Ladies can and do

LITTLE ROCK — Could finishing a 5K change a woman’s life? Yes, says Linda Fason, and without hesitation.

But a 5K is only 3.1 miles. Every October, 45,000 women walk that distance in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Little Rock, and hardly any of them even bothers to train. They manage the distance. What’s life changing about that?

“Trust me,” Fason insists. “I’ve seen it.”

She is one of more than 100 volunteers in 40 communities around the state who are about to begin, for the 14th year, a determined effort to help other women learn to run or walk 5Ks routinely, for physical fitness. Such frequent walking or running is very different than strolling with a wonderful parade for one hour once a year and then plopping back down on your couch (which, by the way, the Komen Foundation urges women not to do).

Using a program developed by Women Run Arkansas, a statewide affiliate of the Road Runners Clubs of America, these volunteers recruit dozens of other people to help them lead workout groups called “the clinics” in their hometowns. For 10 weeks, they’ll meet twice a week at school tracks or city parks with every woman or girl who doesn’t mind being called a lady and who wants to walk or run.

Each woman will pledge to do at least one more workout a week on her own.

Women who make it through the training travel to Conway for a “graduation” race, the Women Can Run/Walk 5K (May 7 this year). All clinic participants are urged to sign up for the 5K ($20) on their first night of training so they’ll have that goal as motivation. But there’s no mandatory fee; the training’s free.

It follows a gradual schedule geared to slowly building endurance, and the clinics sort their “ladies” into groups based on goals — whether they are beginning walkers who aren’t used to going more than a block without stopping or runners who are ready to pick up their pace but don’t want to undertake too much too soon.

Especially for nonexercisers, which Fason says she was when she began running at age 50, this progressive introduction to movement takes people who don’t believe they have the capacity to be fitness walkers or runners and shows them they can, too.

“That’s our goal for the clinic, that at the end of the clinic they’ll be transformed and on their way to a better life,” she says.

Some clinics have one organizer, but more have partners who recruit other, small-group leaders, find the free place to meet, get the printing or door prizes donated, line up speakers, answer the phone or e-mail night and day ....

Cabot’s co-directors Jane Gunter and Vicki Ingram explain how they share the load:

“Remember,” Gunter says, “she does all the work and I do all the talking.”

Ingram counters, ha! “If it was not for her talking, we would not have a clinic.”

But everyone admits that it’s such a commitment, no one would undertake it twice without compelling motives.

For Ginger Morgan, who is Debbie Lawrence’s co-director in Clinton, the goal is seeing others feel the benefits of an active body.

She joined a clinic five years ago after a disturbing bone scan found her losing mineral density.

“I am a physical therapist, so I know about calcium, vitamin D and weight-bearing exercise. I went to the clinic when I was 50, and I had never run a mile in my life. I just wanted to be able to run one mile,” she says.

“They start you out so slow, and before you know it you’re running a mile. I thought, ‘OK, maybe I can run two miles.’ I kept doing it and was able to run the full 3 miles at the race. And I’ve kept running, and my bucket list now is to do the Little Rock Marathon relay. I’m doing it with three 20-year-old girls.

“This morning I ran 8 miles.”

Fason, who is entering her fifth year as director at Little Rock, was drawn in 14 years ago by family. Women Run Arkansas’ founder, the late Cheryl Potter, was her husband RC Fason’s niece. RC volunteered on the finish line at Cheryl’s first little Women Can Run 5K in Conway, the one in which Linda signed up for a one mile “fun walk.”

She turned the wrong direction and did her first 5K by accident.

“I came in dead last, I mean behind every walker, every runner, everybody,” she says. She was wiped out.

But RC had been moved — moved — by the weeping and hugging on that finish line. He decided that if they could do it, so could he — and his wife and daughter, too.

So the next year, she joined that women’s clinic, driving to Conway after work. The year after, she joined a clinic in North Little Rock; then her daughter Stacy Dovers began leading a clinic at J.A. Fair High School in Little Rock; and after another few years, Fason took it over.

It draws 500 women on its first night, every year. She has met thousands.

“It is life changing,” she insists: This woman lost 60 pounds. That woman couldn’t walk 20 seconds and now she’s doing a half-marathon. ... She can go on and on.

BUT NOT FOR EVERYONE

Last year, 4,000 women entered 35 clinics. Leaders estimate one-half to one-third finished the training.

In Cabot, Ingram says, “last year we registered 319. We maintained about 50 percent of the ladies .... We had 131 registered for the 5K celebration.”

In past years they’d only held on to 30 percent, so they were thrilled.

In Hope, Jodi Coffee isn’t sure how many women to prepare for, maybe 75 or 100, she says. In Crossett, Jennifer Johnson expects she’ll sign up more than 100, because that’s how many came to her first meeting last year. In Heber Springs, Rebecca Loftis doesn’t know if she’ll be able to interest anyone in exercising outside since the city has a new community center with an indoor track. But “we will see how it goes,” she says.

In Batesville, Ann Hambrick’s co-director Sheila Smith Simpson is a newlywed just back from her honeymoon. “Last year we had a really great turnout,” she says. “We registered 125, but as it goes, it kind of drops. For the pasta party and the 5K in Conway, we took 50 women.”

Still, 50 women drove 95 miles to run 3.1.

“Some people, they don’t make it simply because it doesn’t fit their time schedule,” Fason says. “Their kids, their families, their husbands just need them, and they have to drop out. Others get minor injuries right away, shin splints and things like that, and they have to drop out.”

Benton’s director, Joy Ballard, believes that walking can be too painful for some heavy people.

In Clinton, Morgan says, “a lot of times we lose the walkers, because they look over at the runners and think, ‘I’ll never do that.’ But if they’ll just walk 3 miles, that’s wonderful. ...

“It will prolong your life and it will enhance your quality of life.”

POWER AND LIGHT

In Magazine, Deann Forst will meet her group on the school district’s football field, which has lights, until the time change, when they’ll move to the district’s track, which doesn’t. In Sherwood, Phylinthia Givens doesn’t know if she’ll be able to use the lights at Sylvan Hills High School’s track, but she has led the clinic several years now and figures “we’ll work it out.”

This matters because light is motivating and fear of darkness is not. But no one walks alone, the leaders say.

“Last year, at 87 years old, Ms. Cicely Sutherland completed our graduation race with us,” Mary Poe says, speaking of Lonoke’s group. “She had competed in track and field during her school years but had recently been diagnosed with the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s. She completed the 5K race with all of us around her.

“Due to the progression of her disease she was admitted to an assisted living facility this past summer. We will be competing in her honor this year.”

Emotional or funny causes give strangers a sense of belonging. So does just having fun. Cabot’s women dance to tunes cranked out of a car’s loudspeakers. Some clinics pour creativity into their team T-shirts.

In Benton, Ballard is thinking way outside the box: One leader of her beginning walkers group is a man, Lynn Hart.

“I want desperately to branch out and to get more walkers involved in it, just to get people up and moving,” she says.

Hart has helped her before (and here and there other men volunteer in clinics, too), but he has had a sedentary spell after undergoing two knee replacements. “He’s a good motivator,” Ballard says. “Women like him. He comes along and he’s in the background and they rally around him.

“They say, ‘If you can do it, I can do it too.’”

A chat board at arkansasrunner.com is once again offering directors a way to send news around, and the social networking tool Facebook is getting a serious tryout. (Search for “Women Run Arkansas” or “Women Can Run.”)

More information is at www.womenrunarkansas.net.