Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 1, January 2003

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'Girls on Run' offers positive lessons about exercise, life

By JAMES BUSH

Before the teenage years expose young women to gossip, peer pressure, and cliques, girls could learn a lot from lessons about self-esteem, physical fitness, and working as a team.

That's the theory behind Girls on the Run, a national program serving girls ages 8 to 11. Recently, the nine members of Seattle's first Girls on the Run class could be found running laps on the Nathan Hale High School track. With each lap completed, Coach Jeanne Higgins hands each girl a square with part of a phrase printed on it. When the girls finish running, they sit down in a circle, arranging their phrases into sentences driving home the point of that day's lesson (in this case, the importance of standing up for yourself).

But the lesson doesn't overshadow the experience: the girls pair up and chat as they run laps, joke with Higgins, giggle over the random draw of phrases, and urge their coach forward to the all-important after-run snack. "The girls are doing a lot of running, but they almost don't realize it," says Higgins.

A longtime coach, Higgins was researching girls programs on the Internet and stumbled on the Girls on the Run Web site. She volunteered for the board of directors of Bellingham's Northwest Washington Girls on the Run "and just fell in love with the program." She wasn't the only one: the Bellingham-based program went from two groups to 22 groups during her tenure on the board.

Higgins, a physical education volunteer at View Ridge Elementary School, chose to base her first Girls on the Run group at the Meadowbrook Community Center, recruiting participants through the center's program catalog and visits to area schools. Her first group is a little smaller than she had hoped for (the program generally dictates classes of 16 girls and two coaches), but she feels the program has been a great success.

It's been popular with the girls: Taylor Christensen, a student at John Rogers Elementary School, and Claire Kotler, a View Ridge Elementary student, both say they plan to continue in the program. Both 9-year-olds had track experience as participants in the Meadowbrook Community Center's track and field program.

Claire says she enjoys the program because she gets to spend time with friends and because of the improvement in her running skills. The girls recently ran the 1.2-mile kids marathon event at the Seattle Marathon, she says. Without Girls on the Run, "I probably would have thought that (the run) was hard. But it was really easy."

The class also gets the competitive juices flowing. Seattle Waldorf School student Katrina Kindberg not only expected to complete the 5K Candy Cane Dash road race, "I'm going to try and win," the 10-year-old announced. That's no idle boast: road racers compete by age division, and the Girls on the Run participants are well-prepared young runners.

Katrina's mother, Kathy, says she was looking for an after-school program for her daughter and Katrina chose the program herself from the Meadowbrook catalog. "It's been great," Kathy says of Girls on the Run. "It exceeded my expectations, really."

The Dec. 7 Candy Cane Dash served as the major athletic event for this session of the program. The girls also completed a community service project before the last twice-a-week session on Dec. 19. Unfortunately, the youngest age division in the race was 14 and under, so older girls took home the ribbons, says Higgins. "But all the girls finished that in itself was an accomplishment."

Founded in 1996 by Molly Barker, a four-time Hawaii Ironman Triathlete, Girls on the Run now has independent chapters in 25 states and serves some 20,000 girls nationwide. A former high school teacher, counselor, and track coach, Barker realized that pre-teen girls are already starting to be exposed to pressures from their peers and society in general. She calls it being put into the "Girl Box": when girls start to worry too much about appearance and popularity and start to drift away from favorite childhood activities, including athletics. Girls on the Run has also spawned Girls On Track, a related program for girls ages 12 and 13.

Although this is the first local class, Higgins expects the newly formed Girls on the Run of Puget Sound to grow quickly under her watch as its first executive director. She'll continue the Meadowbrook Girls on the Run classes starting on March 24, but also hopes to offer a second North Seattle class at the View Ridge Playfield. Other Girls on the Run groups will be launched in the Central Area, South Seattle, and in Redmond.

A Maine native, Higgins says she "grew up running. I started running when I was 5 or 6 years old." She ran competitively through college, attending the University of Colorado and the University of Maine-Presque Isle. "At 33, I've slowed down a little bit, but I still love it," she says. An experienced running, cycling, and basketball coach, Higgins is the volunteer track coach at Seattle Girls School.

Her enthusiasm for the Girls on the Run program has proven contagious. Her call for parents and adult volunteers to accompany the girls on their 5K training run was so successful, the adults actually outnumbered the kids. One mother made pink caps decorated with twin tassels so the girls would be easy to spot during their Seattle Kids Marathon run, says Higgins. "The parents are telling me they've sort of become ambassadors for the program."

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For more information on Girls on the Run of Puget Sound, call 528-2118. The Internet address is www.girlsontherunps.org.