Homeschool Mom Finally Joins Children in Completing Presidential Fitness Award!
by Phyllis Paladin
My feet hurt, my legs hurt and I
began to realize what was ahead of me.
I groaned as I thought about the four more 10 mile walks and the (gasp)
15 mile walk that I had committed myself to complete over the next four months. This was the third Presidential Sports Award
I had begun with my children. They had each completed three. I had completed none. I had promised them, and more importantly
myself, that I would make completing the program a priority this time and that
we would do it together. I had set ambitious goals for myself and I was
committed to do everything I could to reach them. I was stuck.
The days of walking led to
weeks. The weeks soon turned to months
and we were suddenly at the end of August and I really did it!. Four of us finished the Endurance Walking
Award: my daughters Abigail (14) and Elizabeth (9), homeschool friend Rebecca
Jackson (14), and me!
Most of you are familiar with the
Presidential Fitness Program. You know
that there are sixty-eight categories from which to choose. So why did I choose Endurance Walking? I felt this program would be perfect for a
family of different ages and ability levels.
I was right. The Endurance
Walking award requires lots of walking but has no time limit or minimum pace
required, unlike the Fitness Walking award which we had started together last
year, and not completed. Even my
youngest daughter, who was nine, could walk 15 miles if permitted to set her
own pace. In addition to the long
walks, three 1 hour training walks are required each week, but there is no
required mileage that must be covered in those walks. A distance of 225 miles must be covered during the course of the
entire program. That total was very
easy to reach once we started adding up our training and endurance walks. In fact, we exceeded it.
By late August, when we completed
the program, I was finding that my legs no longer hurt, my back no longer hurt
and 10 miles really didn't seem that far.
Now we have our
certificates to put into the portfolios and a patch with a "family
fitness" strip to add to our "fitness banners" hanging in each
child's bedroom. Beyond these tangible
rewards we have a treasure of rich memories of all that we shared during the
last four months. We played silly word
games while walking, laughed together and even learned how to encourage each
other when tears began forming in discouraged walkers' eyes who felt they just
couln't go another step. We saw some
breathtaking beauty as we walked along routes and trails in our own
neighborhood and in area state parks.
I'll never forget coming upon three deer feeding early one morning as we
arrived to walk in Penn Hills Park. We
all have the satisfaction of knowing that we set out to accomplish a challenging
task and we did it. Perhaps the highest
endorsement came from my daughter Elizabeth who walked through the room as I
was working on this piece and said, "I'd like to do the Endurance Walking
program again." ã