The week’s spotlight is on someone who has done so much for the club behind the scenes, is a past club President, and you have seen him volunteer at several events. This week’s spotlight is on our very own Technology Dude, Lou King.
“I used to play indoor soccer. I was one of those people who, when confronted with a runner, proudly would say something like,
“I never run more than 40 yards at-a-time.”
Then I tore up one knee.
After ACL reconstruction, I was back to indoor soccer. I played for several more years and then tore up the other knee. At 46, the knee guy said something like, “you’re no spring chicken”, and my soccer career was over.
Anyway, in the meantime, my wife Harriet Langlois had been trying to get me to start running for 10 years. I actually tried at one point during that time but it didn’t last more than a month or so. However, post-soccer, after a year or so of not doing much of anything, in 2005, at age 48, I decided to give running a go.
I got the marathon bug when Harriet was getting ready to run the Philadelphia Marathon. We had lunch with a bunch of “internet friends” who we had relationships with on coolrunning.com (before it was bought by Active). The camaraderie among these wonderful people was infectious and I, too, was motivated to start marathon training.
I ran my first marathon (Frederick!) in 2006. As of this writing, I’ve run 34 marathons in 28 states, the only states repeated being Massachusetts for several Boston Marathons, and New Hampshire, because Harriet was hurt when I ran it the first time. I consider myself a marathon runner rather than a “short” distance runner, but seem to have my best results around 1 mile or so, at least from an age-grade perspective. (Although I will admit the days of running “fast” might be behind me now). But my favorite distance to race is 10 miles – half marathon.
I started volunteering for FSRC by going to a meeting of the Social Committee. Harriet and I ended up volunteering to lead the committee in late 2011, which we did for several years. Separately, I noticed that the competition committee was spending a lot of time manually comparing race results to club rosters, and (since I am a software engineer by trade) developed the kernel of what became the Scoretility Package to automate that process. Seeing a need for a database of running routes, Routetility came about. Somewhere in there I was President of the club (2015-2016), and was humbled to be awarded RRCA’s Outstanding Club President of the Year in 2016.
I took on the role of Market Street Mile Race Director for the 2018 race, and was sad for the need to virtualize the 2020 race. However, I’m excited about the new challenge events — we’ll see how that goes, and whether we want to continue these when we get back to racing in person again.
I remain the Chief Technology Dude for the club, writing software, which hopefully makes club operation easier, and, as a side gig, am the RRCA State Representative for Maryland and DC.”
We really do have the most diverse and amazing members! I would love to share your stories, accomplishments or anything else you would like to share, please send them to barb.meely@steeplechasers.org.