The older I get, the more I feel compelled to root for my own gender. It’s not that it hasn’t always been like this, it just seems more obvious and feels more important now. I will admit, when my sons play hockey, even if the girl on the ice is on the other team, I am not-so-secretly rooting for her and thrilled when she succeeds. This is one of the reasons I am always to excited to share news about The Snohomish County Chapter of Girls On The Run.

Girls On The Run is an organization that is currently running after-school groups in Seaview Elementary, Sherwood Elementary, Terrace Park Elementary, and a community team at the Frances Anderson Center. The organization says its mission is to “inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running.” For the spring session, which is open for coach registration on Monday, the group will also be available to students at Edmonds Heights and The Brighton School in Mountlake Terrace. Executive Director and Founder Megan Wolfe told me that they have the resources to add a couple more schools. If you are interested, you can talk to your school, as well as contact Wolfe at www.girlsontherunsnoco.org.

The program, which covers emotional health and healthy friendship, addresses negative self-talk, and gives media awareness, can definitely be taken more than once. Wolfe told me that even though there are a few different versions of the program, as the girls grow older, they “approach the subjects differently and get new things from the program.” Having GOTR coaches as friends, my Facebook feed is often full of pictures of smiling faces doing confidence building exercises or, most recently, running their wind-delayed practice 5k. I also notice from the pictures on the GOTR Snoco Facebook Page, that the girls are working together in super smiley bunches.

As part of the experience, there will be a Girls On The Run Fall 5k on Saturday, Dec. 12 at 9:30 a.m. (My Edmonds News is a sponsor of the event.) The race, open to “men, women, young, old, runners, walkers,” will start at Experience Momentum in Lynnwood and is along the Interurban Trail. The price is definitely right for the Fall 5k, “Adults are $25, kids over 6 are $10 and kids under six are free, but if they register, they can get a shirt too.” The group is still in need of volunteers for the race for things like packet pick up, course monitors, finish line help, aid station volunteers, etc.” She also reiterated that they would love to have all kinds of participants at any age or speed.

– By Jennifer Marx

Jen Marx, an Edmonds Mom of two young boys, is a traffic reporter by dawn and writer and PBJ maker by day. She is always looking for a fun place to take the kids that makes them tired enough to go to bed on time. You can find her trying to make sense of begging kids to ” just eat the mac n cheese” at jen_marx . If you have a kid-friendly event you’d like to share, email her at play@myedmondsnews.com.