May 7, 2007
As I pulled up to Mammoth Elementary School, still sweaty from my morning workout, I reached for the door knob when suddenly it burst open towards me. "Where have you been? I've been waiting for you?!" demanded Megan (name changed), one of the students I had recently connected with in the Special Education classroom. She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the playground where we spent the remainder of recess building ski runs on the snow burm at the back of the basketball courts. It was only my second day at the school, and I hadn't realized how quickly Megan had become attached to me!
In the days that followed, we spent a lot of time together, talking during lunch, working on her math, or doing running relays around the blacktop. Megan didn't have many female friends, or friends at all for that matter, and she sensed in me the safety to be her tomboy self, knowing that I accepted her, and liked her, for who she was. Naturally athletic, she was intrigued by my position as an athlete, and announced proudly, "Well, you know, I'm a professional backwards runner!" But I think what I will most remember about Megan was how she morphed into a completely different person in the classroom than on the playground. She went from being vivacious and bubbly to meek and insecure. I remember the first time we went from recess into the classroom, I couldn't figure out what had happened. Was she feeling sick? Had we run too much? But as time went on, I noticed that when we were doing something academic, her disposition completely changed. As the weeks went on, I made it my goal to give Megan as much positive feedback as I could in the classroom, hoping to increase her confidence and bring out her natural personality.
It's students like Megan that make me excited to return to volunteering, even after a physically exhausting day of training. The challenge of seeing "what makes them tick" and how to relate to them to inspire and help them improve is a challenge I enjoy even more than the physical challenges I face in training. And the progress of seeing a child gain more confidence in themselves is a success that I cherish often even more than race victories.