Nearly 3,000 middle and high schoolers in the Students Run Los Angeles (SRLA) program are preparing for the LA Marathon after recently completing an 18.6-mile run ‒ a level of participation not seen since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For a final group preparation – the penultimate event, the SRLA Friendship Run 30K at Hansen Dam, was held on Feb. 16. It’s the last training event before the 26.2-mile run. Approximately 200 schools from the greater LA area will be participating in the Marathon on March 16, including San Fernando High, Pacoima Middle, Nobel Middle and Kennedy High schools.
SRLA is a nonprofit program founded in 1989 that provides free mentoring and marathon training for students in seventh grade and up. To date, more than 80,000 students have participated in the program.
Gaby Arvizu, SRLA president and CEO, told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol that this year, they’re back to their overall pre-pandemic numbers of students. In addition, she said the number of girls in SRLA has also rebounded, constituting 48% of all participants.
“Having race events is always a huge milestone for our students and keeps them excited to stick with the journey,” Arvizu said. “I think that all played a big role when it comes to our overall participation.”
Besides just training students to be better runners, Arvizu said SRLA also teaches them about goal setting, resilience and having a good work ethic ‒ lessons that will stick with them in their everyday lives.
“Our students walk away with this ‘aha’ moment that if they can do this, they can do anything,” Arvizu said. “We see that 99% of our students, year after year, finish the Marathon. And of those marathon finishers, 99% go on to graduate from high school and 95% end up going to college.”
Porter Middle School
One of the many schools participating is George Porter Middle in Granada Hills, which has a team of 14 students.
The team includes April Carrillo, Tomas Cervantes, Jessica Espinoza, Robert Gerena, Alannah Gomez, Melody Guzman, Mariet Perez Hernandez, Adrian Martinez, Ashley Martinez, Alejandro Medina, Jayden Memije, Malakai Padilla, Juan Carlos Turcios and Arthur Urbina.
For the seventh graders on the team, it will be their first time ever competing in the LA Marathon. The same can also be said for one of their coaches – Dulcinea Garcia-Gagnier.
The young PE teacher never joined SRLA herself, so this year is her first time ever participating in the program. While Garcia-Gagnier played soccer in high school, running long distances was still something new to her, so she had to learn all the skills alongside her students.
“We started simple with three miles, and then once that was doable, we would move to five, and then we would increase our limit each month,” Garcia-Gagnier said. “We did have a schedule for that, but it’s definitely been … fulfilling and very challenging at the same time. There’s a lot of mental toughness, discipline and commitment [that goes into] trying to achieve the mileage each race.”
Just as Garcia-Gagnier has been supporting her students, they’ve been helping her ‒ particularly the eighth graders ‒ by telling her what each race is like and encouraging her. Those who have already finished the Marathon once, she said, told her it was a rewarding experience and are determined to improve their times this year.
“They know that if they put their mind to something, they can definitely achieve those goals, and they can reach their short-term or long-term goals because they have that mental toughness and that discipline in them already,” Garcia-Gagnier said. “They’ve told me … how they take some of the things that they’re learning from running and bring it into the classroom, which is really neat to see.”
SRLA runners will be expected to maintain a 16-minute per mile pace the entire course, lest they get pulled out. Garcia-Gagnier is focused more on finishing the Marathon rather than getting a good time, but she hopes it will serve as a baseline to improve upon in next year’s event.
“I never thought I would ever complete a marathon, or even try to train for a marathon ever in my life,” Garcia-Gagnier said. “It’s going to be very tough, but I’m definitely excited for it.”
The LA Marathon will start at 7 a.m. at Dodger Stadium, crossing through downtown LA, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills before ending in Century City on Santa Monica Boulevard and Avenue of the Stars.