Wild Turkey, Boston Marathon Bibs
Survey and Survey Winners
Thanks to everyone who participated in our annual survey! We received valuable feedback on how the club is doing and where we need to apply our focus going forward. We did have a drawing for two $50 NERC gift certificates for respondents, the winners were Adam Costa and Drew Fossa! Congrats Adam and Drew!
Wild Turkey Wrapup
Wicked had a great time at our Wild Turkey Warmup and on Thanksgiving morning as well. Thanks to Amy Chruniak for organizing our warmup run, we were able to spend a bit of time there with club founder and race director Doug Bollen, who shared some interesting lore about the race itself. On race day itself, the club had a great showing, with many age group placements: Kylynn McKinley, Grace Crowell, Ruth Bossler, Riley McGoldrick, Alex Trotsky, Dan Donato, Brad Gates, Michael Mckie, Tom Mistretta, Jason Barnes, and Tom Lubas. Particularly exciting was a performance from one of our newest members, Courtney Kelly, who won first woman overall in this competitive event! Congratulations to all!
Below are just some of the pictures posted by Mike Fitzgerald, thank you Mike!!



Boston Marathon Invitational Entries

We wanted to make sure everyone was aware that this year, we were awarded 4 invitational entries (bibs) from the BAA for the 2023 Boston Marathon. While Wicked is a faithful staffer of the Mile 17 Gel Stop at the Boston Marathon, and that we are big supporters of the local community, there is never a guarantee that we receive these invitational entries. Typically, for the last several years we have been awarded 2 bibs. The BAA has revamped their application process for these invitational entries, under those modifications our award doubled to four entries. This changes what is usually done for these invitational entries. The Wicked Board of Directors has voted to approve a request to award two of these four entries to Lauren Gabel and Kelly Pheulpin. Lauren and Kelly have done a tremendous amount for the club for many years – just to mention a few: they are both Wicked Ambassadors, have held board positions, have owned and organized the Mile 17 Gel stop for several years, and have been race directors at Frosty Four and Miles Over The Moon. This opportunity is very well deserved, and I am thrilled that Wicked is able to do this.
For the other two invitational entries, we will follow a process similar to what has been done in previous years – we have our own application that we use for club members who are interested in representing Wicked at the 2023 Boston Marathon. The application lists out criteria including a minimum of 3 years membership in Wicked and volunteer service to the club. The other two bibs will be assigned from a random selection over all applications that meet the criteria. If you would like an application, please contact Tom Mistretta. We will accept applications until Friday December 9th.
Membership Update / Yahoo and AOL problems
It has taken a while, but we have completed our audit of our membership and have begun to use our new email distribution list. One item that we noticed as part of this transition is that some of the emails we have sent recently have been blocked by members who use Yahoo or AOL as an email provider. We don’t think this has anything to do with the new email distribution list – it has to do with the spam blockers that Yahoo and AOL use (they are the same company under the covers). It’s not easy to figure out what it is about our emails that is objectionable to Yahoo/AOL – however we are going to avoid certain types of content in our emails (examples: excessive HTML links, email references, and attachments). Hence I am not including the application for the BAA bibs in this email. Once we get this finally narrowed down we can hopefully settle into a new pattern. If you hear of any member not getting our notices please let Tom know. Thanks for the help.
Upcoming Events
- Sunday December 4: Mill Cities Relay!
- Friday December 9th: Self-Defense class (organized by Ashley Diehl, thank you Ashley!).