NBR Takes Home Awards and Inspiration from NYRR Club Night

The NBR table at NYRR Club Night

On Thursday last week, I had the chance, along with a number of NBR folks, to go to the NYRR club night. For those who don’t know, this is an awards show that New York Road Runners puts together to celebrate the achievements of local clubs. It segues into a moderately awkward dance party (I’m English, all dancing is awkward!).

We had a number of runners nominated, and already knew we had won a few team awards. Most awards are given out to the best runners in their age group (in batches of 5 years—20-24, 25-30, etc).

After eating a serving of tater tots that would make Napoleon Dynamite proud, the event got under way. We had a loud NBR table and the cheers for our runners were palpable in each award we had someone nominated in.

The list of individual nominees was:

Women 35-39

Angela Ortiz

Lauren Perkins

Men 55-59

Alun Williams (repeat nominee from last year!)

We got even louder when Angela went on to win her award. She has had an incredible year, qualifying for the olympic trials, PR’ing, and outright winning races!

The team awards placings were fantastic also:

Open A Women

4th Place!!!

Open A Men

5th Place!!!

50+ Men

2nd Place!!!

As we sat there, it really struck me how amazing these achievements are. As a free-for-everyone running club, we were strongly in the rankings in a great deal of categories. This takes the hard work and dedication of so many people throughout the year and helps put those team stats emails into context. The 50+ men was particularly fun to see announced since a lot of them were with with us on Thursday, including our newest recruit, Masamichi.

Overall, as a celebration of NYC running, and of our team, it was a great event. The part that really impressed me however was just how incredible the folks with the higher age awards were. It felt like the numbers just kept cycling up, including men and women in their 70s and 80s who had run more than 20 NYRR races in the last year. As someone who got into running a bit later in my life, it was truly inspiring to see all that they continue to achieve, and really made me realize the role that running can play in my life for the long term. I left feeling very inspired and a little less annoyed at having to run in the terrible cold weather the next day. 

Oh, and as an English awkward dancer, I briefly danced awkwardly. It wasn’t pretty. Bring on the NBR Gala!