The person who gave me the push to send me on my way was Marty Schimmele. Back in 2010 I had been running for about 11 years basically on my own with no strong connection to the running community other than showing up on race day. No group training runs or ancillary running. Just me training solo. I spoke with Marty after races on occasion and he began pushing me to join the Greater Long Island Running Club Racing Team of which he was a member. I told him I wasn’t interested…numerous times…until he wore me down and said he recommended me to the coach. He told me I should speak to her. The idea started to intrigue me but I felt I was not fast enough to join a racing team and in June 2010 i noticed a group run from Selden in the back of Footnotes magazine. It said it was hilly. I spoke to the person whose name was attached to the run, Rich Hollman, and he said no one ran the course any longer. He sent me the map and the rest is history. I started running the Selden Hills to make myself a better runner before I made any commitment to joining the racing team.After running them a half dozen times and seeing my race times improve dramatically I pulled the trigger and joined the team in August 2010. Without Marty hounding me to join him on the team I probably never would have run the Selden Hills! So it is fair to say that without Marty’s encouragement and belief in me there would not be a Selden Hills running group today. Thank you Marty for being my spark that opened up a vast running world where I have met and made friends with so many other motivating and wonderful people!!