Our first school event was a great success at Payne Elementary School. We showed great teamwork this week in fulfilling both of our team’s main objectives - half the team was out racing strong at Speedweek in the Southeastern States, while the other half of us got to go to Payne Elementary School in Washington, D.C. to show kids just how cool and fun it is to bike and be healthy!
We loved working with these kids, and they seemed to love us right back. The natural energy and enthusiasm of these 7 – 10 year olds, along with our enthusiasm for the message we were bringing, combined into a high-energy afternoon that left me as exhausted at the end of the day as if I had done a full workout. Exactly what I was hoping for!
Our goal was to put on a fun program for elementary kids to promote exercise, proper nutrition, and cycling safety. The fact that each of us on the team feels so strongly about these things is what makes us such a perfect fit with our sponsor, Altarum Institute, whose focus is systems research for better health. We feel so lucky to be sponsored by an organization with a mission we believe in so strongly and love to spread.
The kids got stock card pictures of the team and Altarum Institute water bottles that they had fun taking around to the different stations to get autographed by team members (it was fun, they treated us like stars). They rotated around four different stations – Russ Langley, guest pro from the Harley Davidson Cycling Team, seemed to steal the show as he demonstrated his cool aerodynamic time trialing bike, skinsuit, and crazy TT helmet to get their attention for his message about bike safety. The kids were in awe!
With such a show stealer in the station next to me, I had to be quick on my feet to find interesting ways to engage the kids in my message on nutrition and hydration. Let’s just say I’m glad I packed plastic fruit for them to play with. Who knew that plastic grapes were so interesting? I discovered some interesting facts while thinking up engaging ways to illustrate some points. Guess how many apples you would have to eat in order to match the number of calories in just a medium sized Baskin Robins Heath Shake? About 27!!! Yikes. I showed them the size of the cup for the medium shake (24oz) next to a medium apple. It appeared that about 2 apples would physically fill the cup. Being smart kids, they knew that they would need more than those 2 apples to match the calories of a shake, but their guesses were generally around 3 – 6 apples (aside from the answers of a million and infinite from at least one kid in every group!).
The stations were rounded off with Kate Flore teaching about strength training, and Michele Bote and Kristy Scheffenacker teaching about bike racing tactics. The kids had a blast trying to meet Kate’s challenges with different core exercises on yoga mats. And peeking at the tactics station revealed kids laughing and engaging in interactive demonstrations and mini-competitions to learn about things involved in bike racing like pacelines, drafting, blocking, and breaking away.
Many of the kids asked if we will come back, and I hope we can again next year! Our next stop is this Friday at Maury Elementary School in D.C.
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