..... the "Owner" said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and shorts--and body glide--
Of race reports --and wins!--
And posts of tapering, or not--
And running round in rings!"

Folks it's been pretty much 3 years since Larry stepped back and I "took on" ownership of this group. If that wording makes it sound like an onerous task... that's certainly not the case. It's been a privilege to watch the group continue to develop and be a part of all of your online running lives.

That said, some of you may have noticed I have not been posting much recently (many of you wont have noticed at all, and that's OK too! ). Life is taking an exciting direction for me and my family right now and I just don't have the time to be on line as regularly as I used to be. I continue to run and RA/HMT will continue to my online home but it seems like the right time to find a new owner for the group.

Being group "owner" is not a challenging task; In 3 years I don't think we have had to censor a single thread or block a single user. The group is fabulously self supporting in terms of posts and most of you know that MT does most of the "heavy lifting" work around here now, with the race calendar & weekly racer threads. I dropped him a PM and he is going to stay as a group admin. (Thank you MT!!!).

However I believe a group owner still needs to be around more than I can be today.

This means we need to find a new owner..... Let me know if you are interested!

Cheers

MattJ

I was a tad wishy-washy in my exchange with Matt, basically saying something like..."...I don't have a burning desire to be the HMT group owner, but if you want to turn it over to me, I'll do what I can to be a good steward and/or find another candidate when I reach the same point as you are now...".

So, quite fairly, from that starting point, Matt's seeking out if anyone would really want to be the group's owner.  To be clear, I'll be glad to take the ownership, Matt.

Having said that, let me tell all who may read this what I think is one vision of the 'purpose' of the Half Marathon Trainer (HMT) group within the larger RA community. If you disagree...please do share your perspectives.

1. To be a community of runners who target the half marathon as their preferred distance and share in that journey;

2. To be a community of runners who can help other runners striving to achieve the half marathon, or improve at the half marathon;

3. To be a community of runners who share and advise on training plans, training tips, training advice, races, and other events with a focus on the half marathon;

4. To offer the opportunity to publicly declare training, race and other goals and enjoy the fun and accountability of tracking each other's progress.

That my version of the reason for the HMT under the greater RA umbrella...

(I will probably edit this a few times...this was typed up pretty quickly at the end of a long day...)

Thank you both for all you have contributed!

Typically symptomatic of everything that is wrong with my attendance here..... it took me a month to get round to this.

Andy - you got it. Thanks mate and good luck - will be cheering (with cowbell) from the corner near the big hill at mile 9.