Your name and role in the Steeplechasers:

I’m Lou King, currently the club’s Technology Chair (or “Chief Technology Dude”) and Race Services Chair as well as being on the Board of Directors. I’m a former club President, having served in that role from 2015 – 2016. I was humbled to be awarded RRCA’s Outstanding Club President of the Year in 2016, although I guess mentioning that doesn’t sound very humble.

How long have you been a member? How long have you been in this role?

Harriet Langlois and I have been members since about 2008 (we’re married). She finally convinced me to start running in 2005 after many years of trying. I used to play indoor soccer and brag about never having to run more than 40 meters at a time. Since then, I’ve run 35 marathons in 29 states. But I digress.

I’ve been the Technology Chair since some time in 2013, I think. I started as the Race Services Chair this year (2025).

Are you training for anything in particular right now? 

Alas, I think my training days are over. While I was running north of 2000 miles a year during marathon training, peaking at 65 miles/week, the past few years I’ve been losing my endurance to the point where now I’m running only a few days a week hoping to get in 15 miles or so. But don’t feel bad for me — it’s been liberating to not feel like I have to run so much, and I’ve taken up (bicycle) riding a few days a week.

Do you have any running partners?

When I can, I like to run with Harriet.

Tell us a little bit about your role in the Steeplechasers.

In the “old days”, the Competition Committee would score the grand prix by taking the race results and manually comparing them to a spreadsheet of members maintained by the membership chair. As a retired software engineer I realized this could be automated with the goal of reducing volunteer workload. Thus was born scoretility, which allows an operator to import the member list, import the race results, and automatically does the comparison while maintaining the grand prix (and other series) standings.

Also in the past, the website was maintained manually by Rich Potter and Steve Dobson. We discussed this and decided to move to a model where lay people could edit the website using the WordPress framework. After a few years, they retired from the “website chair” role and I was appointed as the “technology chair”.

I continue to look for ways to efficiently manage the volunteer workload in the club through automation and information technology. Some of these include

• automatic updates of the member email list in MailChimp
• generation of contracts for our Race Service business, and sponsorship agreements for our signature races (contractility)
• managing leadership task reminders, meeting agendas/minutes, racing team membership (membertility)
• providing a database of running routes (routetility)

For Race Services, which is a race timing and course marking service we offer to local races, Mark Lawrence had been in that role for many years and decided to retire in 2024. I had been supporting Low Key race timing for several years, and it seemed like a good fit for me to try to keep the Race Service business running while offering new services to our clients like chip timing.

I’ve been a Director on the club’s Executive Board since 2017, after my stint as President.

What’s your favorite part about it?

Frankly, I like all of it. The technical aspects help keep my brain sharp. Volunteering is rewarding in itself, as it feels good to give back to the community.

If you could impart one piece of wisdom to the Steeps, what would it be? 

If you haven’t yet, please consider volunteering. We need volunteers for all kinds of things, some “day of” and some more long term. Whatever you can do helps. It’s fun, and it’ll make you feel good about yourself.