Girls on the Run 2024

Our first place runner Aniah Clouse finished the 5k in 27 minutes! She was the eighth girl overall to finish the 5k this year! 

Times to beat for next year: 

1st place overall - 21:02

2nd place overall - 21:41

3rd place overall - 22:58

We had some excellent running buddies this year! Thank you to Mrs. Rios, Mr. Sealock, Mrs. Hamilton, and our nutritionist buddy Ms. Holly! Our anchor at our race was Mr. Weir. He helped make sure our team stayed together and supported any who were slowing down past their goal pace. Our girls set bigger goals than ever this year and will continue to next year!

The race this year was the perfect weather for a run! All the girls met their goals and finished the official race in less time than the practice 5k from earlier in the week! 

The months leading up to our 5k, we practiced life skills that will stick with us every day. We worked on created a team bond over delicious snacks, great chats, and goal setting that made us feel our best. 

We picked the team motto: "Little girls with dreams, become women with vision."

Our team chant for this year was: 

Who are we? Girls born to run! 

Let them hear you! SLAY QUEEN!

This year our main focus was on building and maintaining our star power. Star power is defined as the 5 main parts of our health that combined, set us up for success in life. We broke down each category to really analyze what is important and how we ensure positivity in all areas.

The other side of star power, is avoiding the clouds that diminish our shine. We know that surrounding ourselves with the right people, who care about us is key.

To find those right people, we must first be a good friend ourselves. It was interesting to see what friendship qualities we look for in others versus what friendship qualities we bring to the table. We even made those qualities into a workout game!

Then, we need to ensure we are looking for friends who fit our non-negotiables. We must be the qualities of a good friend and look for qualities in a good friend that will push us to make good choices over bad ones. Defining and having empathy is a huge part of this. Understanding our biases and how to be better every day is the goal.

Most importantly, we must show the Riverside keys to success in our daily lives. Being safe, respectful, kind, responsible, and showing perseverance are the attributes that we strive for daily. To improve relationships and show these keys, we must have a baseline for communication. We follow this standard protocol. Ensuring we have an even tone and decided upon outcome of how we desire a conversation to go, comes first.

We as young leaders need to understand that not every relationship in our lives will be good for us forever. We discussed scenarios in which we ourselves have made mistakes and may be the person who needs to change. Failure is not the end all, but a jumping off point for growth. As long as we are waking up each and every day, striving to be a better person, friend, student, etc; we are on the right path. Living lives as girls who are leaders, make good choices, and live positive lives sets us apart and makes us all STARS! We wrote letters to future runners and can't wait to open our time capsule before next season to share out our reasons for choosing to be Girls on the Run!

Sticking up for others is also an important part of being a good friend. We discussed how all these steps come together to make us a well balanced, all around, star empowered team!

Our practice 5k had as good of weather as the final. We ran this track all season and plan for more running time next year!

Every year we complete a community service event chosen by the girls on the team. Last year we attempted to plant flowers at the school, only to learn that sadly, our landscaping isn't a conductive growing environment. This year the girls unanimously decided upon helping the homeless community!

We are so grateful to our friends over at Stevensville United Methodist Church. Our former music teacher Mrs. Meyer runs their food program and not only did they let us help out on their Feed America food bag day, but they supply 36 students with weekend food bags each week of the school year for those in need.