Free Running Program Will Offer Hope to Kids in Puerto Rico – runnersworld.com

Elite runner Beverly Ramos knows the power of the sport to boost resilience. She was preparing for the 2017 New York Marathon when Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, where she lives and trains.

She completed the final weeks of her training despite significant challenges—damaged tracks and running paths, a 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. curfew, shortages of food and water. When she finished the race 26th in a time of 2:46:45, it was about 10 minutes slower than her best time—but, she told Runner’s World, felt like a way to show the world Puerto Rico would rise again.

Now, the two-time Olympian is helping launch a program to bring the restorative power of running to children on the island, which is still in the process of rebuilding from the storm nearly a year and a half later.

Finding Gains Out of Loss

Ramos and the New York Road Runners today launched Rising New York Road Runners—a free, evidence-based youth running program—to local children, in partnership with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Puerto Rico.

“What people have experienced in the past year is losing stuff—losing jobs, losing money, just constant loss,” Ramos said. “The fact that we’re bringing something new, it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re not losing. We are gaining this time.”

The collaboration has deep roots. Ramos, who’s earned more honors than any other runner in Puerto Rican history, first raced the Fifth Avenue Mile in 2014. Since then, she’s competed in every race distance the New York Road Runners offers. Last September, she broke the course record in the Bronx 10 Mile with a 55:15.

Watch: Beverly Ramos is using running to bring hope back to Puerto Rico:

Rising New York Road Runners already had a reach beyond the five boroughs—any school, after-school program, or community center in the country can apply. The organization had long had an interest in taking the program to Puerto Rico, but previously hadn’t had any applications, said Rachel Pratt, senior vice president of youth and community services at NYRR.

The first time Ramos remembers discussing the possibility was at the New York Mini 10K in June 2017. But a few months later, after the storm, the idea took on a new level of urgency.

“For the kids in Puerto Rico, we heard a lot about them just needing things to be normal and finding that sense of normal,” Pratt said. “Playing is a great way to find normal.”

Crafting a New Kind of Program

By the same race the next summer, the idea had begun to take shape. Ramos met with the NYRR, who named her a Rising New York Road Runners Ambassador & Special Advisor to Puerto Rico. She visited one of the sites in the Bronx, which has a large Puerto Rican population; her sponsor, New Balance, made a shoe donation.

Ramos and the NYRR knew the school system in Puerto Rico wasn’t currently equipped to handle the extra administrative work involved in the new effort. Fortunately, the timing was right to collaborate with the Boys & Girls Clubs, says Alana Rodriguez, a project manager there.

The clubs offer after-school programs for an hour and a half every day of the week—leaders there were looking for new, creative ways to get kids moving after many months of devastation.

“After the hurricane, there was an emotional imprint,” Rodriguez said. “One of the things we want to work on in the program is to develop not only physical fitness, but also to reduce stress and promote positive use of time.”

Rising New York Road Runners offers a structured running program based on research about how to motivate kids when they’re young, and keep them moving for their whole lives. Kids participate in age-appropriate running activities—game-based during elementary school, with more formal training at older ages. As they progress, participants have the choice of staying in untimed, recreational events or moving to a more competitive track.

“Many of the reasons people don’t pursue physical activities is because they have a really bad experience,” Ramos said. “We can put them into different levels and different groups depending on how fit they are and the things they want to do.”

The program will first launch in nine of the Boys & Girls Clubs’ 13 sites, which enroll about 3,400 children, Rodriguez said. Eventually, the hope is to expand it to the others. Funding for Rising New York Road Runners, in Puerto Rico and elsewhere, comes from internal funds, donations, and corporate partnerships, Pratt said.

And if kids are lacking equipment, the program can help there, too—New Balance donated shoes to more than 1,000 children at the program’s launch. After that, coaches will be able to nominate individual participants for new kicks through the 1 for You 1 for Youth program, where a pair of shoes is donated for each pair purchased at the NYRR RunCenter.

Data collection is also an important part of the program, Pratt said. Organizers track kids’ participation in the activities, and they can earn incentives like shirts and medals—not based on laps, but on time spent in motion.

Rodriguez said she hopes these motivators instill a love for movement and healthy lifestyle habits into children, and by extension, their parents. “We can work too with the family and allow them to encourage their kids to have a more healthy and active life,” she said. “I think in that order we can start with the kids, and then we can impact the whole community.”

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The program’s competitive track also offers significant opportunity for talent development—perhaps, even, to spot the next Beverly Ramos.

“I think that will be the best thing ever, to identify someone that has the potential to be competitive in the future,” Ramos said.

Contributing Writer Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013.