Ariana, My Pandemic Running Story

Have you ever had a Zoom meeting that changed everything? Ariana, an 8th grader at Thomas Starr King Middle School, has. After learning about SRLA during a Zoom meeting her entire 8th grade experience changed for the better.

Ariana, completing her most recent half Marathon.

Running 12+ miles a week isn’t the ideal words to an 8th grader over Zoom. My first thought was how can people even achieve that, and for fun?! Even though I have always been an athletic person, it still amazed me. If it wasn’t school basketball, it was training at a studio or just simply playing games at lunch. At that time I never considered running a team a sport or a goal for me. However, 8th grade started and it changed my mind.

Students Run LA was first brought to me over Zoom in a nearpod activity. It was a short response to a question on “what do we enjoy doing pre Covid?”. I responded by saying playing basketball with my school team and PE at school. One of the teachers mentioned that she coaches a running team for 7th and 8th graders at King, I wasn’t really interested at first. I told my parents about how she told me about her team. They liked the idea of a running team for me, which motivated me in joining. I continued to message my teacher about the team, she explained how the team works, what the goal was, and what’s it for. I remembered how I had friends on that team and how they enjoyed it. I decided to give it a try and go to a practice.

I wasn’t thrilled about how early it started but I knew that it was for something I would like. When I got to the school I saw about 15 kids stretching and I knew some of them. The head coach had put us in a group and introduced herself along with the other coaches. She explained that we are training for the LA marathon which is running a whole 26.2 miles! I thought to myself the longest run I have done is 1 mile for my PE class. I didn’t have a second thought at that point all I knew was that I wanted to run the marathon with the teachers. She also mentioned that we would run a 3-mile run that day, I was nervous. While running the second mile at a fast pace I questioned myself again.

“I didn’t have a second thought at that point, all I knew was that I wanted to run the marathon with the teachers. ”

Nevertheless, 1 hour later we were at the finish point and I was honestly I was surprised that I completed it. I had liked the idea of running with friends and running with a goal that all students will achieve together. 2 weeks later it was our first race! I was excited and nervous but mostly excited. After the race, we all got a medal and I felt accomplished about running the whole 3 miles.

Currently, I am running 16+ miles a week and passed 2 half marathons. It has been hard on the team and I due to the Coronavirus restrictions and the lockdowns. Yet, we still try to run together every week and even run 8 miles during the week. I believe that running with the friends I have made in the team and the great teachers are the best things that have happened to this 8th grader.