As my time as Vice President has come to a close, I have reflected a lot about the past 2 semesters of organizing club travel and race registration. With the unprecedented early announcement of Spring Track Nationals being announced in Richmond, Virginia, the Mid-Atlantic NIRCA Clubs cheered with the prospects of a conveniently located championship for our region. My colleague Chris Stallard of the Minnesota Running Club, on the other hand, expressed his distress at the prospect of having to fly their club out east (but this post isn’t about them). 

There are many great benefits to Spring Nationals being in Virginia this year. For one, it means the event will be much more accessible to members of our club who either aren’t able to take the entire weekend off to travel, only want to attend one day of events, etc. It also becomes much less expensive for us to take a group out to the meet since we won’t need rental vans or a charter bus. 

Competitions that are outside of the greater DMV area are considered “out of region” and require additional paperwork to be sent to the Club Sports office months in advance in order to approve the trip, along with the normal travel request paperwork. Our 2024 Vice President will surely enjoy the reduced amount of logistics and paperwork associated with this trip. 

However, I can think of 5 reasons I’m glad NIRCA Track Nationals was held in Olivet, Michigan 2 years in a row. In no particular order: 

#1 – Recycling paperwork

Planning for a 2 day event that is 10+ hours away while trying to get everyone back in time for class on the following Monday was quite a daunting task. Luckily for me, former Vice President Sohan Ganatra also had to plan for NIRCA Nationals in Olivet, meaning that I could use my good friends Ctrl C and Ctrl V for some of the travel paperwork (with some editing of course). Work smarter, not harder.

#2 – Actually good April weather in Michigan.

NIRCA Nationals (2023)

NIRCA Nationals (2022)

If you come across any photos of Spring 2022 Nationals, you will see everyone is very cold. The official NIRCA Nationals Heating Tent™ was very popular this year. I think Gabe Worthington ended up falling asleep there for a couple hours. The memories of depressing cold overcast skies deterred several returning club members from making the return to Olivet in 2023. Spring 2023, we saw a beautiful sunny day for Saturday. I, for one, greatly enjoyed seeing Olivet with actual sun and blue skies. Then of course, Sunday we ended with a downpour by the time the 4×400 went off. But it was nice while it lasted. If you’re not familiar with the midwest, you really don’t appreciate good weather this time of year in a place like Michigan.  

#3 – The Bus.

I did not have any pictures from the bus other than this one sorry guys.

In Spring of 2022, Club Running took its (possibly) first ever chartered bus to Olivet, Michigan so that no one on the club would have to drive. It meant we all got to travel together as one big group all the way to Michigan. However, it also meant we would be spending the next 72+ hours together in relatively close proximity with no escape.
This bus was also one of the biggest expenses in club history, costing over $7,000 (I don’t even want to look at the actual cost)*. For context, that is probably more than half of our SGA budget for the 2025 Fiscal year. This is why we do football catering.

** According to former Fundraising Treasurer Max Worley, it was about $9,000. Donate on giving day kids.

#4 – The Financial and Economic peak of Olivet, Michigan

Olivet, Michigan has a population of roughly 1,400 people. There are about 900 students enrolled at the University of Olivet (formerly called Olivet College) where the event was held. With the attendance of 30+ club teams from across the country, it can be safe to assume that we were pretty close to doubling the population of Olivet while we were in attendance. I’m sure we also increased the ethnic diversity of Olivet that weekend as well.
The business that benefited most from this boom was the unsuspecting gas station Subway about a quarter mile from the track. I am not sure if they will ever see revenue margins like these 2 Nationals weekends until another nationals comes around to Olivet again.

#5 — It’s just cool to watch an irrelevant town and university mean something to hundreds of runners from across the country

That’s all I have. Prime numbers look nice in a list (good for click bait). I guess even after 9 months I couldn’t come up with a reason #5.

Addendum 10 am thoughts:

Say what you will about the quirks and inconveniences (and perhaps mild trauma) associated with these two trips to Track Nationals, but there are so many memories to be cherished from them. Whether it’s everyone getting annoyed with Zach trying to do bus Karaoke at 11 pm Sunday night on the bus, watching your men’s 4×400 become All Americans, witnessing Henry and Sofia score more points than entire teams at Nationals, Max and the “12” heats of the 800, watching Sam Fields run the 5k, 3k steeplechase, and 4×400 in one day, or walking back from the bus to south campus at 3 am with Frankie and Chris, I have yet to experience anything like what Olivet Track Nationals can provide.

For further reading, check out Matthew Metz’s 2022 Nationals recap for a small taste of the culture from that year’s trip (https://evanmasiello.com/clubrunning/nirca-track-and-field-nationals-2022-day-2/ and https://evanmasiello.com/clubrunning/nirca-track-and-field-nationals-2022-day-1/ ).

I was going through my old documents and forgot I wrote this. I thought it was funny. Pretend I published this in December.