From 1/4/21
Good morning members and followers,
First off: Happy New Year to everyone. Happy 2021. Happy no longer 2020!
As the Club finalizes the transition from one President (myself) to our new President (Kyle Simpson), I thought I would send out one final “COVID-19 and the DC Triathlon Club” update. 2020 was not the kind of year that I wanted to end my service to the Club with, but well: 2020. It was a year that started off full of so many hopes and dreams. So many plans and ideas for great race seasons, great race-cations, and great finish line celebrations with friends. And then a wee little virus threw a wrench into the world, tossed everything into a meat grinder, took a giant…. well, you get the metaphors.
It has been a crazy year and while there is a light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel is darker than ever. I have a coworker who lost her uncle right before Christmas, her brother on New Year’s Eve, and her mother on New Year’s Day: all from COVID-19. Some of my close friends and I were lamenting how the virus is hitting closer and closer to home. I have done my best to keep politics out of my posts because we are a social club with a triathlon problem, and this is supposed to be a place for people of all walks of life to get together, rise above partisan issues, and just swim, bike, and run our way toward finish line celebrations. I am more used to debates where we argue over whether an RNA virus is living or not (if it doesn’t have DNA, is it really alive?), and not debates where we argue on which side of the political spectrum a virus is. So this year has been very frustrating for me in many ways and it has been tough to stay non-partisan (or tri-partisan, if you prefer), but I have tried my darnedest. We are still in this pandemic and this tunnel is still dark; nevertheless, we will make it through and we will hopefully be wiser and smarter the next time a pandemic emerges.
My previous posts have encapsulated all of the things that we here at the DC Triathlon Club tried (either successfully or unsuccessfully) to do to engage with you as members and followers this year given the restrictions from local and state authorities and what we, the Board members as regular people finding our own ways through a pandemic, felt comfortable doing. The new Board of Directors will now get to make decisions on what 2021 will look like for the DC Triathlon Club and what they feel comfortable offering to our members.
Toward the end of 2020, we chose to move the DCTriClub Off Season Spin (OSP) to all-virtual this year and it begins on Saturday! There is still time to join us (registration closes Thursday), and we hope that you will! I hope to see as many of your smiling faces (via Zoom screen) in your personal pain caves as possible on Saturday and for the next 12 weekends. For the first time in seven years, I will be participating in the program as a regular, non-Board, club member of the most awesome triathlon club in the nation. I hope you will join me.
The other Club programs, training events, social gatherings, and club races will be up to our new Board to decide. I hope you will opt to participate in these programs/events to help show your support for the Board and to help keep the DC Triathlon Club as one of the best triathlon clubs in the nation. We are on the verge of becoming the largest dues-paying triathlon club in the nation because you all have stuck with us through thick and thin this year and in years prior with the changes in the sport, and you know that once we get through this pandemic, we will be raring to go with happy hours, training camps, clinic days, and everything else that will be really odd at first because we’ve been physically distancing for so long. I hope you continue to stay with the Club. If your membership has expired, I encourage you to renew it. Please officially rejoin us and give encouragement to our new President and 2021 Board that they are doing a great job in a really tough time.
Triathlon, duathlon, running events, and the like will be back this year. Race organizers are eager and ready to get back to hosting events because they really do enjoy putting on the events and seeing your faces on the course. They will look different this year as organizers will have to work within local and state guidelines, but you can still expect to have a great experience that will be done in a safe manner. I encourage you to look locally for your races as that cuts down on traveling great distances and potentially spreading the virus, which is still something about which we have to worry for most of 2021. We have some great race partners here in the Washington DC area and are probably the luckiest region in the nation to have so many well established race organizers who put on high-quality, well-respected events. We will begin updating discount codes for these companies as we receive them and posting them behind the membership wall.
REVOLUTION3 Triathlon (REV3TRI)
Kinetic Multisports
EX2 Adventures
Racine MultiSports
Cal Tri Events
Our local and national partners are here to help you make the most of your 2021! I encourage you to visit (with your mask on) our local partners and take advantage of the services and discounts that they offer you as members!
Bicycle Pro Shop
Trek Bicycle Arlington Clarendon
Trek Bicycle Washington D.C. Georgetown
M3 Bike
Rose Physical Therapy Group
Potomac River Running Store
WaveOne Swimming
Please continue to be safe. Be smart. Don’t gather in large groups, and please wear your masks. I know masks are annoying, but better to be annoyed a bit than on a ventilator or facing increased risks of myocardial infarctions or myocarditis (
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7453206/ and
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/09/evidence-builds-covid-19-can-damage-heart-doctors-are-racing-understand-it amongst many other articles) should you emerge from a mild case of COVID-19. If you have the opportunity to take the vaccine: I encourage you to do so. The more I read (
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03072-8 and
https://www.phgfoundation.org/briefing/rna-vaccines for starters) about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and the trials, the more confident in the technology I become. However, even with the vaccines, I fully expect that we will be wearing masks for a large part of this year. This is for your safety and not a conspiracy that us scientists dreamt up for sh*ts and giggles. So please, please please: mask up (sorry, a little bit of politics slipped in).
Thank you all for the opportunity to have served and led you all in some manner for the last 10 years (as NTP leader, as Director of Programs, as Treasurer, and as President). It has truly been a pleasure.
And for the last time:
Bryan
President | DC Triathlon Club