On the Move
Running Program Helps Sierra Vista Students Get, Stay Fit
Imagine running from Los Angeles to New York, with maybe a side trip to, say, Albuquerque, along the way.
That’s what the students in Sierra Vista Elementary School’s runners club have already accomplished this school year.
The program that takes place during lunch recess has about 300 fairly regular participants, said Darlene Argano, the school’s physical eduction teacher, who implemented the runners club a number of years ago.
“I saw a lot of kids not being active for one reason or another, outside of school or even during school,” she said. “Some kids, their parents couldn’t afford to put them in extracurricular activities or, if they could, they didn’t have the time because mom and dad were both working.”
What’s more, there were issues on the playground and health problems.
“In school, a lot of kids were getting in trouble at recess,”
Argano said. “We had a lot of overweight kids at every grade level. We were even seeing kids at every grade level with Type II diabetes.”
Since there is no particular skill needed to run, it seemed like the best way to get the kids moving.
The club, however, didn’t really take off until a couple of years ago when Argano committed to providing plenty of incentives for the students.
In addition to bigger prizes for the top runners at the end of the year, a runner gets a small token for every mile negotiating the “Scorpion Trail,” which winds around the school’s playground. Runners get a somewhat larger token at two miles and a figure of a little runner for five miles. For every 25 miles, they get a big foot.
And at 30 miles for runners in grades first through fifth, they get their photo taken and put on a wall in the main hallway of the Northwest Albuquerque school.
“As they increase their miles, their picture is moved along the wall,” Argano said. “So everybody gets to see it. Parents get to see it. (Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent) Winston Brooks came last year and he noticed the wall.”
Of course, with the added incentives and the increased participation, it took more money to pay for the prizes, Argano said.
She twice earned grants from the National Football League’s “Fuel Up To Play 60” program, but that didn’t come through this year, although she has another shot at it in early 2013.
Some of the numbers the students post are fairly amazing, like those of thirdgrader Jeremiah Sanchez, who was the top runner last year with 210 miles.
“My goal is to get 250,” Sanchez said. “I like running because it’s fun and you get prizes. Last year, I got a watch, a football and big, huge Gatorade.”
Sanchez may be challenged for his title this season, as fourth-grader Jacob Smith is at 89 miles.
“I run every lunch recess,” said Smith, who also races BMX bikes, rides mountain bikes and plays soccer. “I just like running. I wasn’t here last year. I wanted to try (the club) because it sounded cool.”
Third-grade friends Maddie Saavedra and Roslynn Mares like to run together.
“Last year I only ran 10 miles and this year I’m at 51,” Saavedra said. “Last year my friend, she didn’t want to run and I did. She wouldn’t run with me but I have to have somebody to run with me to motivate me to run.”
The friends frequently talk while they’re running.
“We talk about what we’re going to do tomorrow and what we’re going to wear,” Mares said.
Fifth-grader Megan Grubaugh, who has run 51 miles, prefers to run alone.
“It lets me express how fast I can go,” she said. “It gives me a chance to have the time to myself and I can think about things I need to do.”
Diane Sanchez, Jeremiah’s mother, and a cross-country runner while in high school in Belen, has been helping with the program and enjoys watching the students gain an appreciation for running.
“You see the changes in them,” she said. “These kids are going to be stronger, healthier. They see it. They recognize the effects it has.”
Sanchez recalled a boy last year who started out by walking the course.
“By the end of year, he got to 90 miles,” she said. “He was running the whole track and he made friends with members of the 100-mile club so his motivation was not only physical fitness but socialization because he became a part of something. He was no longer just a student at Sierra Vista, he was part of the runners club.”
While the runners club is good for the body, it’s also been incorporated into the educational program at the school.
The students are using math skills as they add up their miles, Argano said. And some of the classes are compiling their miles and tracking them across several of the traditional crosscountry routes and studying places along the way. Classes that finish a route get a pizza party or an ice cream party, she said.
Even the parents are getting something from it.
“What they’re teaching me is not to sit on the couch anymore,” Sanchez said. “I need to be active just like them.”