What a GREAT day to RUN!

What a GREAT DAY to RUN!

As some of you may know for the past 2 months I have been volunteer coaching every Tuesday and Thursday at a local elementary school. I have been working with a program called Girls on the Run. The goal of Girls on the Run is to teach girls that they do not have to live in the "girl box." Through running we teach girls different positive values each week like, what it means to be thankful, healthy eating habits, good sportsmanship, etc. I have been placed at Backman Elementary with two other coaches Robyn Moore and Kajsa Vlasic. This is a very important program for the majority of these girls because many of them come from below poverty level families. This is a great positive program that hopefully has a long lasting impact on the girls.

Our running goal for the girls is to have them complete a 5k at the end of our 12 week session. Today was our practice 5k! We had running buddies for each of the girls who were there to run with the girls and cheer them on the whole way. These same running buddies will run with them on May 30th when all of the Girls on the Run Programs across Salt Lake will meet for our 5k Fun Run at Murray Park.

I want to give a huge shout out and thank you to all of the running buddies, but I'm going to give special props to my running buddies. A HUGE thank you to Laura Tietjen, Emily Robbins, Josh Wood, and Ryan Bedford! THANK YOU! It was so wonderful for you all to come out and run with the girls...I know they had a blast with you. Below are some pictures from the day.

Ryan and Kit Kat...Ryan renamed her Turbo!

Josh and Jenny on their Funny Face Lap!

Emily and Jamie on their Funny Face Lap! Good team work here!

Laura and Natalie coming around to the finish...Natalie just got her cast off this week...and realized how much easier it is to run with two working arms!
Stori (in the red shirt) and Carmen, Robyn Moore (white shirt fellow coach) and Erendina, and Mimmi (in the tank top) with Izlia. A great group of girls running hard!