A Farewell Running Song

During the past few months I have written a couple of posts about I girl I have called "Anna."  She came to live at St. Charles a little before Christmas, and was incredibly anxious and fearful about everything.  Anna flourished in our program and especially loved her daily runs with Sister Maximilian.  

A few days ago, Anna moved in with her new adoptive family.  In one of her last runs with Sister Maximilian, Anna decided to compose a goodbye song while running.  It went something like this:

Sister Maximilian!

I am gonna miss you!

I am gonna miss running with you too!

Sister Max-i-mil-ill-ian!

I love you, Sister Maximilian!

I am gonna miss you!

I like running with you too!

Sister Max-i-mil-ill-ian!

There were many more verses to Anna's song, which continued for twenty minutes at the top of her voice during their 4 mile run together.  Unfortunately, we do not have it in audio form.  Since I am the blogger, I will also report that Sister Maximilan then composed a similar song for Anna as well!

How Do Those Sisters Run in Those Habits?

At the very beginning of this blog I thought I would answer a burning question that is on many people's minds when they see our sisters running.  How on earth do we run in these habits?  First of all, we are used to it.  Since we train in the habit every day, our attire does not have any impact on our performance at a race.

During the summer after running races when the temperature was in the 80s or 90s, I would often get the question, “How can you possibly run in that long dress?  Aren’t you hot?”  I always found the question a little amusing because I was as cool as a cucumber and the runner asking me was usually pretty hot!  You see, our bodies are very intelligent.  When it is hot and when we work out, we sweat.  The purpose of the sweat is to cool our bodies down.  When the sisters run in a road race wearing their long, blue & white habits on a hot day, the habits become damp.  After the race, we are as cool as if we were in a swimming pool.  


In the winter we layer just like everyone else.  Probably the most difficult part of running in a habit (especially a white one) is that if it there is mud or slush on the road our hemlines get very dirty.  For that reason we tend to have a designated "running habit."  


One last thing about the habit:  we designed them for running.  Although the skirts are long, they have 4 big pleats.  Our stride is never hampered by our skirts.  So, running in the habit is easy once you get used to it.  Some of our sisters ride bikes in their habit.  Unfortunately, that is a skill I never mastered.  The skirt always gets caught in the bike chain.  Maybe I should practice more.

Welcome to Running with Kids

Welcome to Running with Kids!  This is a blog about the running program which the sisters at St. Charles Children’s Home began a few years ago to help kids manage their behaviors.  As it turns out, the running helps the sisters too!  There will be more contributors joining this blog, but in the meantime I thought I would get started by telling you our story. 

In the summer of 1996, Sister Maximilian began running every day with Rose (pictured here).  Rose was the most volatile and aggressive child then living at St. Charles Children’s Home in Rochester, New Hampshire.  One day we had a family meeting with all the kids to talk about violent behavior and what we could do to decrease it in our home.  The kids listed many ideas of how they could release negative energy without hurting each other. 

A daily walk seemed to be the best intervention for Rose at the time.  By the end of the summer, those walks turned into daily runs.  Through the daily run, Sister Maximilian found a way to channel Rose’s incredible anger in a positive way.  Soon, the boys became jealous of Rose’s running achievements and the fact that she was getting into less trouble, and they wanted to run every day too.  With the whole St. Charles family involved, aggressive behaviors by the children were reduced in the Home by over 97%.  It was not long before the Sisters and the children began appearing in road races throughout New Hampshire. 

Over 13 years later, the Sisters continue running daily with the kids.  More about how we do it in another post.