Let Me Run

It’s not just girls who need a boost to achieve at the highest levels and feel good about themselves, too.

Two Spring Branch ISD elementary schools piloted a seven-week athletic training and fitness program for young boys recently that combined a 5K personal run with special life lessons about feeling and emotions, respect and anti-bullying behavior.

Called Let Me Run, the pilot program was a first for Texas schools. With support fromSpring Branch ISD Athletics and Fitness Department and Advanced Movers, staff at Pine Shadows and Sherwood elementaries held twice-a-week sessions for 24 boys.

View Let Me Run video >>

The boys trained for a practice 5K at the annual Running for the Arts event held at Memorial City Mall in early May. The two schools then held a personal 5K race at Terry Hershey Park on May 16.

The Let Me Run pilot is based on the popular, school-based Girls on the Run program, which now includes more than a half dozen school-based programs in SBISD elementary and middle schools.

Samuel Karns, who coordinates the district’s Advanced Movers program, said he is impressed with pilot program results.

“The boys made bonds and built relationships with one another that will last them a lifetime,” Karns said. “They got a chance to be themselves, and this was evident as they lived by these words: ‘Be yourself because everyone else is taken.’ [They] just finished a chapter of their journey in life [recently] as they completed their 5K at Terry Hershey Park.”

The founder of the Let Me Run program is a Girls on the Run Coach who had two sons and saw the need for just such a program, and started one in Charlotte, N.C.

SBISD school and parent groups interested in learning more about the Let Me Run program or in starting a campus program for fourth- through eighth-graders should attend a planned Aug. 11 training.

Cll Samuel Karns at 713-251-8460 to learn more, or follow the Advanced Movers program through these social media options:

www.twitter.com/advancedmovers
www.facebook.com/sbisdadvancedmovers

www.twitter.com/futurecoachesac
www.facebook.com/sbisdfuturecoachesacademy

www.twitter.com/SBISD_CSH