Like many volunteer coaches in the Crim Fitness Foundation’s youth Summer Running Club program, Chad Schlosser is a runner himself who comes to practices equipped with plenty of ideas to teach the kids he works with in the Mott Park club the joys of running and physical activity. But he also discovered one other trick that works wonders.
“The most important thing I discovered this year: I bring popsicles,” said Schlosser, who has coached the Mott Park club for three summers. “That definitely helps keep the kids engaged each week, because they’re all waiting on their popsicle. We have a very young group this year, the youngest is actually two, but most of them are like four to seven, so a popsicle is pretty motivating at that age.”
Those types of touches that help make running fun are exactly the reason youth running clubs were started in 1990. At the time, they were a brainchild of longtime Crim board member and president Judy Samelson and former Michigan Senator and State Budget Director Bob Emerson. They wanted to launch a program that would help children stay active and prepare for the Crim Teddy Bear Trot. The first club met at Pierce Elementary School in Flint’s College Cultural Neighborhood, where about 30-35 children gathered each week to run, have snacks and drinks, and play together. As participation grew, the program added relays, longer runs, and other activities, while practices and end-of-season celebrations helped children build confidence and a sense of accomplishment.
The popularity has led to consistent growth of the program over the years – this summer, there were about 600 kids participating through 15 clubs across Genesee County and even into Oakland County, as a group in Holly formed this year. The homebases of the clubs vary slightly, as some are formed through schools, neighborhood groups, churches, or other community organizations or local parks and recreation departments, but Liz Jones, associate director of races and training for the Crim, said that as long as a group has a volunteer who wants to lead it and has a passion for supporting young people, the Crim can help get a summer club setup.
“You’re never more than a couple minutes’ drive from a club anywhere in Genesee County, it’s really grown in the last few years,” Jones said. “Our coaches are all people that are passionate about making sure the kids have access to healthy things. I always tell people, if you want to be a Summer Running Club coach, it doesn’t matter if you yourself are a fast runner or a good runner. You just have to be passionate about working with kids.”
One key thing that the running clubs work to do is shift the narrative around running. Many people grow up around the idea in sports and other physical activities that running is punishment rather than fun. The Crim provides coaches with curriculum ideas, running-based games, and other ways to help kids see running as fun.
“That’s definitely the biggest challenge, making running something that kids think is fun,” Schlosser said. “Some of the things I’ve done, we always meet at the park and playground, so they can play before, they can play after, it’s a fun space that kids like going to, so we don’t meet at a track or something like that. Second, we always have a running game. The whole meetup is an hour. We’ll do some stretching for about 10 minutes, and then we’ll run, and I’ll try to make them run as long as I can, but usually that’s only another 10 or 15 minutes before everyone starts sitting down. So that’s when we transition to a running game, that could be tag, sharks and minnows, one time we did this game called centipede run where the person in the back has to sprint to the front of the line, then they get to be the leader and lead the centipede wherever they wanna go. We just do silly things like that to mix it up and take their mind off the fact that we’re just running.”
Running clubs finish up each summer with a number of participants taking part in the Marti Austin Kids’ Classic in the Flint Cultural Center. This year’s race was held on August 15, and kids can choose between distances of ¼, ½, or a full mile for their races. There’s also a diaper dash for little ones just starting out. The races are open to any kids, but participants in running clubs are automatically registered and wear color-coded shirts representing their club.
“That’s kind of like the culmination of their summer training together,” Jones said. “And it’s cool when they have that branded shirt for their clubs, you start seeing them show up at the Teddy Bear Trot or Michigan Mile or other events wearing their running club shirts.”
Brandon Morgan, director of external relations for the Crim, said it’s exciting seeing running club alumni more deeply involved in running as kids get older – Olympian and Grand Blanc graduate Grant Fisher even started out in a running club when he was growing up in Genesee County. The colorful running club shirts frequently pop up in other places beyond Crim events.
“Our joke is that before Grant Fisher broke all those American records, it was because his first race was the Teddy Bear Trot,” Morgan said. “But one of the things you see, I have elementary-age and middle school-age kids, and you’ll see kids on school (track or cross country) teams wearing their Crim shirts. So it’s always cool to see they are doing more beyond the club.”
Running clubs are geared toward kids ages 3-14 and information about starting or joining them prior to next summer is available on the Crim’s website. The Crim also offers numerous opportunities for young people to participate in Crim events. Races throughout the year have some sort of event geared toward kids as part of the festivities.
“The Teddy Bear Trot (during the Crim) is probably the most well-known, but at the Pot O’Gold race we do Little Leprechauns, at 5K on the Runway we do Little Pilots, at Crossroads Village, we have Trick or Trot,” Morgan said. “The goal is not necessarily to make it a competitive thing, but it’s just about having good memories around activities.”
Beyond just bonding over a physical and healthy activity, the running clubs also give kids a chance to see firsthand Flint’s vibrant running community that includes training programs through the Crim and other community organizations and typically summers filled with groups of runners and walkers throughout many neighborhoods and parks in Flint and Genesee County.
“What I find more inspiring with the Crim than even the race are the kids out in the community running on Tuesday nights when we’re meeting at the park and the actual training groups of adults will run by,” Schlosser said. “So the kids get to see, ‘Oh, here comes 30, 40 adults that are also trying to get healthy. It’s like all contributing to how we live healthier lives here. I think the Crim is so much more than just a race.”
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