When I think back on my early school years, I always recall the teachers yelling at us to, "STOP RUNNING IN THE HALLS!" I guess a part of me wonders why it was such a big deal. All we were doing was showing our youthful exuberance and excitement to get to class (ok, ok, some of us like me just could not stand still or walk slow just and absolutely could not help ourselves).

Fast forward some 35+ years later and I find myself on Saturday, September 9, 2006, in the halls of KIPP 3D Academy, a charter school on the north side of Houston, where Debbie Goldberg and I were going to start coaching about 75 kids who were 5th and 6th graders how to train and run cross-country and participate in a 5K coming up in January as part of the Houston Marathon. Debbie is the organizer of Houston Fit (the largest USA Fit group in the country) and founder of Beyond the Finish Line, a non-profit organization whose goal is to bring running to underserved communities. Debbie has coached thousands of runners over the years to run half-marathons and marathons, and I have experience in running those distances, as well as working with younger kids in running cross-country and shorter distances like the 5K.

There is a very nice field for exercise and all sorts of sports activities behind the school with a running path that is approximately a 1/4 mile loop. I could not wait that morning to get to the school, give the kids an uplifting talk, and then head out to the path to begin our program. Debbie arrived to meet me at about 9:00 a.m., and we were to meet with our first of 3 classes at 9:30 to begin. We walked out into the main courtyard of the school and there were hundreds of kids there for not only our program, but many other diversified athletic and educational programs held on certain Saturdays for the student body. All in all, it was very cool to see all these kids up on a Saturday morning and so excited to be there.

As we stood there about to go into the gymnasium for the general assembly, the skies suddenly darkened and the rain began to fall very hard with intermittent periods of thunder and lightning. Being the logical person that I am, I thought no big deal, it will blow over soon (I don't think rain had even been in the forecast that day) and if it doesn't, we can just run in the gym. From that point on, 2 things became very clear. First, the rain was not going to let up, and second, when we got into the gym we found out there was a volleyball tournament that morning, so no running in the gym.

Hoping for a change in the weather, I stretched out my speech to the first class as long as I could. Debbie stepped outside to see if the rain had let up, and reported back that it was just as bad, if not worse. She then went and did something that few people in known recorded history have accomplished... She got permission from the administrators that we could run in the halls! I will never forget the looks on the kids faces when announced to them it was ok to run in the halls. I could read what each of them was thinking... "Running in the halls was ok?!?!?!" That has to rank right up there with all of the other major dreams kids have like:

• You can color outside the lines

• You can talk in class without raising your hand

• You don't have to do your homework

• You can eat with your hands and don't have to use a fork or spoon

• You can wipe your mouth on your shirt sleeve

• You can go straight to dessert and leave your vegetables untouched

I continued my speech and made sure to go over in detail how important it is to start out slowly (remember, I'm talking to 5th and 6th graders), maintain a steady pace, and it didn't matter if you ran, jogged or walked.  We gathered the group out in the hall and had made a best guess that 4 times around the square shaped hallway was probably about 1/2 mile, reminded them again not to go too fast (5th and 6th graders) and announced the obligatory "Ready, set, GO!".

The scene was hilarious to Debbie and me as tennis shoes squeaked and rubber burned on the hall floors and all 20 or so kids took off like jackrabbits. I'm not so sure that Jesse Owens would have been able to keep up with them around those first couple of turns. Debbie and I simply started jogging along, much like Pepe LePew when the cat takes off in a sprint in the cartoons and he inevitably catches her because she has gone out too fast.

We made the first turn, no kids, we made the second turn, and there were about half of them, hands on their knees bent over and gasping for air. Along the way, we encountered some teachers who had no idea what was going on, but who heard and saw this huge pack of enthusiastic kids running in the hall. When they saw Debbie and me go by, we assured them it was part of our running class, and they smiled approvingly (I think most of them secretly wanted to run in the halls, too). By the time we made the end of the first loop, ALL of the kids had stopped, and we had barely even gone 200 yards. We gave them gentle pats on the back, told them to walk or jog along slowly, and they all started out again, many sprinting ahead of us again and suffering an identical fate on the second loop. This scene played itself out in all 3 classes that day, and the kids learned 2 great lessons... #1 Never start out too fast and #2 It is FUN to run in the halls.