Girls on the Run combines fitness with life lessons

Two dozen sneaker-clad girls toting purple water bottles bounce into a Marietta school gymnasium eager to run.

But before these pre-teen members of the group Girls on the Run hit the track, they sit in a circle and talk about thorny scenarios they will likely face soon, if they haven’t already.

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PHIL SKINNER/pskinner@ajc.com

Jasmine Walker (center) works with her red team in a group game called ‘All Tangled Up’ during a Girls on the Run meeting at at Blackwell Elementary School in Cobb County.

Girls on the Run 5K Race
9 a.m. Nov. 16 at Atlanta Youth Soccer Association's fields, 161 Arizona Ave., Atlanta. Free for Girls on the Run participants. Others pay $18 registration fee until Nov. 12 or $23 after that date. Information: www.gotratlanta.org

Girls on the Run Spring program information
Begins the first week of February; registration begins Jan. 12. Detailed information about the program and schedule of meeting will be at www.gotratlanta.org in early December.

Photos: Girls on the Run discuss issues and run the track

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“You are with a group of friends and one of the girls pulls out a cigarette, lights it and passes it around. Everyone takes a puff,” poses Stephanye Peek, a Blackwell Elementary P.E. teacher. “Then it gets to you. What do you do?”

Eight-year-old Sierra Young enthusiastically raises her hand.

“You don’t smoke and you tell an adult in the house,” she says.

Everyone applauds. Girls on the Run of Atlanta — a 12-week-long program weaving together running, role playing and girl talk — is getting warmed up.

Founded 12 years ago in Charlotte by Molly Barker, a former Ironman triathlete, Girls on the Run arrived in metro Atlanta in 2000, with a few dozen runners at a few schools. The program has dramatically grown in recent years: It’s now underway at 42 schools across metro Atlanta with more than 600 girls participating in the fall program. Another 500 girls are expected to enroll in the spring session. The fee is steep, at $160 per girl, but scholarships are available based on a sliding income scale.

Sue Payne, executive director of Girls on the Run Atlanta, says the program is designed to engage preteen girls — before they reach the age of “Mean Girls” and are subjected to the accompanying ratcheted-up pressure to date boys, fit into size 0 jeans and be popular.

She believes the way the program combines exercise with lessons encouraging good decision-making makes it unique. And the age of the girls is strategic, she adds.

“They are still listening to adults but they are making that switch to looking to peers for a sense of who they are,” she says.

Back in the gym, the girls between 8 and 12 years old tackle cheating in school, gossiping and a very tricky situation involving getting a ride home by a friend’s father who is drunk. At first, some say they would tell their parents about the later scenario as soon as they got home. But then they realize it wouldn’t be safe to get in the car.

Ten-year-old Hannah Berryman throws her hand up.

“You get out of the car. You go back inside the house and call your mom to pick you up,” Hannah says.

Again, the girls applaud.

Girls on the Run participants also do school clean-ups and other volunteer projects. The fall session culminates Nov. 16 with a 5K run at Atlanta Youth Soccer Association’s fields on Arizona Avenue near the Candler Park neighborhood of Atlanta.

The program relies on volunteer coaches, most of whom are teachers or parents. Or in the case of Meredith Poteet, both.

Poteet, a special education kindergarten teacher at Blackwell Elementary, got involved last year when her daughter Reagan joined the program.

Poteet says it helps keep the conversation going with her daughter, now a 4th grader, about gossiping and other issues.

“They gossip about boyfriend, girlfriend stuff. … ‘He said this and she said that’ — it’s really typical teenager stuff,” Poteet says. “Or the stuff I would talk about when I was a teenager.”

Ten-year-old Makenzie Henkle is into her third year in the program. She says she started as a slow runner and credits her coach to inspiring her to keep going and to “just do my best.”

She now loves running and says it “clears her head.”

And when waiting for her brother to finish football practice, Makenzie — whose Girls on the Run nickname is “Energizer Bunny” — passes the time by circling the track.

But what also keeps her coming back year after year is the focus on girl issues, particularly the talk about gossiping. She says it helped her last year when one girl said “something mean” about someone else. She told the harsh talker she shouldn’t do that, that it was hurtful and she should stop.

“And she doesn’t do it anymore,” Makenzie says, smiling proudly.

After running dozens of laps around the track and celebrating their distance along the way by waving their arms and announcing the number of laps they’ve completed, the girls return to the gym.

They close the weekly get-together with cheers.

Maddy Crane, a 5th grader, jumps up to share hers.

“Quick as a panther. Bright as the sun. Here we are, Girls on the Run!”

They cheer again, one step closer to the young women they are becoming.