Sunday, October 15th ended the Tri It Now Mini Triathlon program in Manassas. The energetic and enthusiastic leader of this group, Ina Nenninger, owner & organizer of Tri It Now has retired. Ina has been living in Colorado and traveling back to Manassas for the last several years just to run this program and have the events go off without a hitch. If you ever wanted to see an energizer bunny in action, all you had to do was watch, or try to keep up with Ina.
Way back in 2014, Ina approached the OVH about providing radio communications for the Mini Tri’s. There were normally 5 to 6 events per year and they were all at the Freedom Center in Manassas. The OVH jumped at the chance to help out and was able to provide spotters and communications along the bike and run routes. We provided this support uninterrupted from 2014 until October 15th of this year.
We were able to staff these events with our club volunteers and once in a while we would recruit a few other hams in the area. There were usually anywhere from 5 to 10 volunteers at each event. If you were able to turn out to help, you could clearly see Ina’s dedication to participants, as well as her appreciation that we were her eyes and ears on the course. The participants were also very grateful that we were out there, should they need assistance.
So, very best wishes to Ina on her retirement, she has definitely earned it. There was a little ceremony after the last race to celebrate Ina. The OVH provided a very large retirement card that was signed by many of our club members.
Many thanks to Andy, KJ4MTP, who was our chairman on this event for the last several years. Andy stayed in touch with Ina to make sure we had accurate information on each event. Andy also reached out for volunteers, provided the course maps and made positioning assignments. The latter, oftentimes on the fly, if volunteers were suddenly unavailable.
All 6 pictures of the celebration in this slideshow are by David A. Lane, KG4GIY
EC/RO Prince William County ARES®/RACES & are used with permission