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P.S. Arts Runner Profile: Matt MacFarland
The ASICS LA Marathon and LA Big 5K are just 3 weeks away! Follow #MarathonMonday to learn more about our amazing runners and why they are running for Team P.S. ARTS! This week, meet Teaching Artist Matt MacFarland:

I remember running in Middle School P.E. I was always one of the slowest runners; we MacFarlands tend not to be “fleet of foot” as they say.  Even my much more athletically gifted younger brother, Tyler, played sports as if his feet were stuck in pudding. I never liked running and I would do everything in my power to avoid it.

Something funny happened a few years ago when I started teaching Visual Arts with P.S. ARTS at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy.  Some of my students talked about how they were members of Students Run Los Angeles, a program that adequately trains a group of 7th and 8th graders to run the LA Marathon over the course of six months.  They talked about the sense of camaraderie and accomplishment they experienced in the program and how they found running to actually be enjoyable!  I found this hard to believe, but decided to cheer them on when they ran the LA Marathon later that year.

The day of the marathon, watching these kids that I cared about accomplishing something so challenging was overwhelmingly inspiring. They all finished, and when one student was hobbled by leg cramps, a couple of her friends hooked her arms and helped her cross the finish line.

I promised myself then that I would run a marathon in the next few years.  Even though I’ve had my hands full this year with a new baby boy, I’ve found running to be a fun release, a kind of meditative activity that helps some of the stress of being a new parent melt away.

I wish I could say that I’m running the marathon for my students, or for my wife and son, but it’s more accurate to say that I’m running it for myself — to see if I can really do it! I think that’s why most of my students are running it too; at least I hope so. There are very few things in life that are more satisfying than setting a seemingly impossible goal, applying a large chunk of your time and energy to it, competing against nobody but yourself, pushing yourself past preconceived limits, and ultimately achieving it.  I watch my students do this on a daily basis in my art class, and now I see them do it when they run and it never ceases to amaze and inspire me.

Over the last 20 years I’m proud to say I’ve taken a good 2 and a half minutes off my Middle School mile time, from 11:20/mi to 8:50/mi.  So, even though I’m still not quite “fleet of foot” I’m proud to say that I am officially no longer “slow” — and that’s something!

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