Let’s take on the fitness crisis
Do These 3 Steps
1. Get your students outside to run
Once you have a PE Teacher or Lead / Dept Head PE Teacher on board, running the mile becomes infectious. Other PE teachers want to get their classes involved; classroom teachers take their kids out at recess and have them run or run-walk the Track or a set loop enough times to equal a mile.
Berni Flynn at Mark Twain Middle School in Alexandria Virginia came aboard quickly. Berni is also a distance running coach at the high school that is tied to Twain. She saw that it may just be a few students who initially get excited. Soon the other students accept running the mile as part of what you do.
Robin Walker in Carmel Indiana is a runner and just extends her infectious attitude to running to her students. The RUN A MILE Days were a good excuse to bring her Spring academic year to a crescendo. She got the Principal to buy-in and she had the entire Elementary school running the mile over a couple days.
“The celebration of running the mile is my favorite day with our PE Classes.”
— Berni Flynn, Lead PE Teacher (VA)
2. Keep it FUN! Show the kids you believe in them
Every PE teacher parent volunteer or does not necessarily have to be an active runner who runs with the kids. Believing in their fitness and health is what is foremost. Your passion for running the mile, getting them out on a weekly running program is Step 2. If students see you putting in the effort to create a running environment for them, they will show the enthusiasm for getting out to run.
There are several steps you can do first that help solidify your Mile Running Program.
First up, lay out a lap course that ideally should be no more than 7 laps to the mile. A normal track at a high school is just over 4 laps to the mile. How do you do it; i.e., how do you lay out a lap course. One tool that it is necessary is a measuring wheel. Many high school coaches own them. Ask a neighboring coach if you can borrow one. They will measure in feet or meters.
Walk the course with your students. Tell them how to conserve their energy on the first parts of Lap #1 so they have enough of that energy to run all necessary laps to run the mile.
Ease the kids into running the mile. That first week has to be easy and fun. Make a game out of running the Mile. Award random prizes to kids who finish running the mile. If you can run, go run the course or laps with the kids. This alone will burn into their memories that their teacher is really committed to running.
Point towards that Spring Day for a celebratory RUN A MILE Days. Tell the students that they will be ready to run a mile without stopping and that some of them will be able to drop lots of time and establish a new Personal Record (PR).
Lastly, encourage each student to push through any pain or discomfort in that last lap. Urge them to run with guts that last stretch of the course!
“We put up some poles to stake out a Course on the field. It is 6 laps to the Mile. Over 30 years later, kids love striving to make our annual Top Ten (Milers)”
3. Involve Community Volunteers and Sponsors to bolster your Running Program
Attracting volunteers is so important to a school running program. Running will be their passion and they will gladly be your evangelists on running and fitness. Running volunteers will come from all adult age groups. The one sector that is our focus are “Seniors” or the retiree age groups.
Why Seniors?
“We care about the fitness and activity levels of Seniors as much as elementary and middle school aged kids. It is so important to keep Seniors (over 60 for discussion’s sake) moving too. The added benefit is that kids will love to have the Senior Runners around. It will be invigorating for you the organizer. It will be a lifeline for your program and event. “
— Dave Watt, Founder of THE RUN A MILE PROJECT
“I love seeing the smiles and the happy kids. Running the mile is such a great start to fitness.”
Dr Pat Hogan, a neurologist in Gig Harbor, Washington was an early RUN A MILE program volunteer and leader. His story is the model all RUN A MILE PROJECT School, Communities or Clubs should try to emulate. Pat heard about fitness in the workplace as means of job or business health at a Sports Medicine Symposium hosted by the former group AMAA. He took the idea back to his Neurology Practice in Washington and it worked. Soon his entire practice, doctors, nurses and staff, joined him in either running or walking during the lunch hour. Pat saw the results. His neurology staff was happier, more energized and healthier. When he heard about the RUN A MILE Program a few years later, he knew what to do. Soon Gig Harbor became one of the early seeds that grew to a large and healthy fitness community of schools all doing the RUN A MILE Program. Pat’s enthusiasm had rubbed off on the lead PE Teacher for his Region. That PE teacher, Dave Rucci, took the MILE Program to other elementary and middle schools in their school system. What had started as 450 kids at one elementary school was now almost 15,000 students spanning 15 schools.
That is how you grow a MILE Program using Volunteers in your community.
Dan of Youth Runner (youthrunner.com) joins Jenn of THE RUN A MILE PROJECT at a Mile event