MISSOULA - With the Missoula Marathon around the corner, the Go Run Missoula program is spending the week leading up to the marathon teaching third to sixth-grade girls life lessons through running and community service.
The program founded in 2019, seeks to support female-identifying girls in developing leadership qualities and an appreciation for fitness through multi-week camps offered year around.
Go Run Missoula founder Angela Bridegam says teaching these girls to run is about showing them both a healthy lifestyle and giving them the skills to develop into young leaders.
"What we do is show girls a lot of different running opportunities that promote pacing techniques and proper running form and spriting drills and community service, and so that ends up being a lot of different activities and games that help girls develop social and emotional capacities and meet friends and develop healthy relationships with healthy mentors."
Rori Ojala is a high school volunteer with the program from Hellgate High School whose love for the sport stemmed from doing running drills during soccer practice which led her to join the long-distance track team once the season concluded.
"It's something you can do as an outlet and something you can do just whenever, wherever you don't really need to have to be super fast or run super far...just get excited about running," Ojala said.
Ojala hopes that being a young role model for the girls in the program will inspire them to pursue running as a healthy lifestyle after the program.
First-year participant Gwen Leary said the program has helped her find a love for running.
"The program is like really fun it's really encouraging um we play a bunch of fun games, and I think it's just like an awesome program that people should join."
The summer camp will conclude this weekend with the girls running in the Tony Banovich 5K on Saturday and helping run an aid station on Sunday during the Missoula Marathon.
KPAX is the proud home of the Missoula Marathon and will be bringing it right to you this year on the KPAX Streaming App!
Download the KPAX Streaming App today and be sure to watch our marathon coverage starting Sunday morning at 8 a.m.
