Thanks HURT

Dear HURT ohana,

I wanted to write a quick thank you to my HURT family. Lesley, Nate and Kylie and I will be leaving for Africa on Monday. For those that don’t know, we will be doing a two year training program with a Christian NGO on an island off the east coast of the continent. We will be teaching English and developing sports programs (they love soccer, especially) after we gain some level of cultural and language competency. We will return in two years for at least four months, but hope that this is the start of a permanent career move to Africa. 

I just wanted to say briefly how much the HURT ohana has meant to my family over some 20 years now. It began with Richard Senelly, Big John, PJ, Greg Cuadra and Richard China speaking words of encouragement, adventure, and hushed stories of things called “100’s” into my impressionable teenage self. These people poured countless hours into us Pac Five XC and track kids, a debt I will never be able to repay. Coaching and mentorship roles morphed into close friendships over the last two decades, and the coaching continued, albeit now in areas far beyond trail running, such as faith, courage, marriage, and parenting.

For everyone since that time who has given to the HURT community: thank you. What a unique and blessed group I’ve been privileged to be a part of. I will miss the adventure of the trails, the camaraderie of long training runs, and the excitement of the racing, but most of all I will miss sitting around after a race with my family, talking story with my friends and seeing HURT embrace my wife and kids as part of the gang.

Take good care of one another! Aloha, Matt