By Martha Lueders
Murphy News Service

 “[This spring] I was expecting to be running in daffodils and tulips,” Kris Miner, a coach for the organization Girls on the Run, said. “I don’t know what I was thinking! I live in Minnesota.”

Participants of Girls on the Run have been forced to spend the beginning of their 10-week season training indoors or, if they are outside, to wear many layers.

Girls on the Run (GOTR) is an international non-profit organization that began in 1996 in Charlotte, North Carolina.  The Twin Cities chapter began in 2011 and has nearly 200 girls enrolled this season.

“[Girls on the Run] inspire[s] girls in third, fourth, and fifth grades to be joyful, healthy, and confident. We do that by using an experience based curriculum that creatively integrates running,” Twin Cities’ GOTR Council Director, Mary Uran, said.

Practices are held twice a week for 10 weeks so the girls can prepare for the 5k that they’ll run at the end of the season. While the girls are training for their 5k, they are also training for the harder years to come.

“It’s positive development for girls in a vulnerable age group,” Lisa Hobson, a GOTR coach at Normandale Hills, said, adding, “If I had this opportunity at my age, my high school experience would have been different,” Hobson said.

Practice starts with “Getting on Board,” which introduces the topic that will be discussed that practice, Miner said.

All GOTR councils follow the same curriculum, but it’s flexible so that it can adapt to the conversations that occur during discussions, Miner said. She explained that during a practice last year they discussed the Boston Marathon bombings.

“Some girls are wise beyond their years,” Miner said. When talking about healthy body image one of the girls said, ‘Sometimes I’m my own worse bully.’

After discussion there is a warm-up activity that is used to emphasis the topic that was introduced earlier.

Last week the lesson was how to choose your friends, junior coach Caroline Lee said.

The warm-up was a game of a tag, with a twist. Each girl wrote down on a notecard what quailities made a good friend. When they were tagged by the coaches, who were the “it monsters,” they had to give them one of their notecards. At the end of the game they read all the notecards out loud and discussed why that quality made a good friend, she said.

“It’s cool to see what they value at an early age,” Lee said.

After the warm-up activity is the workout. To make the workout more entertaining, the girls are sometimes rewarded a bead after every lap or a sticker, Hobson said.

“[The lesson] is really drilled into their heads by the end of practice,” Lee said.

The most important part of the practice is the lessons, Hobson said. “The curriculum comes first. Running is just a tool,” she said.

People are naïve about how cognitively developed girls are at that age, Hobson added.

“[They’re already] recognizing the differences among themselves and their friends,” Lee said, so it’s important to address sensitive topics like body image when they’re young.

What makes GOTR unique is the topics that are discussed and how those discussion better equip girls for the future.

“You wouldn’t see that in a boys and girls running group,” Lee said.

The 5k at the end of the season is a testament to how much the girls have grown. Hobson, Lee, and Miner all agree that seeing the girls run across the finish line is the most rewarding.

“I guarantee that I have much more fun than the girls,” Miner joked. “My poor family has to hear about the practice as soon as I get home,” she said laughing.

“It’s literally the best three hours of my week,” Hobson said. “I get choked up just talking about it.”

“[It’s] where they can just be girls,” Lee said.

                  Martha Lueders is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.

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WANT TO KNOW MORE?

• Next fall Girls on Track will pilot in the Twin Cities. Girls on Track is the same as GOTR, but for sixth through eighth graders, Uran said. Also, more sensitive topics will be discussed in this age group.
• On Saturday, May 17, GOTR will be holding its celebratory 5k at Lake Nokomis for the spring season. The public is invited to run in the 5K and can register at https://www.raceplanner.com/register/Index/girls_on_the_run_twin_cities_spring_2014_5k.