Marathon Club
Sunflower Marathon Club 2024-2025
We are excited to kick off Sunflower Marathon Club and our first day will be, Wednesday, September 25th
The goal of Marathon Club is to provide a sustainable fitness opportunity for Sunflower students and their families. The kids will be challenged to achieve a full marathon distance of 26.2 miles by walking or running twice a week throughout the school year. All mileage is tracked when students attend. As soon as a student has completed a full marathon, they earn a t-shirt, have their name read in the morning community, and get their picture posted on the gym wall. We will celebrate finishers on Wednesday’s only with a 3:00pm finish line. We strongly encourage all club members to stay and help celebrate the week's finishers.
In addition to these tangible awards Marathon Club hopes to:
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Promote lifelong wellness
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Provide students a sense of accomplishment
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Create a fun, non competitive atmosphere for all participants
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Improve concentration in the classroom
We will be running on Monday mornings and Wednesdays after school. Start time on Monday morning is at 8:00 am, and on Wednesday immediately after school with a pick up time of 3:10 pm. Volunteers will not be in place earlier than 8:00 am. For safety reasons, please do not drop off kids earlier than 7:50 am. All students need to be checked in and running by 8:10 am. We will not allow kids to start later than 8:10 am as they need to be finished by 8:30 am. If your child will be eating breakfast at school, please remind them to leave the track by 8:20 am. Likewise, volunteers will not be present at the school later than 3:15 pm on Wednesdays. Please pick up promptly at 3:10 pm.
If your student checks in for Marathon Club on Wednesday afternoons, we are now requiring them to stay on the track for the duration of our meeting time, for their safety. Unless parents come to pick runners up early or you have communicated to us directly ahead of time that your runner needs to check out early, we need runners to stay on the track. It is difficult for our volunteers to keep eyes on club members who check out early but do not leave the school grounds until a parent picks them up. While students are under our watch, they must stay with Marathon Club on the track.
Marathon Club is a safe and inclusive environment for all Sunflower Students. We ask that you talk with your runners about appropriate behavior on the track during Marathon Club. We would love for them to carry over their B.E.S.T. behaviors while on the track. If there are behavioral issues, we will issue a first warning to runners, a second warning to parents and after that, runners will be asked not to return to Marathon Club for the remainder of the semester. We ask that your students keep all devices and toys in their backpacks. They will not be permitted to bring anything up to the track besides a water bottle.
All Sunflower students K-5 are encouraged to participate. If you are a parent of a Kindergarten student, for safety reasons, we would ask that you participate with your child. All other parents are invited and encouraged to participate as well.
We will cancel if there is rain, lightning, snow, ice, temperature or wind chill of 32 degrees or less. Cancellations will come via Remind by 7:00 am Mondays and 1:30 pm Wednesdays. We will also put out an in school announcement on Wednesday so they will know in advance of dismissal.
We will be using Remind for communication. Remind is a secure way to communicate between club and parents without exchanging actual phone numbers or emails. This is how you will receive cancellation messages for the club! The Remind link for Sunflower Marathon Club 2024-2025: Remind App
You can earn extra miles for Marathon Club - we are challenging the students and their families to participate in any race. Bring in your race number or submit a photo, we will credit you for that mileage. We especially encourage runners to participate in runLAWRENCE events as they have been a generous supporter of Sunflower Marathon Club.
Safety is the biggest concern. This year the club will meet on the west playground behind Sunflower near the swings & Sunflower garden. Runners will be running on the Southwest Middle School track or the field adjacent to the playground. The route will be staffed by parent volunteers who will be spaced so that walkers/runners can be seen the entire length of the run. Parents, we really need you! If you would like to be a Marathon Club volunteer we would love to have you join us. Use the attached consent/sign up form to let us know you are available. Please communicate with your child(ren) that the adult volunteers are there to keep everyone safe and runners need to follow the directions and rules that the volunteers are enforcing to ensure a fun and safe experience for all.
Remember, you can reach us for questions at our email address: sunflowermarathonclub@gmail.com
To participate - please fill out the google form prior to your child’s first day of marathon club. Please understand if they do not have this filled out they will NOT be allowed to run until we receive the form: Sunflower Marathon Consent Form 2024-2025