FITNESS: Race gives kids a run of their own

If you go

Put on your running shoes, kids. Richmond is getting its first timed road race for the young set.

The C&F Bank Short Pump Mile will be staged next Sunday starting at 7:45 a.m. behind Short Pump Town Center. The 1-mile event will begin near American Family Fitness and end near the mall's food court. Children ages 6 through 18 will be divvied up into heats according to age. Awards will be given for the best times.

For the little ones, an untimed event is planned. The Short Pump Express (not to be confused with the train that toots its way around the inner corridor of the open-air mall) is a 400-meter (¼-mile) run for children age 5 and younger.

American Family, a sponsor for the Short Pump Mile, will award a total of $2,000 to the five schools with the most participants in the race. The money will be used for fitness purposes, such as physical-education equipment.

This event is patterned after Fredericksburg's Great Train Race, which has been running for about 15 years. Recently, it has attracted more than 3,000 runners annually. The Great Train Race is the nation's largest youth-only timed road race, according to organizer Debi Bernardes of Fredericksburg.

Bernardes, director of the Great Train Race, decided it was time for the Richmond area to get into the act. She's in town regularly because of her children's involvement in NOVA of Virginia Aquatics swim program in western Henrico County.

"I'd like to see this race compete, in terms of numbers [of participants], with my race in Fredericksburg," she said.

When she put together the Great Train Race, she was looking for a way to get more children involved in competitive running. A longtime runner who competed on high-school and college track teams, Bernardes wanted to inspire the young ones.

And she didn't want the kids' run to be an offshoot of an adult race. "I wanted to do something just for the kids," Bernardes said.

While the Great Train Race is a timed event, speediness is certainly not a requirement, Bernardes said. "The tail-end people are the ones who get cheered on the most."

What's important is that kids get a taste of running that's outside the sports arena or the physical-education class.

"They learn it doesn't have to be torture," Bernardes said. In Fredericksburg, the race has prompted the creation of school running clubs and has inspired some top-notch high-school and college track athletes.

Bridget Cuthbert, a co-planner of the Richmond-area event, said, "You talk to anyone in Fredericksburg, and they know about it." Let's hope, she said, that the Short Pump Mile becomes that same type of annual, well-known event.
Maria Howard is a group exercise instructor for the YMCA of Greater Richmond. Her column runs every other week in Sunday Flair.