BY DANI TIETZ
dani@mahometnews.com
Typically, when runners cross the finish line, there is someone waiting to share in the excitement.
Many times, though, training for a running event is a solo undertaking, involving time spent making gains to ultimately reach a goal.
When 60 third- through fifth-grade girls at Lincoln Trail Elementary School took off to complete a 5-kilometer race on Nov. 3, they knew their parents, grandparents and friends would be waiting for them at the end, but training for the event was never something they did on their own.
Their peers, classmates and a group of female teachers were beside them the whole time.
Actually, being with friends may have been the only reason fifth-graders Emme Laughton and Annison Huff started running.
For four years, a group of Lincoln Trail Elementary teachers and staff have banded together over the late summer and early fall months to encourage female students to run through Girls on the Run programming.
Founded in 1996, Girls on the Run began with 13 girls who came together to run. Within the next year, the program doubled and now in more than 12,000 locations, young girls are learning about the benefits of running and lifelong activity while also focusing on positive body image, emotional health and friendship.
As a third-grade student, Emme just wanted to be with her friends, so she joined. Anniston, who arrived at Lincoln Trail in fourth grade, also joined Girls on the Run because Emme was doing it.
“And my teacher last year (Kara Allison) was a coach on Girls and the Run, and she said I should do it, too,” Anniston said.
Just having friends though, won’t prepare the runners for the 3.1 miles they run in November.
The girls meet behind Lincoln Trail in the field to prepare to run laps twice every week from September to November: every 10 laps equals one mile. Some coaches run alongside the girls while others hand bands to them to put around their wrist so they can keep track of how many laps they have completed.
“They encourage you to keep going,” Emme said.
Sometimes it takes an extra game or two to motivate the girls.
“The teachers will run around and try to tag you,” Emme said.
Emme, Anniston and other fifth-graders also tried to encourage their younger counterparts.
“Some of them don’t like running; they are just doing it because their friends are there, so we ask if they want to run with us and usually they want to run with us,” Emme said.
Fifth-grade girls are also in charge of making sure all runners are stretched and ready to participate before each practice.
Anniston said that she has learned how to set goals for herself through this experience.
“I learned that the more you practice, the faster I can run,” she said. “You have to pace yourself for when you’re running for long distances.”
Teachers also use the Girls on the Run curriculum to help their students look within to accept themselves, learn about making themselves happy, how to deal with different emotions, accepting one another and how to deal with negative situations.
After their celebratory run with hundreds of other Girls on the Run participants throughout Champaign County, the Lincoln Trail crew takes their confidence and giving spirit and returns it to every student in their school.
Last year, the girls made a string bracelet for every child at Lincoln Trail. This year they are distributing Smarties with positive notes attached.
Erin Laughton, Emme’s mom, said she has enjoyed watching her daughter gain confidence through the program, and crossing the finish line.
“But it goes beyond just the running,” she said. “It’s that service project to the other students and talking about how to be a friend.”
The friendship Emme and Anniston have gained through Girls on the Run helped encourage them to start running before practice started this year.
“I think that that was really cool that they kind of took steps to get motivated and do it before,” Renae Huff, Anniston’s mom said.
“Especially with girls this age, I just really liked the whole thing that they were building the connection between the mind and physical health at this age and hopefully that carries over.”
Marla Dewhirst, Emme’s grandma, who is an avid runner, said that it is important for the girls, who are not quite old enough to participate in a lot of sports competitively, to have the outlet.
Marla was not in town when Emme needed a running buddy for the Girls on the Run event in third- and fourth-grade, but she made sure to be home so that she could run alongside her earlier this month.
After a Thursday snowfall that dried up, the wind rolling over the farmland made for a difficult run.
“That was not an easy race against that dry and cold wind,” she said. “You had to buckle down and push it out.”
Emme said practice had prepared the girls for that, though.
After running with her mom one year, and her dad the next, Emme knew that her grandma would be her buddy this year.
Anniston said she chose her mom to be her buddy because she knew that running was something she was interested in doing.
“I used to love to run, but I kind of got out of the practice, so this was such a great reason to get back into it,” Renae said.
“It felt good to do it.”
Renae trained on her own to work up to the 5K, but the group of four, the two girls and the two adults, stuck fairly close to each other on the day of the event.
Dewhirst knew that her granddaughters’ claims of being slow were unfounded after she watched her cross the finish line at the Main Street Mile earlier this summer.
Coming into Saturday’s run, Anniston and Emme had set a goal to finish the race under 30 minutes. Crossing the finish line just ahead of their buddies, the girls accomplished their goal at 29:35, unofficially.
The Girls on the Run event is not a race, though.
“You just do it to accomplish it and to finish,” Renae said. “That takes off some of the pressure.”
The students have experienced how the Girls on the Run program has also taken away some of the in-school pressure, too.
Building a bond between student and teacher that is outside of the classroom helps the girls know that they have allies throughout the building and that if a coach does become a teacher, they already have a connection.
Six staff members took time out of their after-school schedules to work with the girls this fall: Kayli Elliott (3rd), Beth Musgrove (3rd), Kara Allison (3rd), Jen Schickedanz (3rd-grade support services), Stephanie Sims (library) and Kim Killion (Compass).
“I felt really comfortable that these girls were with teachers who knew them,” Renae said.
“I know a lot of them have families, so I want the teachers to know how thankful we are.”
