Saucony Helps Local School

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Saucony

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The Saucony Run for Good Foundation, established to help combat childhood obesity by providing financial support to community-based youth running programs, has announced its latest round of grant winners. The eight grants include a biannual award presented in the name of 2008 Olympic sprinter and Saucony athlete Wallace Spearmon, Jr., to support track and field programs benefiting at-risk youth. The Wallace Spearmon, Jr. grant was awarded to the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, Massachusetts to support the launch of ten running programs in three urban neighborhoods in Boston.

“Reversing the childhood obesity epidemic will take everyone, communities, schools, families and businesses, working together,” said Richie Woodworth, president of the Saucony Run For Good Foundation Board of Directors and Saucony, Inc. “At the heart of the Saucony brand is our mission: to inspire others to run. We have a passionate belief in the transformative power of running for everyone, including kids. Addressing the issues facing the health of our children through the Saucony Run For Good Foundation represents a fusion of our mission and our commitment to social responsibility,” added Woodworth.

Since the Foundation launched in 2006, it has invested nearly $700,000 in grants to 80 organizations nationwide?all dedicated to promoting the sport of running as a part of a healthy, active lifestyle.

“Changing unhealthy behaviors, including eating too much and exercising too little, cannot be accomplished by our kids on their own,” said Susan K. Hartman, associate publisher of Runner’s World magazine and a member of the Saucony Run For Good Board of Directors. “Hopefully, each of these grants is a small victory in the fight against this growing epidemic, creating greater access and opportunities for more kids to live healthier lives,” she added.

Childhood obesity has increased over 300% in the past 30 years according to the CDC (Center for Disease Control). Obesity among children aged 6 to 11 years increased from 6.5% in 1980 to 19.6% in 2008. Obesity among adolescents aged 12 to 19 years increased from 5.0% to 18.1% during the same time period.

The recipients of the latest round of grant winners range from new running clubs to community developmental organizations, which all have a common goal: to promote running as a critical part of healthy lifestyles among children.

Six years ago, Bryan Sorensen started the Run Club in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, hoping to teach kids the importance of good nutrition, how to be properly hydrated, how valuable life-long activity is and that running can be fun. This club has goals in the future of increasing the number of students who participate in Run Club at both Oxbow Creek and Champlin Brooklyn Park Academy as well as exposing more kids to running at an earlier age. With this grant, Bryan hopes to make this program available for all students regardless of their family’s current financial position.

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Weekly Report

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41 miles of biking.  WOW!! Spring is finally here and I pulled my bike out of the garage and started commuting! I had the car on Monday, but Tuesday morning I walked Nadia to day care while pushing my bike.  I’m sure we looked quite a sight!  Nadia was on my chest, a backpack on my back, and pushing the bike next to me.  We did this two mornings before I finally got the bike trailer rigged up so that we can use her car seat.

You see, babies aren’t supposed to ride in a trailer until they can hold their heads up with a helmet on. A friend’s doctor confirmed this statement of every company’s manual.

We have a Chariot Cougar 2 and they sell accessories for infants.  Just not for with the bike attachments.  So we decided to rig the trailer so that her car seat could be strapped securely in a rear facing manner.  It seems to be working pretty well.  I commuted 2 days with the trailer and we went for a 10 mile ride on Sunday.

This is the first time I biked outside since November and I actually biked more last week than the entire month of November (though to be fair pretty much everything stopped after the 14th!)

I did run, once.  I went out on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and ran 5 miles along the Greenway.  I’ve been hearing a lot about heart rate training and how in the base phase you need to keep it in a Zone 1 or 2.  So I setup my heart rate monitor and went out for a run with the goal of keeping my heart rate under 160 bpm.  It turned out to be quite hard and a little annoying.  I had to run pretty slow (almost 10 minute pace).  I knew to expect it, but still… that’s hard for me to do.  I completed the 5 miles and actually didn’t feel very tired, my legs felt a little tired, but they also did almost an hour of running!

I went ahead and signed up for 30 Days of Biking, even though I’ll be gone all of this week and several days at the end of the week and won’t have access to a bike.  So my 30 Days of Biking is really… Biking every day in April that I have access to a bike!

I hope to get 2 runs in next week (week days, more on the weekend!) while I’m at Wolf Ridge with a bunch of 7th graders.  It will mean an extremely early start to the day, but it might also help reduce the stress level!

March 2011

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Read 12 books with a variety of topics, genres, and styles. I read Radical: Taking your Faith Back from the American Dream, which was a challenging book that basically asked where in the Bible it says we should pursue the American Dream instead of following Jesus. Not that the American Dream is wrong or bad, but just a reminder that Christians should be pursuing Jesus first and what He wants for their life, not what our American Culture says we must have to be happy. I followed that  challenge by reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which I’m surprised I’d never read before.  It is a great story about the life of a good/pious slave named  Tom and how many different people in the South treated their slaves.  It is a moving story, though a little hard to read since it is written in the English of the era.

Complete a Triathlon Square Lake Short Course, September 10. 0.5 Mile Swim 16.5 Mile Bike 5 Mile Run. For March I ran 25 miles (10 less than February), not the right direction but I was sick for almost 2 weeks. I also biked 20.5 miles the first time in 3 months that I’ve been outside!! Plus 30 minutes on the trainer. I started bike commuting towards the end of the month.  No swimming, but we did do some snowshoeing at the beginning of the month!

Finish this YouVersion devotional plan (Bible Study).  Still going well.  With only one or two verses a day and a short paragraph thought afterwards it doesn’t take a lot of time.

Make a substantial change to one of my programs at work. We’ve worked on a social entrepreneurship project using Youth Venture as a guide, but it has been a struggle.  It was designed for 8th grade and up and I ended up with a lot of 6th graders.  We did some adapting, but it still requires a little more abstract thinking than they’ve demonstrated.  I also think the “social” part made it a little harder.  They are wrapping up next week and submitting the applications to me to see if any are worth funding.

Blog Regularly Blogging on all fronts has slowed down a little.  As Nadia has gotten older we’ve been taking less pictures and life is just busy! It is hard to carve out chunks of time to write and research.

Learn how to use my digital camera and experiment with its features. No progress on this one.  I don’t think this goal is specific enough for clear improvement.  This month I’ll work on developing something more specific.

The most viewed post of March 2011,  Curing Plantar Fasciitis, again. Number two was Treating Plantar Fasciitis, but a surprise number 3 was my post about Twin Cities Running Stores. This didn’t change from last month.  A post I’d like to see get more views is my thoughts of running the Downtown Riverfront, which is in the top 20.