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Friday, October 3, 2008
Lance Armstrong is a Marathon Kid
Austin school kids taking the first steps in a six-month marathon program will get to chase Tour de France cycling champion Lance Armstrong on Saturday, Oct. 4.
Armstrong will run in the ceremonial flag lap of the Marathon Kids kick-off ceremony at Mike Myers Track & Soccer Stadium at the University of Texas. He’ll run with the Austin school district kids starting at 9 a.m., according to Marathon Kids founder Kay Morris. Other school districts start at 11 a.m.
Talk about incentive!
Armstrong, who recently announced a return to competitive cycling, will run with his children, who are Marathon Kids participants. (Who wants to place money on whether they become competitive runners instead of cyclists?)
Marathon Kids is offered to kindergarten through fifth graders at 17 area public school districts, plus home schools and private schools. During the next six months, the kids will run 26.2 miles in quarter-mile to half-mile increments. They color in running logs and fuel logs, which challenge them to eat five fruits and vegetables a day.
Last year, more than 50,000 Central Texas children registered for the program, and 85 percent completed their marathon. This year 53,000 local students are expected to register.
The nationally acclaimed, free program is in its 12th year in Central Texas. It’s also available in Austin, Dallas, Houston, the Rio Grande Valley, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The Final Mile Medal Celebration is scheduled for Feb. 21 at Austin ISD’s Burger Stadium. For more information, go to www.MarathonKids.org.
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Closing the gap on the hike-and-bike trail
What’s your least favorite part of the hike-and-bike trail around Lady Bird Lake?
I hate the section just east of the Austin American-Statesman, where I have to slog through the newspaper’s parking lot up to the sidewalk on Riverside Drive. From there, I have to breath in car exhaust as I run up to Interstate 35, dart through busy traffic to cross the street, and continue up the sidewalk to Lakeshore Boulevard.
It’s time to close that 1.1-mile gap and finally make our trail a continuous lake-front loop.
The City Council has approved $1.7 million for preliminary engineering and design studies for a combination boardwalk and land-based trail, including a public involvement process. Now we need to provide input.
I want a trail with shade, gardens and adequate trail heads. I want it to be environmentally sensitive. I want it to be accessible to all kinds of trail users, from cyclists to walkers to runners and bird watchers. And I want it to look good.
What do you want? To read more about the proposed project, go to http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/boardwalk/.
To take a survey to let the city know what you’d like to see in the finished product, go to http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/boardwalk/brdwlk_survey.cfm.
The Trail Foundation (formerly the Town Lake Trail Foundation) has advocated for support of the project. To see the group’s suggestions for closing the gap, go to http://tltf.affiniscape.com/associations/4559/files/suggestions1.pdf.
“Closing the gap will dramatically improve and expand the usable areas of the Trail. A continuous 10-mile loop will increase safety at the dangerous I-35 intersection, decrease congestion throughout the Trail, extend transportation options and bring critical amenities to the east side,” says Susan Rankin, executive director of the Trail Foundation.
To make your voice heard, attend a community meeting is scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 8 at the Parks and Recreation Department’s board room, 200 S. Lamar Blvd.
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