Naperville elementary race instills early love of running

It was active, fast-paced, colorful, supportive.

Parents called it chaos. Kids called it fun.

The annual Crosstown Classic running meet involved all 14 elementary schools in Naperville Unit District 203 and it brought out hundreds of runners as young as 5 on Tuesday afternoon to test their speed and endurance. In heats broken down by age, gender and distance, kindergartners through fifth-graders competed in the “Run Because You Can” race at Mill Street Elementary, showing off athletic ability they've built by practicing with running clubs at each school.

“I really liked it,” 11-year-old Ashley Kushner, who won the fifth-grade girls quarter-mile race with a time of 1:17, said about the race. “I've come here since kindergarten and each year it gets bigger and bigger.”

The Mill Street Elementary running club also has been growing the past several years, coach Chuck Hoff said.

About six years ago, the club had 30 members who would meet before school to run around the field or play games that involve a lot of running, such as tag.

Now, Hoff said 200 students are in the school's running club, including Noah Petersen, who has cerebral palsy.

Before the race began, Noah's family was awarded a check for $1,538, which his fellow running club members raised for his medical expenses. Introduced as “Mayor Noah,” the boy met Naperville Mayor George Pradel before running and walking a quarter-mile and crossing the finish line to chants of his name.

Pradel praised the community spirit of the race and the Mill Street running club's efforts to help Noah.

“I just couldn't help but come up here and cheer them on a little bit,” Pradel said.

Runners were competing against themselves, the clock, their friends and their natural instinct to sprint early and lose energy later, Ellsworth Elementary running club coach David Cleveland said.

“The little ones love to run fast,” Cleveland said. “The hardest part is to get them to pace for the distance.”

The longest distance participants ran Tuesday was a mile. But the meet opened with quarter-mile races for third, fourth and fifth-graders.

The start of the third-grade boys race was indicative of the enthusiasm, and also the inexperience, of these elementary runners.

Boys kept creeping in front of the starting line, inching one foot, then stepping the other over the spray-painted barrier before Hoff had sounded the starting whistle.

And when it was time for runners to take off, at least five fell down. One lost a shoe.

Even if these young racers don't continue in cross-country or track as they get older, Hoff says they gain an appreciation for a sport they can take up again at any point in their lives.

“If nothing else, they'll run sometime later in their life and realize it can be fun,” Hoff said.