[00:00:00] Kim: [00:00:00] The New York city marathon has a new race director and the Ironman group is up to their old tricks.

[00:00:17] Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Run Wave. I am your host Kim. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome to the show. If you are a return listener, welcome back to the show. I truly appreciate you tuning in. Each and every week, if you haven’t already done so subscribe to the podcast.

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[00:01:08] Well, we all know February is black history month and I was doing a series called extraordinary athletes, doing extraordinary things. And I did feature two great athletes, but I really miss just having a one-on-one chat with you, my friends. So. This episode, I’m just going to do a little catch-up on things that have gone down recently in the running community that I felt that I need to voice my opinion on.

[00:01:35] So let’s get right into it. First up the New York city marathon now. If you been listening to this show, if you follow me, you know, I am New York city born and bred any news on the New York city marathon. Any news coming out of New York road Barners I am on it. It it’s, it plays an important role in my running career.

[00:01:59] I don’t know if I want to [00:02:00] call it a career, but it plays an important role in my, you know, recreational running. So New York road runners has announced that they have a new race director for the New York city marathon. And get this drum roll, please. . He is a black man, so excited. His name is Ted and I don’t want to butcher his last name.

[00:02:25] So I’m going to give it a shot. Cause I haven’t heard anyone say it yet, but Ted. Ugh, I’m going to mess this up. Met lists, I think lists, um, M E T E L L U S. Someone please, uh, DME, a voicemail on how to pronounce his name. So I won’t butcher it the next time, but yeah, New York, Roman is name a black man as the race director for the New York city marathon.

[00:02:50] And he is the first black race director for any world marathon major and. This is Epic. I mean, I know we’re [00:03:00] in. Like this time that we’re in, we’re in this diversity and inclusion, everyone wants to be, you know, pro black and show me that they support the black community in particular, the black running community.

[00:03:13] So I think that this is huge, that New York has named a black race director. Now, let me give you a little bit of background on Ted. He was born and raised. In the Bronx, New York now y’all know I’m from the Bronx VX represented. So what I read that he was born and raised in the Bronx that just got my excitement even higher up because any time someone comes out of the Bronx, I just feel a sense of inner pride and joy because yeah.

[00:03:46] Like other than Staten Island, like no one cares about stat analysis. That melon is like, no one goes to Staten Island and I don’t even, I don’t know one person that stand out, but others that analysis in the Bronx is like the frog got and borrow. And that’s just, I [00:04:00] re I’m going to represent the Bronx till the end of time.

[00:04:03] So anytime I hear someone doing big things out of the Bronx, it’s so excites me. So Ted has worked at New York road runners since 2001. And in 2019, he became the vice president of events and the technical director of the marathon. So this is like a huge promotion for him. Now don’t get us twisted. Ted has plenty of experience to back up this major role that he has gotten.

[00:04:33] Ted is not new to this. He has been around for a long time and he’s worked for a lot of running organizations, including Pallotta Teamworks. Ivantage the Miami marathon, Philadelphia triathlon lifetime triathlons. The rock and roll marathon series. I’m going to talk about later, but yeah, he’s worked, worked for rock and roll and Ironman.

[00:04:54] And, uh, he was a 2016 national center for a spectator sports, safety and [00:05:00] security professional of the year. So the man’s resume speaks for itself. He’s not new to this. He has been around the block quite a few times. Now, New York road runners did release a press release where they did asks, ask him a Q and a I’m going to link that.

[00:05:16] Down below. You can swipe out to read that so you can see what he had to say, but I would just want to read one of the quotes that he mentioned, which. I thought it was great. New York road runners asked him, what does it mean to you to be the first black race director of an Abbott world marathon majors race.

[00:05:37] And he said, homeboy quoted Tupac. In the words of the great rapper, poet, actor, Tupac, all eyes on me. That’s not what you said, but that’s how I read it in my mind. So he said all eyes on me. I am in a position to open doors and shine, a light for others to follow. I’m [00:06:00] excited to see what Ted is going to do with the New York city marathon.

[00:06:04] I mean, hopefully. I don’t have a lot of hope y’all, but I hope some major happens at the end of this year. You know, the way things going, it doesn’t look likely, but you never know we’re holding out hope. So I, I am just, I’m so excited about this. I’m going to link to the press release so you can read that and you can follow Ted on IgG has IGS private.

[00:06:27] I sent him my request today. I’ll let y’all know if he accepts it, but his, his, uh, His IgE is Ted underscore, D Luxe, D E L U X E N. He’s also on Twitter at Ted deluxe. All one word I’ll link both of those down below as well, but yeah, kudos to Ted. And I am just so excited about this news. I hope a lot of you are happy.

[00:06:54] Um, you know, it comes at a time where. [00:07:00] We’re getting in the room, you know, where I’m not happy about what it took for us to get here, but we are getting there and this is a win for us. And hopefully. This is just the beginning. You know, hopefully other world majors will step up and just other races in general, just, you know, we have to create our own races to have black race directors, which is just crazy as 2021.

[00:07:26] That is crazy. So hopefully other organizations, um, You know, want to make their staff more diverse because look, the black running community, we ain’t going away. We’re just expanding. We’re getting bigger. We’re getting better. We’re getting more notice. So I just hope that other organizations follow suit and plus some people of color where they belong in positions of leadership, positions of power positions, where they can make a change in this organization and diversify the face of [00:08:00] running.

[00:08:00] In other New York road Warner news, there is a virtual 5k for black history month that runs from February 19th to February 28th. And you can sign up for the virtual role on Strava and guess what? It’s free 99. A lot of the New York road runner races at our virtuals are free. New York. Roadrunners has a lot of virtual races that are free.

[00:08:26] You sign up or New York road runners website, and you have to link your new Yorker on run his profile with Strava, and then you just run your race. You Mark it as a race and they do their magic in the. You know, in Al Gore’s internets and your results are somehow added to New York Romanos website under all of your running stats.

[00:08:48] So definitely sign up for that. And just a little bit about the racist says is celebrate the contributions of black and Afro. African-American runners through history, including New York [00:09:00] road runners, founding presidents had Corbett. If you listen to my interview with the president of the board of the , he was also one of the founding members of that organization as well.

[00:09:12] Continuing with the virtual New York road runners black history month 5k complete year, 3.1 mile run in honor of black figures who have been influential in your own community and around the world. So I will leave a link to that event. Um, if you have Strava, click that link, sign up and participate in the race.

[00:09:33] You have a few more days it’s over on the last day of. February the 28th. It is not a leap year so that you haven’t said the 28th to complete your virtual race. So yeah, if you do complete it, tag me in your run, let me know that you heard about it on The Run Wave and you signed up and, you know, let us know how you did.

[00:09:52] In other New York city running news, the six mile loop in central park is now cold [00:10:00] that’s head Corbett loop. And you know, that is amazing news because Ted corporate, he is like the father of long distance running. Um, like I said before, he was one of the founders of New York road runners. And. Ted actually ran the very first New York city marathon and he had bib number one.

[00:10:22] How Epic is that? Wow, this is very, very exciting. Um, my name is Von flowers, captain of black men run New York city. Uh, we honor 10 corporate every year. Uh, once we found out about what Ted Corbitt has contributed to the wrong community, we felt it was only white. As African American men, excuse me, that we should just honor and continue his legacy.

[00:10:51] We reached out to Gary Corbett and he gave us his blessing and we just continued to just keep [00:11:00] running in his honor and says this moment right here, it’s just beautiful. And I’m very happy to be a part of it. I want to thank commissioner silver for allowing me to be a part of this and the central park.

[00:11:14] And services. So with that said, I’m truly happy and honored to be a part of this moment. New York, you may have come across, um, Gary Corbett, who is Ted son, you know, he is I’m friends with him on Facebook. I follow, I follow him on Instagram as well, but he posts a lot of. Great historical facts about Ted Corbitt and he just keeps his memory alive and at the forefront of runners like ourselves mind.

[00:11:40] So be sure to follow Gary Corbett, to just learn interesting facts about Ted Corbitt and just to learn the history of the black running community. So if you’ve ever run the six miles, boop and central park is not easy, you know, they have Harlem Hill. Cat Hill all kinds [00:12:00] of Hills, but yeah, we, we run a lot of the New York where we’re running races in central park, so we’re very familiar with that loop.

[00:12:08] So I’ll be excited when I finally get to run in the park again and I get to take my picture by the sinuses. Uh, Ted Corbitt loop. So shout out to black men run New York city. I had no idea that this was happening. There was a whole to do it was on the, the local news here. And, um, black men around New York city were there and I saw it on their Instagram page.