JUST RUN Surpasses Three Million Miles Run
Students celebrate milestone at Monterey County school

     Seven hundred students at Santa Lucia School in King City, CA, joined their fellow students on the field this week to celebrate the three millionth mile logged by the children in the Big Sur Marathon’s youth fitness program, JUST RUN.
    The elementary school, located in south Monterey County, is one of 160 schools participating in the program this year and one of the model schools for the 12-year-old program.  Since 2004, individual classrooms and schools in the program have been logging mileage run by their students. Collectively that number has now surpassed three million miles, the equivalent of running 120 times around the earth.
    The school-wide celebration was organized by Santa Lucia’s Kevin Roberts, a fourth grade teacher and the school’s JUST RUN coordinator.  Brief presentations were made by Roberts and the student body president and vice president, followed by the third grade class singing “This Land is Your Land.”  Additional comments were made by the school principal, district superintendent, the JUST RUN team of Susan Love and Mike Dove, and the Monterey County Superintendent of Public Instruction, Nancy Kotowski. Following the presentations each of the 700 students ran a victory lap around the school’s field.
    “We had been looking forward to this day for many months,” said Susan Love, JUST RUN’s program director.  “Santa Lucia was the perfect school to celebrate this important milestone.  They’ve implemented every aspect of the program including the Just Deeds (good citizenship) and Just Taste (healthy eating) components.
    “Our free program is available to any school in any locale.  Santa Lucia came on board last year and has truly embraced JUST RUN,” she said.  “Nearly the entire student body is participating and dozens of students now hooked on running recently travelled more than 70 miles to attend ‘By the Bay 3K’ which is a goal race offered in conjunction with our Big Sur Marathon weekend of events.”
    Since the inception of JUST RUN, a total of 110,000 children have participated in the program, 3,100,000 miles have been logged, and 205,000 Just Deeds accomplished. The program has won many awards including National Youth Program of the Year from Running USA.
    To learn more about JUST RUN visit www.justrun.org.
 

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Media Contacts:
Julie Armstrong, Big Sur Int’l Marathon
julie@bsim.org / 831-625-6226