Austin Mayor Will Wynn to declare Marathon Kids Day, run with the children

Austin, Texas—Austin Marathon Kids® officially ends their six month running/walking and nutrition program Saturday, February 11, at 9:00 am. for Austin ISD and 11:00 a.m. for all other Central Texas school districts at Eanes ISD Chaparrel Stadium at 4100 Westbank. K-5th graders will be arriving by car, bus or bike, with both the stadium and parking donated by Eanes ISD.

The little children and their families will have run/walked 26.2 miles over a period of six months, at school and at home, in increments of a quarter mile at a time, until their Final Mile Medal Celebration. Forty thousand Central Texas K-5th children from public, private schools and homeschools are participating in the tenth year of this grassroots initiative. In Houston there are 11,000 Marathon Kids®, and in Dallas this year there are now 30,000. The ten-year-old, FREE running/walking and nutrition program also just launched in the Texas Rio Grande Valley of Harlingen with 3,000 K-5th graders. There are currently 285 USA towns and cities on the Marathon Kids® waiting list, as well as thirteen foreign countries asking for the free program.

Austin children and their Physical Educators provide an example to the world, as they stay fit, acquiring the love and habit of running/walking and eating well. They lead the charge in overcoming childhood obesity and striking out at early onset Type II diabetes. Marathon Kids® recently received a commendation from The Texas Medical Association and will be featured on CNN Medical Health Report with Dr. Sanjay Gupta in February. The Texas Governor calls Marathon Kids® the “shining stars of Texas.”

The program is free, maintaining eager participation among families from all income levels, especially those most vulnerable to Type II diabetes, sedentary lifestyles, or social challenges. The six month program simply encourages the joy of moving through space at an early age, bonding children with their classmates and with their parents via shared goal work to color in their Marathon Kids running and healthy eating logs and earning the free rewards.

On Saturday, February 11, there will be a ceremonial, community-wide, FREE Final Mile Medal Celebration for the Central Texas public schools, private schools, and home-schoolers at Eanes ISD Chaparrel Stadium at 9:00 a.m. and then again at 11:00 a.m. (in order to hold the crowds of little K-5th graders and their families).

In stages, thousands of little children and their families run their laps and then dash through the multi-colored, balloon arched Finish Line. The registered K-5th children earn their Marathon Kids® Water Bottles, bicycle bumper stickers, and their Finisher Medal. Running with them and honoring them for having “the courage to start” and “the courage to finish” will be Austin Mayor Will Wynn of the Mayor’s Fitness Council; Presenting Sponsor Whole Foods Market volunteers; community runners from the Austin Police Department; community runners from AustinFit; Austin ISD and other school district Physical Education Leaders; Texas Department of Health Services Commissioner Eduardo Sanchez, M.D.; Ross Moody of The Moody Foundation; University of Texas Kinesiology students; and AAPER volunteers. Quick sports massages for children will be once again tirelessly provided by The Body Therapy Center.

Playing “The Star Spangled Banner” will be jazz saxophonist Thad Scott of The Marcia Ball Band. Selected little children, including evacuee children, will be featured in the 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. ceremonial flag laps, and will hand out bouquets to area leaders/supporters. Austin and other Central Texas Physical Educators, as well as community volunteers will be organizing and running the stadium at the free Feb. 11 Final Mile Medal Celebration.

The children will be celebrated as they ceremonially finish what at first seemed, to a little child, to be an insurmountable project: running 26.2 miles over six months. Every K-5th child has been coloring in their Marathon Kids® Running Log© throughout the year, as well as coloring in their Marathon Kids® Fuel Log© (eating 5-a-day fruits and veggies). Children who are blind count their accumulated miles by putting beads into an empty plastic water bottle.

Later, at springtime assemblies, all Finishers will receive their earned Marathon Kids® Finisher T-shirt.

All children can be Marathon Kids: rich/poor, slender/overweight, sighted/blind, fast/slow, deaf/hearing, able/disabled.

Marathon Kids® is a free, ten-year-old, Texas-birthed, grassroots initiative that has been featured in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press stories, Weekly Reader, Scholastic News, Nurses Digest, and CBS Radio and has an upcoming feature in Prevention Magazine. The organization recently was featured in the “Annual Inspirational Heroes of Running” December issue of Runners World.

The program is free to Austin area children because of the sponsorship of Whole Foods Market with critical help from foundations such as The Moody Foundation, The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, The Meadows Foundation, The Topfer Foundation and the AT&T Foundation. Joining in to keep the six month running/walking and nutrition program free are University of Texas Athletics, Houston Mayor’s Fitness Council, GSD&M, etc. Marathon Kids was nominated by the State of Texas for the “Innovation in Prevention” Award with the U.S. Health & Human Services Agency. It is an initiative of the STEPS to a Healthier Austin program with some funding from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Questions about Marathon Kids? Kay@MarathonKids.com

www.MarathonKids.com