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Team M3 Runs Past the Impossible

By Dan Stark / Photos courtesy of MGR Foundation on Friday, September 25, 2009

Address: 6348 N Milwaukee Avenue, Suite 328, Chicago, IL 60646

Most people that run marathons train for several years during adulthood before tackling their first 26.2-mile race.

The members of MGR Foundation's Team M3 are not most people.

Nor are they adults, for that matter.

Allow program director Cathy Braund to explain by describing one of her recruiting visits: "When I go in a high school, I ask, 'What are you going to put on a college application that's really going to set you apart? Put on your college application that you've run a marathon — less than 1% of the population ever does it, high school kids never do it — and it will set you apart. People know what it takes to run a marathon, and they will be impressed.'"

According to its website, the MGR Foundation is a non-profit "committed to overcoming social and economic barriers and creating innovative programs that positively impact" communities, and its Team M3 will have 84 high-school aged students (and 81 mentors) running in the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on October 11. The program had 135 students complete the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon on August 2nd, but M3's younger participants — the 14 and 15 year olds — generally will not run the full marathon.

One person who will be running, however, is Edson Andrade, 18, who spent three years as a student member of Team M3 and is now in his first season as a mentor.

"I was on the track and cross country team, but I wasn't very good," the three-time Chicago Marathon finisher said of his experience before joing Team M3. "This group is not about making you run as an elite runner, but mostly so you see that running is just like life."

That is a notion around which Braund and MGR Foundation executive director Vesna Stelcer have built the program.

"It's all about completion," Braund said. "You don't have to be a runner; you can be completely inexperienced and yet you can still be successful.

"We stress that this is all about setting a goal and achieving it. So we really try to teach them that you can do anything if you take a very large goal — like running 26 miles — and you break it down into very small doable steps. And if you have somebody who believes in you, who is willing to guide you and get you to the end, that anything is possible."

Areli Cervantes can attest to that. When the 18-year-old inexperienced runner started the program earlier this summer, she could barely complete her initial 3-mile test run.

"I was running and I was like, 'Wow, this is harder than I thought,'" she admitted. "But the people, even though they barely know you, they still encourage you to keep coming back.

"It felt so good to do the half marathon (only a few months later) because I noticed how much I improved. ... I feel like now, if I really put my mind to it, I can accomplish what I want. If I just keep on going, I can do anything."

Mentor Anne Jensen sees the boost in self-esteem so many kids in the program receive, how it really can help change their lives.

"It inspires them to be able to achieve things that either people tell them they couldn't achieve or they never thought possible," Jensen said.

Danny Durazno, 18, is a recent high school graduate and longtime soccer player who is preparing to run in his third marathon.

"When I started, three miles was a lot for me," he said. "My first day, I was like, 'What did I get myself into? A marathon, 26 miles?' Because in soccer two miles is a lot.

"Being on Team M3 changed my outlook. It made me more confident about myself. I didn't think I could run a marathon, and now that I have it's like I can do anything if I just keep on working on it."

Braund and the mentors hope that a positive and more self-assured mindset will have an impact on M3 team members' academic success.

"We would like to see them take this back into the classroom, and say, 'If I study for a test, I'll be successful,'" she said. "There are steps that have to be taken to be successful in all areas of life. This helps teach them how."

The entire team meets every Saturday morning on the lakefront for runs in which they are grouped together by their pace, but during the school year Braund relies on coaches to lead programs — and twice-a-week practices — within individual schools. The MGR Foundation currently has Team M3 in nine high schools, with the greatest participation at Foreman.

"We'd like to eventually grow it to every high school in Chicago," Braund said. "Every student that would like to be a participant, we would like to offer that opportunity."

Of course, the mere logistics of pulling that off present a sizeable obstacle.

"It's a very expensive program," Braund said. "Busing is a huge cost, but race entry fees have exceeded busing. Right now, we pay entries for every student to every race we do. The marathon is $125 per person. Getting the marathon or Bank of America — and we have really made inroads — to really see what we're doing and say, 'There's such a benefit, we're not going to charge you that 125 per student. For every student that wants to run, we're going to make sure there's a spot,' that would be great for us."

Although it might be tough sledding with marathon sponsors, Team M3 is making substantial progress at local schools, where Braund's sales pitch really seems to be working.

"Cathy came to my school, and she explained to all the gym classes what it was about," said Karla Rosas, 17 and now in her second year with Team M3. "I was really interested, because I'd never heard of a person my age doing a marathon, so I just wanted to try it."

Karla, a swimmer and softball player, has seen improvement in both sports since joining the program. But she realizes that the true impact of Team M3 has been far greater.

"Before, when I didn't like something, I would either quit or just fall back. But the program taught me to not give up and to finish what I start. When you're ready to give up, there's always people there to support you." she said.

Karla added that she'd recommend Team M3 to any high schooler, regardless of athletic ability or their interest level.

"It's a challenge and I think everybody should go for it," she said. "It not only helps you physically but also mentally, and not a lot of people are mentally strong.

In addition to making you mentally strong, the Team M3 experience apparently makes you mentally adroit, as so many of the teenage runners seem wise beyond their years.

"The running is just a metaphor for life," Andrade said. "Whenever you're running, you cannot just quit because you're tired. You have to know how to say, 'No, I've got to keep going, I can't give up that easily.' You've got to keep going if you want to be successful."