Fun Run…Girls on the Run Helping Others

This is my second year of coaching Girls on the Run at Oak Hills Elementary, and each year has been so rewarding and meaningful.  As part of their curriculum, each group is required to develop and implement a Community Impact Project.  We start this process by asking the girls to discuss ideas they are passionate about.  Then they form groups and present one big idea that we, as a team, can do within the time frame of our Girls on the Run session, to make a difference in the community.  After presenting three great ideas, the runners up were:  1) Environmental clean-up at the school, and 2) Making toys for the animals at the Humane Society because, as one girls said, “Not everyone can have a pet, but everyone can make a difference in the lives of animals.”  My eyes are still a little misty after hearing that one.  

The winner, that almost the entire team voted for, was to organize a Fun Run for the Food Bank.  The girls wanted to host a 1 mile run at our school track.  They decided to charge $2 or pantry food for the race entry.  They made posters to hang all over school, and asked permission to go into all the classrooms to make an announcement about it.  Such great lessons and experience!  As their coach, I took the liberty of blasting the information all over Facebook and in emails.  My dear friend, and co-coach for the other GOTR team at Oak Hills, Amy Little (Race Director of Cause + Event Portland), graciously offered up extra Cause + Event race bibs for us to use and feel “legit.”  The girls planned to have an aid station with water cups, and a start/finish banner.  

Race day rain didn’t dampen their spirits.  It was pouring for much of the day.  We all showed up at 4pm to set up the course.  The girls brought chalk to write inspirational phrases all around the track.  We set up a canopy with an aid station, filling Dixie cups with water.  The girls set up the registration table, ready to make change and collect food.  Several of the girls brought their collections of silly bands to pass out to the runners as they completed each of their four laps, before heading down the finish chute.  They thought of everything, and a little rain didn’t seem to matter much.  For us Oregonians, it almost made it perfect. 

Aid station crew

Marking the course

The registration crew

We had advertised registration to open at 4:15pm, and we had people waiting with food and money in hand!  The girls were practically giddy!  My parents were in town, so my Dad grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.  I was so happy he did!  By 4:30pm, when we had said the run would start, there were still people lined up waiting to register.  Wow.  I was so humbled by our community.  We had families, friends, strangers who had heard about it on Facebook, and teachers come out to support our Girls and their mission.  So so so grateful to everyone.  I counted at least 65 runners!  Amazing.

Runners waiting to register

Girls excited to get this run started!

Some last-minute instructions...

At 4:35, I gave the runners a few instructions, thanked everyone for coming out to help us help those in our community who are hungry, sent the girls off to their posts, and headed up to the track.  An anxious group of boys (my son included) were at the front of the line, ready to take off.  The girls counted them down, and they were off!  Each lap, runners were given a silly band so they could keep track of their distance.  After they collected 4 bands, they were led off the track to the finisher’s chute, where two of the girls waited with a finish banner and many lined the chute with High 5’s!  The aid station was a hit, and the girls even kept the track clean of cups for the runners.  

And they're OFF!

So many community members came out to support our cause

Lauren and I running our laps

The Finish Line!

Girls on the Run is SO much FUN!!!

Future Girls on the Run

When all of the runners had finished, Caryn and I gathered the girls together, and we ran one lap as a team.  As we rounded the corner of the track to the finish chute, we noticed that all of the participants had lined the chute with their arms in an arch for us to run through!  Smiles all around, and our hearts so so happy!  

Happy Girls...Happy Hearts!

When it was all said and done, we raised just over $200 and 3 wagon-loads of food (totaling 185 pounds) for the local food bank!  Now our girls have one last week before hitting the streets of downtown Portland with their Running Buddies for the Starlight Run 5K!

Doing good FEELS good!

A Runner Was Born...

Blue Lake Triathlon, July 2011

I’ve always ran. I had never considered myself a “runner.” I was on the track team in high school, ran the 2 mile, but never on the varsity team. It was more of a hobby, or an excuse to run laps around the tennis courts and flirt with my future hubby. I did not run in college, unless you count booking it across campus so I wouldn’t miss yet another statistic class (which I did not pass…maybe if I had been faster…). When teaching in Madison, WI, I participated in the yearly Race for the Cure 5K with my teacher friends. That was more of a social walk/jog than “run.”

Three years after becoming a mother, I was ready to have another baby. After an unexpected miscarriage, and many months of negative pregnancy tests, I needed an outlet for my frustration and unending sadness. My friend, Jill, asked if I wanted to do something crazy and sign up to train for and run a half marathon. Jill, I cannot thank you enough for asking me to do that. The date of the race just happened to be what would have been my due date, April 9^th, 2010. That was a very specific SIGN to me. We recruited a few other friends to join us, and met every Sunday morning to run our long runs. The rainy mornings were the best. I felt like I had such purpose. I never got to run that race with my friends. I got pregnant. I was there at the finish line with cookies and hugs for my training pals. Part of me still really wanted to run that race…

And a runner was born.

Race for the Roses with Lynn, April 2011

Since then, I have completed 5Ks, 10Ks, 15Ks, Half Marathons, Triathlons, and even Hood To Coast. I love the excitement of race day, even more so when I'm with friends! I love that my passion for running and completing races has spread to so many others. I hope to continue sharing my love for running with others, and encouraging and helping friends set and achieve new goals along the way. I have struggled through injury (plagued by IT Band issues...), been disappointed with setbacks, and worked through motivation loss. All the while, encouraging others to throw themselves into this crazy running world!

Girlfriends Half Marathon, October 2011 ~ Team "Girlfriends In Training"

My own personal goals for running have changed this year. While I've been working on just completing so many of the races I've run, I now have a desire to take my training to the next level. No longer am I satisfied with simply finishing. I want PRs. (For the non runner folk: Personal Records.) I am excited to learn more about the mechanics of running, nutrition and how it plays a very large role in training, and cross-training so my body doesn't fail me. I am even willing to start incorporating the dreaded "sprint workouts." To a distance runner, those are the stuff of nightmares. I am really looking forward to meeting up with my Girlfriends on the weekends for our training runs, and catching up on life, motherhood, and then hitting Starbucks for some coffee.

Hood To Coast, August 2011 ~ Team "Blood, Sweat, and Beers!"

In addition to shifting much of my focus onto myself and my own training, a very large part of my running plans this year include teaching. I am beyond excited to be coaching a Girls on the Run team at our elementary school this spring. I will be meeting with a group of 3rd-5th grade girls twice a week for 12 weeks, and teaching them about healthy body image, healthy lifestyle choices, working through peer pressure/bully concerns, and training them to run a 5K with a Running Buddy. I was a Running Buddy last year, and the experience was amazing! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am to coach a team of girls this year. You can take the teacher out of the classroom, but you can't take the teacher out of ME!

Starlight Run, June 2011 ~ Girls on the Run Running Buddy with Sayla

So thank you for joining me on my journey this year and beyond. I am excited to see where this blog will take me.