Newlonsburg students will transform into 'Kids of Steel' for Pittsburgh marathon weekend
Newlonsburg Elementary kindergarten student Penny Ryan is really just excited to see her father’s office in Downtown Pittsburgh on May 2.
That she and her brother will run with the Kids of Steel group in the Chick-fil-A Pittsburgh Kids Marathon during the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon weekend is more of a side note for Penny, 6.
“I’m also excited for the medals,” she said.
Penny, her brothers, Cameron, and Tyler and Carson Aikins currently constitute the Newlonsburg Elementary Kids of Steel team. Kids of Steel is a free training program offered by P3R, the nonprofit that manages the annual Pittsburgh marathon along with several others.
“It’s a group that’s kind of set out to inspire healthy living at a younger age,” said Penny’s father, Chris Ryan of Murrysville. “They hold three or four kids’ runs each year that are about a mile, and they’ll hold school assemblies where their coaches will host a practice.”
A training program, offered at no cost by P3R, encourages Kids of Steel participants to run at least 25 miles in the weeks leading up to the children’s marathon.
“Then they run that mile and they’ve ‘completed’ their marathon,” Ryan said.
Cameron, a second-grader at Newlonsburg, and Tyler and Carson all have run the children’s marathon before.
Below, Cameron and the Aikins brothers talk about their favorite part of last year’s race.
“Last time I got to high-five Darth Vader along the side of the race,” Cameron said.
And like nearly all brothers, Tyler, 10, and Carson, 8, are competitive when it comes to the race.
“He finished first last year,” Carson said begrudgingly. “Me and my dad took a break.”
Ryan said he is hoping to have additional students sign up for the team prior to the March 1 deadline. Children from other elementaries in the district can form a team from their individual schools, but kids from the same school district will all run in the same heat on May 2, according to Leslie Turis, P3R’s youth programming director.
There is no cost to register a team, and it can be done by visiting P3R.org/programs/kids-of-steel.
For more, see P3R.org.
Patrick Varine is a TribLive reporter covering Delmont, Export and Murrysville. He is a Western Pennsylvania native and joined the Trib in 2010 after working as a reporter and editor with the former Dover Post Co. in Delaware. He can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.
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