PICTOU – It’s not as if Grade 12 students at Pictou Academy absolutely have to do the 5K at next Sunday’s Johnny Miles.
It’s just a big chunk of their physical education mark, so yeah, they kinda do.
“They’re all highly encouraged to do this, as part of the assessment,” said physical education teacher Adam White, who’s been doing this for the five years since he started teaching at Pictou Academy.
“They journal about their progress going along, and they’re assessed on the whole process – the journaling piece, the planning piece, how well they understand the principles of training and goal-setting. So, it’s all about the process and the Johnny Miles is really just the capping experience for it.
“A lot of them wouldn’t have been runners and this will give them kind of a taste of what running could be,” he added.
“It’s part of their personal fitness unit, going through the principles of training. It’s just to have something real for the kids to connect with as part of their curriculum.”
Their eight- to 12-week run plan started in April, and they were given a workout plan to adhere to, in addition to the workouts they do as part of the physical education program. Some of them do more walking than running, and some of them are more into cycling. But as long as they’re sticking with it and show up on race day, it’s all good.
Dillon Lougheed is a Grade 12 student who’ll be running for the first time in the Johnny Miles series. When he first started with the running program in the spring, he wasn’t completely on board with it.
“At first, no. It seemed a little bit too much for me at first, but once you get to around the end it’s a lot of fun,” said the Pictou resident. “It feels pretty good once you start running.”
He sees the benefits of running from both a physical and mental standpoint: “Once you start running, you know you can push yourself further and further and further.”
He said he’ll likely do a combination of running and walking the 5K next Sunday.
“I’ll run as much I can,” said Lougheed, who sometimes runs the 4.8-kilometre route to his family’s home after school.
White does the workouts along with them and plans on running the 10K event on Sunday, joining his students along the route.
“Some are doing all running, some are both running and walking, some are biking, but it all goes toward the final goal, which is the 5K Student Challenge at the Johnny Miles.
