Hello Team Stay Put MN!
Just a quick note to let you know that Caro and I participated in the GOTR event held today in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
The event has about 120 particpants -- mostly girls that have been working with the GOTR program for the last year. For many, today was their first official race. The kids were very enthusiatic and had a blast running the race.
The course was very pretty -- starting in a park near the downtown area and winding along the city's river. The weather was cool, but the kids heated up the course in a big way!
Caro ran with Mercedes -- one of the GOTR kids. I ran about the first mile or so and then went back to the finish line to give out the festive leis to those who crossed the finish line. That was very fun to do.
Both Caro and I were very impressed with the program and we left the event today determined to find other ways to get involved with GOTR in our local markets.
I'm looking foward to reading your race reports in our blog. Red Wing is coming up soon!
Glad you had a good experience with GOTR. I'm a head coach in Pittsburgh and we have our 5K next week. I have seen our girls make so much progress and I couldn't be more proud of them. More than their physical progress is seeing how they've changed over the season. One girl came in and in the beginning she confided in the coaches that she was made fun of at school because she was overweight. She was very hesitant to run, but now she runs, laughs, giggles, cheers other people on and even asks me for challenges! "Just" running isn't enough! Tomorrow for their community service project they're sending care packages to soldiers in Iraq. It's a really wonderful program and I've gotten so much out of it.