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Wade Godfrey

Mrs. Lester

Advanced Grammar and Composition

5 March 2012

5K YMCA Fall Classic Run Senior Project

Have you ever been told you will never be capable of doing something? In sixth grade, I

ran a mile in six minutes forty seconds which broke the R. M. Moore Elementary School mile

record. I was told by Mr. Major, my gym teacher, that if I did not train properly that I would

never be able to run a faster mile. I never really ran or trained to run any distances after the end

of sixth grade. To prove his statement wrong, my freshman year of gym I ran my fastest mile in

six minutes and sixteen seconds. After proving this statement wrong and as Senior year rolled

around, I began thinking of running my first distance over a mile. At the beginning of Senior

year, I officially decided to run the YMCA Fall Classic 5K for my Senior Project.

Due to the fact that I have never trained properly and the longest distance I have ever run

was my senior project 5K, I was concerned about the injuries I might have encountered. I wrote

my research paper on how to prevent training injuries in long distance running, so that when I

enter the career field of Personal Fitness Training I will be aware of training injuries that effects

people the most. I found that most injuries are caused by poor running form. I then instantly

started focusing on my running form to create a perfect running form. I chose the topic of how to

prevent training injuries so, hopefully if one day I encounter them in someone I am training I can

help them get through it. Now I’m going to tell you about the process I followed in running my

5K race.

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First, I owe my success to my facilitator, Joanne Beck. When I was looking for a

facilitator, I needed someone who had experience in long distance running, training workouts,

dietary schedules, and in the career field of physical activities and health. I found Mrs. Beck by

going to the G. Cecil Pruett Community Center Family YMCA and asking for someone who had

the characteristics my project required. She was a Wellness Coach and Group Exercise Instructor

at the YMCA, but now is Office Manager, and she has been Race Director of the YMCA Fall

Classic for 5 years running now. She has been running long distances since 2001 including, but

not limited to the Snickers Marathon in Albany twice, the Chickamunga Marathon at the

Chickamunga Battlefield, the USA 10K Classic, and the Peachtree Road Race. After finding my

facilitator, I followed several steps in the process to completing my Senior Project.

First, I established a meeting schedule to look over my course of action for my project.

Secondly, we step up a workout schedule that would result in me being at my peak of physical

ability, and we created a dietary plan to have enough energy to train and compete. After

completing my workout agenda and dietary plan, I followed through by starting to record my

workouts and meals for each day up until race day on October 15, 2011. Next, when we would

pass someone while running and get them to take a picture of us, or get a friend to take a few

while we were running. Then, we sat down and researched how to prevent long distance injuries

on my senior research paper. Finally, on October 15, 2011 I ran the 5K YMCA Fall Classic in

22:48:13. Although the steps I needed to take to successfully complete my project were clear,

there were still problems that got in my way.

One obstacle I encountered was that my little brother bounced over and over on my scale

and broke it. I could not record my weight for several days due to this. I later looked around at

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Walmart and found a personal reliable scale for one hundred and twenty dollars. I also came

across another problem which was that over the weekends I would forget to log what I ate. I

would then sit down the next day with my family and remember what I ate and record it. On

some days I felt like just sitting around and not exercising, but I would get motivation from

family, friends and my own strong will to persevere through the training. Throughout the ups and

downs of this project I take great pride in the fact that I finished a successful race in a respectable

time.

During this experience I have discovered helpful qualities in myself, for example, I do

not give up, which is the number one quality that got me through this project because it was not

an easy process. Another quality I learned more about was my work habits; I found out that

while sometimes I didn’t want to run, I always did, but when it came down to the food logs and

research paper I was much more reluctant to do the work. During the race I was only a runner,

but since my facilitator was the director of the race I stuck around a little longer and found

myself talking to some of the other runners. There was one elderly man that had one a door prize

of a big flat screen T.V., I carried it to his car for him and saw that he lived in a van with his bed

in the back. He began to tell me that his wife was in the hospital and he had to move out of his

place to help pay the bills, even though this has nothing to do with running it touched my heart

and inspired me. This project, although I enjoyed running the race and learning more about the

career I have actually discovered that I would prefer not to do Personal Fitness Training.

Through experiences with life and new jobs I discovered that I actually want to be a Social

Worker.

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After graduating I plan to attend Albany State University. I want to come out of college

making money. I have calculated with the ten thousand dollar scholarship from the Independent

Living Program, which gives foster children that have lived in the system before they were

fourteen years old a chance to go to college, and the cost of college expenses, I will make this

happen. Since I plan on working with foster children I have decided I will get a Master’s in

social work with a minor in psychology or sociology. Albany State also has one of the best social

work programs in the state, which lead me to my decision in going here.

Thank you for coming today and allowing me to present my training in running my 5K

race. Are there any questions or comments concerning my project that you may have for me?