When told to take a lap, athletes, regardless of the sport, have been known to moan and groan.
But you’ll never hear that from members of the Marburn Academy Run Club. They sign up with glee to partake in what other teams might consider a punishment.
The Marburn Middle Division Run Club is a spring program for grades 6-8. It’s led by Marburn teachers Rebecca Skinner and Michael Taylor, who are both avid runners.
Though the club shares an obvious running connection with cross country, which takes place in the fall, the Marburn Run Club is meant to be a more casual way to stay active, Taylor says.
“We hear from families all the time about how their kids are bugging them to go for a run on the weekend or a hike, so it’s really nice to see that transfer,” Taylor says. “Running is a really great sport because it’s always one more thing. You can always challenge yourself, and there’s always the (feeling of) ‘What else can I do?’”
Wenton Fallon, an eighth-grader at Marburn Academy, has participated in soccer, football and cross country. He says one of the things that sets running apart as a sport is the sense of camaraderie between participants despite differing skill levels.
“During Run Club, you obviously have people who run at different speeds and run different distances,” Fallon says. “Everyone had someone normally to run with because there was normally someone at their level.”
Not only does the club serve as a way for students to stay active, but Taylor says it also promotes confidence in and outside of the classroom.
“(It’s) building that confidence in the sport and then transferring that confidence into the classroom,” Taylor says. “Like having them say, ‘Well, I couldn’t run for two minutes.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, remember when you couldn’t run for two minutes, and now you can run further? This is kind of the same thing. You weren’t able to read these words, so we’re going to practice.’”
Taylor says running is about competing with oneself as opposed to others, which is a philosophy he emphasizes in the club. Runners compete with themselves by running another lap, going a little bit longer without walking or getting a little bit faster as the season progresses.
Before each practice, after eating a snack and changing into running clothes, the team members go over their individual goals for the day. To encourage progress in a fun way, Taylor says runners earn different colored beads based on their individual miles run.
“We put the beads on like a keychain or a key ring – and a lot of high schoolers have them on their backpacks and their binders,” Taylor says.
For Fallon, having experienced runners such as Skinner and Taylor leading the club has served a similar purpose to the bead incentive, encouraging him to put his running into perspective and become better day by day.
“Whenever I really first started running, it was like, ‘Well, two miles is a lot,’ and then they’re talking about whenever they ran, like, these 50-mile races,” Fallon says. “I’m like, ‘Wow, two miles is like nothing compared to that.’ It’s really helped me to tell myself if they can do it, then I can do it.”
Tess Wells is an editorial assistant. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
