This running team was started by a random comment during a summer easy run. It was mid-June 2010, Logan Watley and Eric Noel were discussing the benefits of a racing club mid-run. After finishing their collegiate eligibility at Nebraska Wesleyan University (NWU), they both wished that they could reap the benefits associated with a running team. They wanted to keep race prize money, wear a team jersey, get discounted shoes, but more importantly, they wanted to maintain a team atmosphere for training runs, similar to what they had at NWU. After all that talk, one of them said, “We should start our own running club”, and they never looked back.
The first thing they did was look at getting membership in place. Logan talked to Quinn Lewandowski and Neil Wolford (both NWU Graduates), and likewise, they were also interested in the benefits that a local running team could provide. Logan then tackled the toughest issue standing between us and a running team: sponsorship. He sent out multiple “feelers” to several local, regional, and national companies, but he only had a couple promising leads. In the end, they worked out a partnership with the Lincoln Running Company in downtown Lincoln, NE, and we could not be happier (We hope that they feel the same way!).
That partnership led to the naming of our team: LRC Racing (Lincoln Running Company Racing). We had our debut race on July 24th, 2010 in Columbus at the Downtown Runaround where Eric Noel won the 2.1 mile in 10:31.3, and Logan won the 5 mile in 25:29.8. They also wore our new “Lincoln Running Co.” jerseys, and even got their own little article in the Columbus Telegram the next day.
Fast forward fifteen years, and while the names may not be the same, the team’s goals are still to provide a group of training partners, to increase the competition levels of road races in/around Nebraska, and to keep college graduates running after they exhaust their collegiate eligibility.