Last Friday, I had the privilege of visiting the NYRR’s Mighty Milers youth running program in action at  PS 137 in Washington Heights.

This *free* program is serving more than 80,000 NYC youth this school year in almost 500 schools and community centers.  The program’s popularity is due to its impact, easy implementation, and the 250,000+ free incentives earned by students running/walking more than 2.5 million miles.

We’ve long recommended the Mighty Milers to our schools as it aligns so well with our goals to improve childhood health and create positive use in our community schoolyards.

The 3rd graders I got to see in action buzzed around their park shouting out their laps as they whizzed past their instructor. She kept a tally of their progress on her clipboard. When the first group was done running their mile, they all ran up to me (I’d been giving them high fives) shouting out their mile times.”My best mile is 9:50! Mine is 9:45!!”

These kids find such value in running! Their teacher told me how many of the students thought they couldn’t run because they were “too fat or too slow” when the program started, but now those same kids are the ones checking in to make sure practice is on every week.

As shown in this short video, the benefits of running and walking can be transformational for a student’s body, spirit and academic performance, and NYRR offers not only Mighty Milers, but all their free services and resources to support your mission.

If you’re interest in having The Mighty Milers at your school, you’re in luck! The application for Mighty Milers 2016-2017 school year program is open.  Please email or call Cliff Sperber – csperber@nyrr.org / 646.758.9717 —  with any questions about participating.