Introducing Children to Running

Alex ran his first race when he was 20 months old. He could barely shuffle back then, and I had to hold him up as he race, but he finished his first 60 meters with a smile on his face. The race series was held by my running club and included a 60 meter course for the little guys, a 400 meter run for older kids and longer distances for the older or braver. The video of Alex running his first race is featured on our website (www.babyalexfoundation.com). The following week, we took Alex back to the track for his second race. This time, he refused to hold my hand, no matter how many times he fell during the race, and when he stumbled across the finish line, he kept going. We used to call him Forest Gump. Alex is not physiologically designed to run. He has cerebral palsy, suffers from uneven leg lengths, has hip pain and lower back pain, and can barely raise his left foot to clear the ground. But, he is a natural born runner. He runs, and runs and runs and runs, and sometimes we have to pull him off a running path and make him take a break. So, how did we introduce Alex to running? We started with circles around the island in our kitchen. I ran with the kids and we made it into a game. We pretended we were cars or motorcycles or animals. We counted our laps in English and Italian and Japanese. I gave out award and rewards for laps run. We made everything fun. If you have kids who need to run, for whatever reason, I recommend the following: 1) Start them young (Izzy started running at 18 months). 2) Run in a safe location so you don't really have any rules; let them run freely. 3) Turn the running into a game: count laps, pretend to be cars or animals, give prizes. 4) And finally, the most important point: RUN WITH YOUR KIDS. You will get into shape, have fun and share time. Once you get them running, you can move them outdoors. I will write more on that in the next blog.