Novi Times

South Lyon's winter and summer middle school running club is making great strides and staying busy before the spring track season.

Coaches Brenton Montie and Chris Costa introduced the running club, which consists of students from Millennium Middle School, during a recent meeting of the South Lyon Community School Board.

"I can assure you, Coach Montie and I do the workouts with them, and you are absolutely sore after wall ball," Costa said. "That's true. Another workout we do is hill repeat. So, we do have a hill at Caddie Park. We run down there and run up and down that thing for quite a bit. Coach Montie has them going up and over and up and over and up and over. But, it does build stamina, and the results show our work. Our cross-country teams are incredibly successful this year and it comes from the hard work and dedication they put in, but also this off-season running with just listening to the coaches and doing what we ask of them."

The running club was established in 2016 for sixth- to eighth-grade students who are already runners and can go one to two miles without stopping. It is an off-season club that keeps runners in shape while they are not in-season for cross country or track.

This year's running club features approximately 100 members. While it is not a true in-season sport, many of the members run as often as they can despite other commitments that conflict with team runs. Students presented some of the techniques they practice to work on their running form and the improvements they saw, during the meeting.

The students also talked about some of the special events that they do in the club. They do fun runs for food or treats — lemonade in the summer and hot chocolate in the winter. They also practice fun indoor workouts when the weather is not good, which involves something that usually is not permitted on school grounds — running in the halls.