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Inspiring young runners
By Bernice Torregrossa
Contributor
Published March 29,
2007
What’s your 10K goal? For League City runner
Robert Key, that’s the number of young people he hopes will take up
running and walking. His PR10K program promotes a healthy lifestyle and
teaches goal-setting skills in an innovative online program.
He has a plan for involving 10,000 students in public, private or home
schools in regular activity, regardless of their current fitness level.
Key, a lifelong runner and veteran of more than 100 races, is known
throughout the area as a motivational speaker. He’s taken his passion
for running to schools, where he passes along a set of training tools to
keep kids on track.
With physical education and recess periods on the wane, especially in
upper grades, Key saw the need for involving students in something they
could pursue individually or in a group. PR10K gives young runners
access to training logs, motivational stories and running information in
order to whet their appetite for running and recognize their successes.
“Fifth- and sixth-graders do well with it, and all ages up through high
school,” Key said. “It’s great for sixth-graders, because they can have
the goal of going out for cross country in seventh grade.”
Learning to set goals is one of the central lessons of PR10K, Key said.
“It goes beyond the walking and running—it’s about setting all kinds of
personal goals, and learning what it takes to achieve them.”
With more than 500 young runners and walkers already active in the
program, Key is seeking sponsors for additional students. Sponsors also
have access to PR10K’s training tools, including a unique database of
running blogs that cuts through the clutter and enables a runner-reader
to find bloggers who are writing about particular types of training.
“Some of the best training and racing information is posted by bloggers,”
Key said, “but it’s hard to find the ones that match your interests and
goals. Our blog database can make those matches, and that’s one of the
benefits that our sponsors are really using.”
Sponsoring a young runner or walker is $15, which provides a year of
access to PR10K materials to both for the student and the sponsor.
More information about sponsoring a student, a class, or accessing the
database is available at the PR10K Web site, www.faithfulsoles.com.
Bernice Torregrossa is a correspondent for The Daily News.
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