One Stride at a Time
David Dietrich
In 2018, Virginia track and field athlete Mary Blankemeier founded Run Your City, a volunteer-driven organization centered around offering free running opportunities for children. With the cost of youth sports growing each year, the group helps kids gain confidence and build healthy habits without placing a financial burden on their families. Focusing on core pillars of belonging, moving and growing, the group continued to expand as other universities created their own chapters.
Seven years later, Boise State track and field athlete Gabs Chiara received an Instagram message from someone at Brown who was a recruiter for Run Your City. The two spoke over Zoom about the possibility of adding Boise as another chapter, which excited Chiara, who had just wrapped up her sophomore season. She reached out to her teammate, Ruby Sereday, to see if she would be the chapter’s co-president.
“I texted Ruby that day. She was the first person I thought of,” said Chiara. Sereday accepted instantly and the duo began inviting the rest of the team.
The early stages of growing Run Your City Boise were filled with adversity, especially with the team out of town for the summer.
“It was kind of stressful and really hard at first, because over the summer, I was trying to recruit,” explained Chiara. It starts with a six-week program in the fall, so you’re trying to get people recruited for that, but we’re not in Boise to really do anything.”
Chiara also leaned on social media to build the group’s following in the community, but was banned from Facebook after the platform flagged her sign-up invitations for suspicious activity. While Sereday took over the social media efforts, Chiara continued inviting teammates to join. Emily Jobes was one of the first to reply, seeing it as an opportunity to gain experience in a future field.
“I have a passion to get into coaching, so I thought it’d be a cool group to get involved with,” she said. “It was the first I’d heard of it, but I’d been a part of similar groups growing up as a runner.”
It became a true grassroots effort to spread the word throughout Boise, as the trio brought flyers to various schools, posted them at the zoo and spread the word on social media whenever they could. As the fall season arrived, the leadership team added three more members: Isabella Frisone, Addy MacArthur and Coco Velasquez, all members of the Broncos’ track and field team.
Participation in the fall was very limited, with only five kids signing up for the first of the six Sunday sessions at Julia Davis Park. The group ranged from five to 10 participants throughout the six-week period, allowing the student-athletes to develop better relationships with the attendees.
“You could see firsthand the impact you were having,” Jobes said. “You’re not just watching them enjoy the sport, you’re watching them grow in different ways with our core values.”
A different core value was introduced each week. The six in the fall were Teamwork, Courage, Confidence, Effort, Inclusion and Resilience. Jobes witnessed some of the participants use words from previous weeks at ensuing workouts, realizing “I’m really having an impact on these kids.”
Unlike Jobes, Chiara and Sereday don’t see themselves coaching track and field in the future. However, both have experiences that made leading Run Your City Boise much easier. Chiara has several younger siblings and has worked with kids as a babysitter, so she was naturally drawn to leading the group. Similarly, Sereday has experience as a camp counselor and routinely worked at youth events when she played volleyball in high school.
Word spread quickly after the fall session, as the participants told their friends, who told their parents. One parent coached track at a local school, which helped grow the message further. By the time the spring session rolled around, there were 120 kids signed up. Rather than letting the massive increase in group size intimidate them, the leadership group decided to rely on the diversity of their skills within the sport.
Jobes, a distance runner, led a large group on a mile run, which was the first time many of the kids had completed the full 5,280-foot race.
“It was an eye-opening experience to see them go back to their parents and say, ‘I just ran a mile!’ They were so overjoyed, it was the biggest thing they had ever done,” she said.
Sereday, a thrower, welcomed a different group each week to practice throwing a foam javelin, one of the more unique parts of any sport.
“You run in almost every sport, but you don’t really throw a spear,” she said with a laugh. “They actually got to see how to throw one and they really liked it, which was cool to incorporate.”
Chiara specializes in middle distance, running everything from the 400 to the mile for the Broncos. She led the group through various sprint and jump circuits each Sunday.
“We came up with a lesson plan to teach them different skills,” she said. “We all had a value that aligned with what we taught that day.”
The impact the Broncos have on the kids is reciprocated. Perhaps there is no better evidence than the attendance at the Ed Jacoby Twilight, Boise State’s lone home meet of the year. There, many of the Run Your City participants were there to not only cheer for the Blue and Orange, but also bring gifts and signs for their mentors. Some of them even ran in the Kids’ 100-meter, raced right at the start of the “prime time track” portion of the meet.
“There was a girl who made us a sign that said ‘Go Run Your City Coaches’ and they came over to cheer me on at throws,” said Sereday. “They lit up when they got to watch real events going on and see what they could be doing one day.”
“We know we’re making an impact by offering this free practice, but to see them know our name and be so excited to come back is really fun,” said Chiara. “To have us cheer us on at the home meet was so amazing.”
Boise State head coach Pat McCurry is especially proud of his student-athletes’ ambition and drive as self-starters.
We have put an emphasis on engaging more with the community through our sport as a staff, but the coolest thing about what these young women are doing is that they did it completely on their own,. They had the idea, follow-through and commitment to build this incredible thing for kids in our community. We pride ourselves on being a person-first driven program and it is awesome to see our student-athletes living that all of their own fruition.Pat McCurry on his student-athletes founding a Run Your City chapter in Boise
Each Run Your City session bites into what little free time the student-athletes have, but they all know it’s worth the sacrifice.
“It roots me in the ‘why’ for my sport. Knowing you can be that mentor for them is so impactful,” said Jobes. “I want to coach collegiately, but now I can help build their foundation of enjoyment and learning lessons that come from sport. One day, I want to help collegiate athletes be founded in more than the outcomes and just enjoy what they do.”
“I love getting to step away from track and school and not forget I’m in the real world,” Chiara said. College can be such a bubble, so it’s really rewarding to step away from other commitments and do something that puts life into perspective.”
“Sundays are my favorite day of the week. I get so much joy out of going to Run Your City and seeing all of them,” said Sereday. “Some of the kids will come in cranky, but by the end of it, they’re laughing and having fun. It definitely helps me with my training, because I know I can do these amazing things and pass them to the next generation.”
Chiara and Sereday both speak highly of one of their participants, who joined the fall session after dealing with serious health issues.
“He had been relearning some motor skills, so when he came to Run Your City for the first time, he did not want to be there at all. He begged his parents to take him home,” said Chiara.
“He introduced himself to us by saying, ‘I hate running,’” Sereday said.
Despite the countless obstacles, they guided him through the six-week session, seeing improvement each week.
“By the end of the fall season, we saw the growth in him physically, but also on the mental and emotional side,” Chiara said. “He was getting faster, he was excited to show up and he felt really good about himself.”
He returned for the spring season and continued to grow. Throughout the six-week period, the Run Your City coaches turned to him to lead some of the newcomers, which has helped his development even more.
“It was a fight to get him engaged in the fall, but now we look to him to lead the younger kids,” explained Sereday. “It’s been really cool to see how our club has influenced him in life. Now he’s playing soccer and is interested in throwing. It’s so awesome.”
When it came time for Chiara and Jobes to lead their groups on the half-mile and mile runs, he opted for the shorter of the two. With some encouragement from his mother and the coaches, he nervously lined up for the full mile.
“He didn’t believe in himself,” said Chiara. “We had a coach with him and he did the full mile. It was so hard, but he was so happy when he did it.”
The group wants to continue growing, even with coaches like Jobes departing for graduation. Fortunately for the returners, several of their fellow Broncos have experience with Run Your City.
“We had a lot of teammates come out to volunteer, which was great,’ said Chiara. “We didn’t need it in the fall with so few participants, but when we had 50 kids show up in the spring, we asked if anyone wanted to come out for an hour on Sunday to help. A lot of people wanted to do that, so it was really fun to expand.”
“We relied heavily on our teammates. If they didn’t come out and help, it wouldn’t have been as successful or smooth,” Sereday said. “We’re so grateful for their help and we’re going to try to expand to other teams too. Hopefully, it continues after we leave. That’s our goal, to set up a good foundation.”
If the fall-to-spring participation level is any indication, Run Your City Boise will be in a strong spot for years to come. Chiara, Jobes and Sereday, who says she’s “always open to more kids showing up,” have created a community that promotes healthy habits for the next generation of athletes. Like the kids they have impacted, they’ll continue pushing forward, one stride at a time.
For more information on Run Your City Boise, please visit the chapter website or follow the group on Instagram and Facebook. The group has also set up a GoFundMe to raise money for equipment, snacks and drinks for the Run Your City Boise sessions.