Joe recently mentioned on the Tejas Trails Facebook group that he has been elected as President of the Hill Country Trail Runners. I did a quick Q & A with him to get us up to date on what’s going on.
For those who don’t know who Joe I’ll give you a brief summary. Joe runs Tejas Trails which orchestrates 8 Ultra marathons per year. Of those 8 Ultra’s, two are US Trail Championships and another (Rocky Raccoon) is a perennial favorite course for many elites to set 100 mile PR’s. In 2011 Ian Sharman, Scott Jurek, Anton Krupicka, Karl Meltzer, Hal Koerner were all there going toe to toe.
With Joe at the helm I’m sure we’ll see forward progress… this is a veteran of Badwater and the Hardrock 100 after all.
Mark: We’ve heard you’ve recently been elected as President of Hill Country Trail Runners. Give us quick history of the group and what they’re all about.
Joe: We created HCTR (Hill Country Trail Runners) on 11 April 2002. The posted bylaws were to promote and encouragement trail and long distance running and the education of the public to the benefits of same. In reality, this was a group of like minded people who were just enjoying trail running and wanted to share the love. I was president for the first few years and take the reins again as the club turns 10.
Mark: How many members do the group have?
Joe: The membership started with less than 100, grew to 400+, and is now in the 200+ range..
Mark: Do you welcome out of town runners?
Joe: Absolutely Yes.
Mark: You’re a pretty no nonsense guy. You mentioned on Facebook about putting a little zing back in the group. What kinda zing are we talking about?
Joe: The club website used to be a goto site with current relevant data. It is not any more. We plan to get it back to where it was and then some. Also, I have a few more ideas to give the club some new life and have some fun with it. Have the club start looking at destination races to goto as a group, to start getting more involved with races as a group, to create more opportunities to gather and collect in regards to trail running and hanging out.
Mark: What are you hoping to get accomplished?
Joe: We need to cut down the expenses, revitalize the website, and get the old time buzz going again.
Mark: Are you thinking about expansion of some type? Runs, members, benefits, races.
We already have a few great weekly runs. Need to make them more obvious. We can add more, but thats on an individual basis. I have no desire to increase Membership just to get more members. I think it more important to make what we have more fun and more people will join because they want to belong. HCTR is a collection of adults for the most part. Last thing they want is stress for something they do after work. The intention is to make it more fun. Create an entity that enjoys doing things together… and this certainly involves trail running. So, ask me in another month, and I’ll tell you where its all going.
