Katrina Amaro likes to get her hands dirty. Since joining Front Runners in August 2005, Amaro has been behind the scenes at every major club undertaking and on the front lines of exciting new initiatives to increase the team's membership and visibility. These are the attributes that so clearly distinguished Amaro as the 2006 recipient of the Guy Zelenak Award for volunteerism. But even while she slaves away selflessly for Front Runners, referring to herself on Awards Night as a “volunteer nerd,” Amaro finds time to reflect on her past, focus on her future and nurture her love of fine arts and running.

Amaro is relatively new to Manhattan , having moved here just about four years ago because, like so many before her, she “always wanted to live in New York City .” She still waxes nostalgic for her native San Antonio and speaks quite eloquently about the gentle rhythms and unique patterns of the Lone Star State . “I miss long open highways and rolling hills…I miss really old country dance halls,” she says. “The oldest one in Texas is near where I grew up.” And upon close inspection, it's clear that Amaro hasn't shaken all the dust from her San Antonio shoes. After all, Amaro donned a pair of open-toed sandals to our January Awards, a charming (though seasonally shocking) outfit detail that seemed to hearken back to her hometown roots, readying her for dancing outside under a warm blanket of stars. Of course, Amaro also personifies the quietly courteous nature of Texans through her poise and grace and the dulcet twang that inhabits her voice from time to time.

While still fond of her past, Amaro is now firmly a New Yorker. And one of the first things she noticed and became curious about upon moving here were all the fanatical joggers. While she hadn't taken to running in her twenties, Amaro was quickly turned onto the sport after moving to New York and meeting a woman who was training for the marathon. “Her experience inspired me,” explains Amaro, “so I started and became hooked on running.”

An Upper East Sider, Amaro did most of her running along the East River but eventually grew bored and looked into becoming part of a team. She was very efficient in her searching. “I googled gay and lesbian running clubs, found Front Runners New York and went to a Saturday morning run,” Amaro says. After being warmly welcomed by then-women's VP Emily Siegel and FRNY veteran Claudia Cummings at her Saturday debut, Amaro felt such an immediate bond that she joined the club on the spot and purchased a team singlet that very day.

Given Amaro's confessed weakness for volunteering, it's not surprising she soon became a serial bagel helper, rivaling the membership for the most Saturdays covered in 2006, who also lent a hand at, oh, almost every event the club sponsored. Amaro helped with fundraising and publicity for “Rapture on the River,” the lesbian dance event hosted during Pride Weekend, two LGBT expos, and the club's cross country meet. During NYC marathon weekend, Amaro completed the volunteering triumvirate by helping out at the Friday night pasta dinner, the Saturday morning pancake breakfast and the 24-mile water station on marathon Sunday. To promote the team, she helped create membership postcards and has been integral in keeping the club's newly revamped website fully stocked with pictures from runs, races and social events. The list goes on and on – of course, culminating in Amaro's stepping into the role of women's vice president at the start of 2007.

It's not all Front Runner toil, though. Professionally, Amaro is lucky enough to be in a job she loves, working as a broadcast designer for FOX 5 Television where she creates still and motion graphics for news, promotional and topical projects. And in her free time, Amaro enjoys getting her hands dirty the old-fashioned way—with tubes of acrylic paints or pastel chalk, that is. In her art, Amaro prefers to work in mixed media and describes her style as abstract expressionism, though lately she says that she has been experimenting more with light and shadow of the human form. While she would never toot her own horn, Amaro has garnered some successes in her artistic endeavors, having sold two paintings that were displayed in a tea shop in Brooklyn.

Even with her new responsibilities as women's VP, Amaro looks to 2007 as a year for her to forge ahead on her own running goals. “I'm not the fastest runner on the planet,” she jokes, “so my goal is to shave a minute off my pace to get under 8:15 or so.” Other big strides Amaro hopes to make this year include her first sprint distance triathlon in July, Olympic distance in August and completion of her first marathon in NYC in November.

Amaro is a doer not a talker so there's not doubt she'll find a way to fuel the runner inside this year—while staying true to her inner volunteer nerd too.

 

Random Data

Education —BFA from Southwest Texas State University

Finest FRNY Memory —Tunnel of Cheers from August's Club Team Championships

Dream Job? —Amaro loves her job but says “working graphics for ESPN or Nickelodeon would be awesome!”

Five Desert Island CDs —U2 “The Unforgettable Fire,” Toad the Wet Sprocket “Fear,” The Sundays “Blind,” Zero 7 “When It Falls,” and Dido “Life for Rent.”

Neighborhood Swap? —Would move to Greenwich Village