BENTONVILLE — The name of the Girls on the Run program is slightly misleading.
Running is just one aspect of it. But when considered as a metaphor, it works.
The 12-week character-building program helps properly equip girls to train and prepare for the long haul — of adolescence and the rest of their lives. The national program combines elements of self-esteem, teamwork and community service.
The state’s only Girls on the Run program, located in Benton County, is in its third year. Girls and their coaches are preparing for the Chicks ’N Chili 5 K Run / Walk, a fundraiser that will be held Saturday in Bentonville. A celebration banquet is planned for Nov. 28.
Started 10 years ago by Molly Barker, Girls on the Run is designed for ages 8 to 11. It has spread from her hometown of Charlotte, N. C., to 149 cities, with about 50, 000 girls currently enrolled.
Barker (along with Gov. Mike Huckabee and former University of Arkansas racing star Deena Kastor ) is featured in the December issue of Runner’s World magazine as one of its 2006 “Heroes of Running.” On Nov. 3, she attended a reception in New York with the other honorees.
By phone from New York, Barker talked about growing up in the South in the 1970 s, when athletic options for middle-school girls were few. When she changed schools, she went into what she calls the “girl box” to fit in.
Girls that age “kind of morph into what they think will make them the popular girl,” she says.
But when she and her mother started running together, Barker didn’t worry about how she looked.
“It’s where I feel the most beautiful,” she says of running.
Barker comes from a long line of athletes and alcoholics, and she eventually started drinking, which helped her morph into whoever she wanted to be — or so she thought. She went on to get a master’s degree in social work and was a four-time Hawaii Ironman triathlete. But alcohol ran her life.
On July 5, 1993, she realized she’d lost jobs and struggled to have a place to live for two years. She considered ending her life, but her sister told her to give it the night and think it over.
The next morning, Barker went for a run. Coming down the last stretch of road, watching a thunderstorm in the distance, she had an epiphany.
“I just suddenly felt whole,” she says.
And, she realized that she feels complete when she’s running, and “really, I’ve had it all along.” After the birth of her son, now 11, Barker felt she needed to do something to help others. She combined knowledge she’d gained from her social work education with her passion for running, creating Girls on the Run. “Even kids that don’t like sports like Girls on the Run,” Barker says. “It’s more focused on the girls and the friendship and the social part, and we just happen to run or walk together.” Barker thinks Girls on the Run is helping change the lives of the girls and women involved in it. For instance, after going through the program’s lesson about standing up for yourself, a program coach decided to leave her abusive marriage.
“Every woman... has struggled on some level with feeling stifled by our society,” she says. “I have dreams that this will become a global program.” While coaching at Mathias Elementary School in Rogers, Vina Hyde explains how she brought Girls on the Run to her area more than two years ago after hearing that a friend had set up a group in St. Louis. The Bentonville woman, who has been a runner for 30 years, recruited running buddies Debra Senser and Jane Sears to help.
The first group of young runners came from the Boys and Girls Club of Benton County, which became a program partner. Girls on the Run International provided materials, including a booklet of curriculum and a sample budget. Then the women recruited other volunteer coaches.
The coaches meet with the girls twice a week in the afternoons for 12 weeks. They follow a 24-lesson curriculum, which covers health, fitness and self-esteem issues — from nutrition, gossiping and bullying to the ways women are portrayed in the media. Every girl in the local program also receives a free pair of running shoes. The shoes are bought locally and paid for by local donations.
At the beginning of each lesson, the coaches explain that day’s focus. Then they do an activity supporting the lesson, stretch and run or walk.
“We try to make every class fun. We try to encourage them to figure it out for themselves,” Senser says.
These volunteer coaches work with girls from diverse backgrounds, and some come from troubled homes. “It’s really nice to have somebody be interested in what happened with them today,” Senser says.
During a recent class at Mathias Elementary, the girls gathered on the playground after spending the day together in school. Six girls held hands with their arms entangled. Their goal: to untangle themselves and form a circle while still holding hands.
“Go down, go down,” one girl yelled.
“No, no, no, no, no. Jump over her hand,” another one says.
Afterward, one girl explained that they “thought about it logically” as they practiced sportsmanship and cooperation.
“It’s really about self-esteem,” Senser says. “It gets them out of the girl box, where they think they have to be cute and skinny.” Coaches hear from parents that girls are making better food choices at home, doing their homework without being prompted and picking up their rooms. When this semester’s session started, several of the girls clustered in cliques. But that changed as the weeks passed.
“Everybody knows each other’s names. Everybody knows things about each other,” Senser says. “I miss them when it’s over.” Finding girls who want to be in the program is easy, Hyde says. Recruiting coaches is more difficult. The time of day — 3: 15-4: 30 p.m. in Rogers and 4: 30-5: 45 p.m. in Bentonville — is a challenge for women who work.
Most of the 13 current coaches don’t work or have employers who let them leave early. Those with jobs are usually in their 20 s or 30 s and don’t yet have children.
“We’re always looking for coaches. That’s all that’s keeping us from expanding,” Senser says.
A counselor pushed to get the program started at Mathias, and Hyde said she’s heard that other schools are interested. So she thinks the program is most likely to grow through the efforts made by elementary schools to offer it.
She likes “the idea of helping little girls make healthy lifestyle decisions and prepare for adolescence,” she says.
Hyde’s group of eight plays a game of team rock-paper-scissors, in which the losing team is chased and tagged by the others. Then they run laps on the walking path, filling up a bingo-style card with words of inspiration with each completed lap.
Hyde says she’s seen some dramatic changes. Typically, any who start out shy aren’t by the end. The girls are also more physically fit, as would happen in any 12-week fitness program.
“I think they bond during the season — become a real team,” she says. “They really do get stronger as time goes on. And their confidence builds.” The change is evident at the program’s culminating 5 K run / walk. “You see the self-esteem that has developed and how proud they are of themselves,” Hyde says.
Although Sasha Parnell, 11, and Emily Rodezno, 10, knew each other from school, they weren’t friends when they started the program.
“We didn’t like to talk to each other before,” Emily says.
Through Girls on the Run, “we get to hang out with our friends. We get to learn how to be nice people,” Sasha explains.
Jane Sears, a coach at the McKinney Unit of the Boys and Girls Club of Benton County, says this volunteer opportunity fits her perfectly. She ran track in high school, and 30 years later, she still runs about four days a week. She finished her first marathon last year in St. Charles, Mo.
Before this, she hadn’t done much volunteering because she was still in “mom mode.” She has two daughters, 14-year-old Carley and 10-year-old Cayden, and they’ve been involved in the program. She hears its influence when they’re talking at home.
“Most 14-year-olds are going on 18, and she’s going on 14,” she says of her older daughter. “She’s very confident in herself and doesn’t feel like she has to impress people.” Pam Ramaker, race chairman for the second year for the group’s celebratory 5 K (see accompanying story ), says she thinks the program is important because these days fewer children live near their grandparents and extended family. It allows women besides their mothers to mentor the girls.
Sears says the program is about running, but also much more. “You’re learning about running and pushing yourself a little bit more and listening to your body,” she says.
Nearby, the girls run on a grassy track around the club in east Bentonville. On this day, they are practicing for running the 5 K, running as long as they can. After her ninth lap, Emaleigh Sojka, 10, shows off the nine fabric loops around her wrist, each representing a completed lap.
Katlyn Woods says she heard about the program over the loudspeaker at the club. Wearing her purple New Balance running shoes, the 9-year-old explains that she simply signed up. “I thought since I’ve never done it, I should try it out,” she says.
She says the coaches have talked about sportsmanship and the harmful effects of drug use. Katlyn also got to be even better friends with Emaleigh, with whom she’s been in class every grade since kindergarten.
Katlyn especially likes the running part, but at first the exertion made her side hurt. The coaches suggested that she not push herself so hard.
“They told me to run at my pace. So I started that,” she says, “and I just stuck with it.”
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