Thousands of middle and high school students and their volunteer teacher-marathon leaders pounded around a 30K trail during the Students Run LA “Friendship Run” on Sunday morning at Hansen Dam Recreation Center in Lake View Terrace.
The runners — 2,500 students from 185 schools in the greater Los Angeles area and more than 500 volunteer teacher-marathon leaders — took off around 7:30 a.m. on their 18.6 mile quest to qualify for the March 19 Los Angeles Marathon, the “Stadium to the Stars.” Both students and teachers had to complete the full 30K in under 5-hours to earn entry to the Los Angeles Marathon.
The young runners had been taking part in other races, getting progressively longer, during their six-month-long marathon training. Sunday’s run was the sixth and final training race. Runners received a medal and an event t-shirt.
Students Run LA, founded in 1986, is a nonprofit marathon-training and free mentoring program. Its aim is to help under-served students with character-building through setting goals, seeing the value of physical fitness, discipline, responsibility and meeting a diverse group of other students and volunteer leaders.
The event also included a 5K Fun Run for family members, friends, supporters of SRLA and community members. Both the 30K and the 5K were open to the public and, according to a press release, this event was also a good test run for anyone registering for the upcoming Los Angeles Marathon.
Students Run LA information, srla.org
Los Angeles Marathon, www.lamarathon.com/pages/la-marathon