Girls on the Run

Girls from Ruder and Glacier Gateway elementary schools are training to run a 5 kilometer cross-country race later this spring.

The program is called Girls on the Run and strives to empower young females to break the mold of societal pressures by teaching them self-worth, competence and confidence, organizers say.

It also gets them in great shape.

The 10-week course aims to launch third through fifth-grade girls into a lifelong healthy relationship with fitness while weaving in lessons of cooperation, conflict resolution, accountability, productive emotional expression, and deliberate choice making, coaches Sara Kavanaugh and Shelby Johnson said during a recent workout.

The girls meet twice a week over the two-month period.

All running activities are centered around the lesson of that day.

At Ruder, a lesson on choices meant running a warm up where Kavanaugh and Johnson playfully shout out two possible choices — girls choosing choice A ran to one location and back — girls choosing B another.

On this day it’s about veggies and fruits. Girls who would rather eat veggies ran one route. The fruit girls the other.

The point wasn’t one was better than the other — it was just to get them motivated to run.

After warmups, girls are given cards featuring core principles of the day’s lesson. The girls are instructed to contemplate how those principles play out in their own lives and are encouraged to engage other girls and coaches in the discussion as they run, walk, hop, skip or jump around the track.

“It’s all about forward motion, the running is secondary” Girls on the Run director Kim Holloway said recently.

In the beginning the girls may run about 15 minutes a day, said Holloway.

By the end of the two and a half months, they’re running nearly 50. They even have a test run of the 5k, and in the years since the program began, not once has a girl started the race and not finished, she said.

Girls on the Run Flathead is a local council of the parent organization Girls on the Run International, an organization that started in 1996 with 13 girls and now serves over 200,000 across the country and in Canada. GOTR Flathead started in 2017 and has eight different locations around the valley that offer the program — The Summit Medical Fitness Center in Kalispell, and seven valley schools.

Girls are welcome to join any of the programs, whether they attend the schools or not, Holloway said. Several schools offer it twice a year.

Ruder is hosting the spring session for the Columbia Falls area, and Glacier Gateway hosts the fall session.

Scholarships are available for the $150 course which includes an after school snack at every session, a water bottle, two running shirts and automatic registration in the 5k.

The Flathead Valley currently has a 43% scholarship rate. Fundraising efforts to increase that number is a main priority for the local council, Holloway said.

“Because no girl should be prohibited from participating, regardless of means,” she said.

The culmination of the program is a race that starts and ends at Legends Stadium in Kalispell on May 17. It meanders to include sections of the nearby Rails to Trails. All members of the public are welcome to register for the race to support the girls. People can become a volunteer or Running Buddy by visiting the organization’s website www.gotrflathead.org/Volunteer.

Registration for Ruder’s spring Girls on the Run program is open until midnight March 11.

Go to: www.gotrflathead.org for more information.