Running with the Stars

RWTS is celebrating our 11th season! Thank you all participants, sponsors, coaches and schools!

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Running with the Stars will be celebrating our 11 year anniversary in Spring 2020! Running with the Stars is an after school program consisting of girls and boys in first through sixth grade in the Northern Virginia and Maryland area. Participants train after school two times a week with a coach, typically a parent or teacher, to prepare for a 5K run/jog. This is a non-competitive activity where we encourage the kids to strive for their own personal best. Our goal is to promote overall health and an interest in exercise. Ultimately, the kids will have a great time being active with their friends and build confidence along the way.

Our interval for the week of 3/30-4/5 is six sets RUN 3 minutes - WALK 1 minute. Please do a 5 minute warm up and a 5 minute cool down. Try to practice 2-3 times per week.

Our topics this week are side stitches and hydration.

1. Side stitches are a very common ache in all runners. It is a pain (usually on one side) below the ribs that can make running very uncomfortable. Side stitches can happen for a variety of reasons: improper breathing, starting a run too quickly, being dehydrated, or running on a full stomach. If you get a side stitch, stop running and raise your arms above your head, stretching to the opposite side of the stitch. Breathe deeply. You can also use your fingers to apply pressure to the area of discomfort. When the pain goes away, you can resume running slowly. Word of the day: SIDE STITCH

2. It is very important for runners to stay hydrated! Make sure you drink before, during, and after your run. Staying hydrated will help prevent headaches, cramping, dizziness and fatigue. Drinking water during your run helps replace the fluid lost through sweating. Electrolytes are also lost through sweating. Sports drinks and coconut water can help replace minerals lost during physical activity. Many runners like to use handheld water bottles, waist packs with water bottles, or hydration packs to help stay hydrated during runs. You can find these hydration systems at your local running stores or online through running specific web stores and even Amazon. Word of the day: HYDRATION

I miss practicing with your children. Please tell them that Coach Ni is thinking about them!

Grateful to be with each of you in this unusual journey,

~Melissa Ni

~Christina Wutzke

~Jason Morgan

~Thomas Kaminski

~Jack Kaminski

~Kaunteya Pillalamarri

~Lucas Pettine

Here’s this weeks practice routine:

Warmup: If staying indoors do 40 or 50 jumping jacks (turn 90 degrees to the right after 10). 10 burpees and 10 mountain climbers.

If outside do a 4-5 minute warmup jog.
We’re trying to get muscles warm and flexible and get our runners heart rate up.

Stretching: Same as last week (I’d head back inside for stretching if your doing an outdoor run today).

We would have run up and down the hill beside the track today. Similar to last week we would do it relay style- one runner would run down and up a few times then the next would go.

The hill is only about 15 yards, so if you have a longer hill you can just run up and jog back down one time before resting (remember to let them rest between runs on this exercise-they would have been resting while their teammates ran) Also-run fast up, jog down and make sure they aren’t slapping their feet on they way down.
Do this for about 10-15 minutes.

Next: the timed runs this week are 3 minutes run, 1 minute walk – 5 times for a total of 15 minutes. Slow and steady.

Games (today maybe hot chocolate if your runner chose to go outside).

If your runner isn’t ready for the next level you can always repeat the previous weeks work out or abbreviate this weeks.

Remember to have fun! Chat with them while jogging to take their mind of it if it becomes tedious. We don’t push them much. If they want to be competitive- go for it, if not-so be it. It’s a life-sport.

Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, updates on our runners and pictures of our runners. We miss them out on the track and I’ll bet they miss their RTWS teammates!

Take care,
Jim, Alicia and Cyndy