a million dollars.
The Night Moves running series is one of the top 3 things we've done with Team Neighborlink in 2015 that has solidified its future for at least another year. We want to create meaningful events for athletes that raise awareness for NL, raise money for projects, and has people walking about saying that is one of the funnest things they've done in the city they love in a long time. So far, I've seen that to be true. Thanks Night Moves running community.
