10k

10k. Holy cow.

I never thought I’d make a post like this. Never been a fan of them. But when we hit over 10k followers on Instagram over the weekend, it’s had me thinking about how far D3 Glory Days has come. Hitting 10k shows the passion that our team has had and the dedication you all have had following what we do.

So why write this? Well, this journey we’ve been on has been a ton of fun. We would probably still write articles and podcast with whatever audience we had. But to see this grow into what is is today shows that people care about D3 running. The whole goal of D3 Glory Days was to tell the untold stories of D3 and shine light on such a historic division.

So thank you for reading, listening, and following along. The following and community we’ve built has been incredible. When we first started out, we never would have thought that this thing would get as big as its gotten, let alone that we would be in the booth announcing a national meet.

Oh by the way, we’ll be in the booth again this weekend. Good news, Noah is already in Indiana so his flight can’t get cancelled this year.

As we’ve gone from just a podcast interviewing distance alums to a “media conglomerate” covering all aspects of track and field, the support has kept this thing running. We’ve taken an agnostic approach to our coverage. We’re less concerned about always being right and more concerned about providing excellent coverage for a Division that doesn’t get a whole lot.

We wouldn’t have gotten to this point without our incredible team and their support.

I’m using we but I’m (Stu) writing this. So hey Noah, thanks for being the co-founder and building this thing up. Let’s keep it rolling.

Photo Credit: Alan Lam

Our wives, Chrissy and Emma, let Noah and I talk to each other for “just an hour” every week. It’s never just an hour.

Emily Richards has taken on a lot of the writing and most importantly, a lot of my incoherent texts of ideas. She is the recipient of many “does this look good” as I tackle the graphics. Emily, sorry we ghosted you the first time around and thanks for sticking with us.

Maddie Bahr was our original graphic designer and led the charge on enhancing our social presence. She had to take a step back this season but she paved the way for what we do now.

Cris Gutierrez has come in clutch this year running the socials during the national meets. He was firing off live results and hyping our photographers up in the process. You’ll see more from Cris soon.

A big reason we took a jump has been the consistency from the content crew of photographers at the National meets - Kyle, Seawon, Jen, Alan, Nico, George, Francesca, Caleb, and Parker and. Not only are their photos spectacular but they each bring excitement and creativity to their photographs. Kyle and Francesca slid into our DMs saying they had photos from 2021 indoors and really started us off. Thank you all.

Shout out to Chris Chavez for having us on the CITIUS MAG podcast network when we were starting off. They paved the way to how we do things.

Getting sappy here for no reason but feeling thankful for the support we’ve gotten from our team and everyone who has followed along.

This still feels like we’re just cracking the surface here. We have some big things planned for the future including adding another writer to help expand our coverage.

Again, thank you for sticking with us and allowing us to bring you these stories.

Here’s to the Glory Days.