2017 Race Director of the Year – Ely Rosario

I was so honored when Judy asked if I would present this Club award. If you don’t know me, you are probably wondering, “Why the heck is she presenting?” If you do know me, you have a pretty good guess.

I have worked in nonprofits for many years and know the amount of work that goes into putting on an event. So, for a volunteer race director to accomplish all she did for the 2017 race is impressive.

When she took on the role of race director she had a few simple goals.

1. Increase the number of athletes who registered-check
2. Not just make this a race, but a race experience-check
   1. Expo, Youth marathon, marketing and PR, runner friendly city, contests, social media
3. Encourage the city to embrace this race and make it a true community partnership-check
4. Make sure that people knew this race was put on by GWTC- permanent finish line on Duval street
5. And of course, raise a lot of money for the Club and for the Hang Tough Foundation-side note, HTF was an amazing partner that went above and beyond. This goal-was crushed, raising over $60K to split between the 2.

Under her leadership, the Tallahassee Marathon was a raging success. She is smart, fierce, passionate and a force of nature. Congratulations to my dear friend, Ely Rosario, you are GWTC’s Race Director of the year.