LITTLE ROCK — Across the state this week, Women Run Arkansas’ running and walking clinics begin their annual 10-week series of group workouts for women and girls.
All are led by volunteers and meet in city parks or on school tracks, and are being offered free to any women who want to learn to run or walk for better fitness. ActiveStyle published a chart Feb. 21 with contacts and meeting places for each of 40 clinics; you can find that in the newspaper’s electronic archives at arkansasonline.com.
Plans for the Rose Bud clinic have changed a little. Organizer Jessica Gorham will meet her group at 2 p.m. Sundays, 5:30 p.m. Mondays and 8:30 a.m. Saturdays at Rose Bud High School. She can answer other questions about her clinic at (501) 827-7302 and [email protected].
More information about the other 39 clinics is at womenrunarkansas.net.
The training series ends with a 5K footrace in Conway. The Women Can Run 5K will be May 7, and Lorraine Moller of Colorado will speak at the pre-race pasta supper May 6.
Originally from New Zealand, Moller was a track runner who eventually specialized in the marathon. She’s one of the big figures from the early days of women’s admission to marathoning. She won Boston and competed in the first four women’s Olympic marathons. Described in her 2007 autobiography, On the Wings of Mercury: The Lorraine Moller Story (Longacre Press) her international racing career lasted more than 20 years, including four Olympic Games.
The highlight of her 20-year career was winning a bronze medal at age 37 in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.
Tennis for kids
Families interested in starting their youngsters playing tennis can check with nearby tennis centers to see if they’re participating in Tennis Night in America, a national campaign to promote the United States Tennis Association’s Quick Start tennis program for ages 4 to 12.
Quick Start teaches a simple version of the game on smaller courts and using larger-than-usual balls and rackets. The program is widely available in the state. The Arkansas Tennis Association has even offered grants to facilities willing to participate in Tennis Night (which won’t happen on the same night or even at night every place it happens).
ActiveStyle has heard of 11 discount registration events ’round and about, but check with your local center or search for offerings in your ZIP code at tennisnight.com. Note that when ActiveStyle called each listed center last week, I learned some of the dates and times listed on the website had changed.
Also, other events may have been added to the listing since last week. Here’s what I was able to confirm:
Conway:
3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Pinnacle Tennis Academy, (501) 450-8302.
4 p.m. Saturday, Hendrix College Mabee Center, (501) 450-1452.
Little Rock:
4:30 p.m. Saturday, Country Club of Little Rock, (501) 664-3291.
2 p.m. March 13, Batchelor-Walker Tennis Academy,(501) 680-1514.
4 p.m. March 15, Pleasant Valley Country Club, (501) 225-2252.
Malvern: 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Malvern City Parks Department, (501) 337-6271.
Pine Bluff: 10 a.m. Saturday, Bloom Tennis Center, (870) 692-2835.
Russellville: 5:30 p.m. March 7, Arkansas Tech University, (479) 356-2033.
Sherwood: 1:30 p.m. March 12, Henson Tennis Center, (501) 835-9793.
North Little Rock: 6 p.m. March 13, Burns Park Tennis Center, (501) 227-7611.
Stuttgart: 12 p.m. March 26, John Cain Park, (405) 818-4027.
Highway 71 Classic
Bicyclists in Northwest Arkansas will take to the road Sunday for their first big event of 2011, the Highway 71 Classic.
All paces roll out for this large group ride, which is not officially a race. But those who fancy themselves “big dogs” will race off the front in a clump, forming pelotons and doing their darnedest to drop one another on the hills.
But feel free to hang back among the pizza and chipscrowd, riding for the exercise and socializing.
Riders will set out in a mass start from The Mill District, 525 S. School Ave. in Fayetteville, and head south toward Mountainburg on U.S. 71, parts of which have recently been repaved.
Volunteers with Bicycle Coalition of the Ozarks will support riders on two outand-back routes: Fayetteville to Brentwood and back, 36 mostly level miles. According to the coalition’s newsletter, “The first half of the ride offers a combination of multilane road or wide paved shoulder, and only gradual grade changes.”
Fayetteville to Mountainburg and back, about 75 miles with massive Mount Gaylor in between.
Maps can be found at bconwa.com.
You can register online there until midnight Friday for $12.50. Entry includes one year’s membership in the coalition. Ride-day registration, which costs $16, will be accepted from 8 to 9 a.m., and the mass start is at 9.
Food and drinks will be at Brentwood and at the Silver Bridge Truck Stop in Mountainburg. Mountainburg’s aidstop will have electrolyte replacement drinks.
Sag wagons will sweep the course collecting those whose ambition exceeds their ability (or luck). The last sweep will leave Mountainburg headed toward home at 1 p.m.
More information is at (479) 521-4619.
Note to marathoners
Readers who are not preparing to run the Little Rock Marathon this weekend, please just talk among yourselves.
OK, marathoners: Stop it.
Stop imagining that you aren’t well enough trained. You can’t give yourself better fitness in five days, but you could, if you went nuts trying to cram in that missing mileage, tear down the fitness you’ve worked so hard to build. So relax and stick to your plan for this week.
As Lou Peyton, one of the state’s best known ultra-distance runners, once upon a time told a worried marathoner who’d missed her last long run (because her hamstring was hurt): Don’t think of it as being undertrained. Think of it as being well rested.
ActiveStyle, Pages 24 on 02/28/2011