QSURT 2013 Kickoff: thank you ZombieRunner!

Busy week, work wise of course, but on the running side too. So many events that I will do 4 short posts this weekend.

First, for those intrigued by the acronym in the title, QSURT stands for Quick Silver Ultra Running Team. We started competing on the the North California ultra running circuit thanks to both an idea and the sponsorship of Adam Blum then Founder and CEO of Rhomobile, a company he sold to Motorolla before the Goggle acquisition. Naturally, Rhomobile was our sponsor and we were wearing black singlets back then. In 2011, our new team Captain, Greg Lanctot got us a sponsorship by The Running Revolution in Campbell. We switched to the famous Royal Blue or Magenta tops from Brooks, highly recognizable at races. Starting as a Men team initially, we started scoring in the Mixed division when a few ladies join us and in the Women division when we had enough to score in both. In 2011 we took the 4 top spots in the 4 divisions: Men, Mixed, Women and Overall, setting new records for the total of points!

This Wednesday night, we met as a team for our 2013 kick-off at our new sponsor, ZombieRunner in Palo Alto. If you run in the area, you certainly know about this very cool store which is essential to any ultra runner. They indeed sponsor most of our ultra races and provide nice goodies in addition to an amazing selection of products in their Palo Alto store as well as online with nationwide and international deliveries. ZombieRunner has been founded and is managed by two long time ultra runners themselves, Gillian and Don, also called the Chief Zombies.

Gillian welcomed us as their new team, then Greg led our meeting, starting by passing the mic to Jim who reminded us of the 30+ years of history of our running club (Quicksilver RC of San Jose) as well as the recent changes such as the creation of an official board and a brand new website.

Each of use introduced ourselves which gave an opportunity to learn about new members (we now have almost 40 men and 20 women on the roster!).

With some emotion, Greg announced that he had to take care of some family business this year and he was passing the baton to Toshi and Mark who have accepted to serve as our new 2013 co-captains!

Here is to a new successful season of our South Bay ultra running team and the fun of meeting the other teams engaged in our Pacific Association Grand Prix in particular or the Ultra Running Racing League (URRL). See you all on the trails!