The ADR Board is excited to announce the formation of new running program in 2018 called “Run for Your Life” to help individuals who are involved with drug/alcohol addiction recovery.
The pilot program begins Tuesday August 28 and will involve individuals currently staying at Lake Area Recovery Center and Turning Point. Run for Your Life will be a Couch to 5K program with these participants starting with group runs on Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays at Turning Point.
Many stories have been written regarding running having a positive effect on addiction recovery. A recent example is an article by Running Competitor in June 2017 highlighting many of these positive effects that not only benefit the runner, but also reduce the risk of recidivism within the community. Here is a link to that article: http://running.competitor.com/2017/06/health/running-good-addicts-recovery_165730
ADR has been granted $1,000 from Ashtabula County Medical Center (ACMC) to help establish this new community program. We are grateful for this support from ACMC and we look forward to our new partnership with Lake Area Recovery Center and Turning Point in Ashtabula.
Group runs will start at 7 p.m. (but may be adjust as the daylight grows shorter in the Fall), and last for roughly 30 minutes with mostly walking in the beginning and gradually replacing walking with some running during each workout until the participants are in shape to run for 30 minutes.
The ultimate goal of the program is for Run for Your Life participants to complete the Bridge to Bridge 5K on Sunday Oct. 28 at no charge to the participants. If that goal is met, the participants also will receive complimentary ADR memberships for 2019 as a way to provide even more incentive to become part of a great group of people and to continue an active and healthy lifestyle.
ADR is looking for volunteers to help lead the group runs, especially women, because ideally we would like to have the group runs split into two groups during which time men would run with men leaders and women would run with women leaders. So far, John Hutchison will lead the Tuesday evening run, with Walter Anderson leading most of the Thursday runs and Warren Dillaway leading Sundays.
Can you help? If you’ve been looking for a way for running to help you give back to others and make a difference, this is a tremendous opportunity. If you are interested, and we hope you are, please contact any ADR Board member. We could really use the help!