Focus on TUSD - April 2007

Gridley Middle School Marathon Qualifier
Kimberlyn Hicks is half the woman she used to be. But the half she is now – weighing in at 134 pounds – is in good enough shape to run the Boston Marathon this month.

Hicks, a seventh-grade Language Arts teacher at Gridley Middle School, weighed 264 pounds just 50 months ago. She's amazed that she stuck with her running regime long enough to take off 132 pounds. Amazed because, at first, she said she absolutely hated running.

Although she had decided she wanted a runner's body, it seemed that no matter what kind of workout she did, she couldn't get under 200 pounds. Hicks said she was unable to start running at her weight, so she lost 45 pounds on the Atkins Diet in six months.

And then the work began. In January 2003, she started coaching at Gridley, telling students that for every lap she ran, they would run four. "They didn't believe I could run even one lap," she remembered. "After six weeks, I was doing four laps and they had to do 16 laps. But I still hated running."

She joined a running group after the parent of a student invited her to run three miles with members on Saturdays. "The first time after I went with them, I went home and slept three hours," Hicks, 37, said.

But no matter how she felt, she stayed with them because she said she was lonely and needed friends. She still disliked running whenever she went out. After four months, the tide started to turn. "I knew I had started to like it the day I saw a woman running while I was driving and I thought I wanted to be running, too," she said. "So I stopped the car and put on my running shoes and ran and I loved it. It was an epiphany."

With every step, her mental outlook improved. "Now I run to not just heal, but to become a better person," she said. "It'll take awhile. Running is a great tool."

The Boston Marathon will be her fourth marathon. She ran at Sequim, Wash., in 2005; Bellevue, Wash., in 2006; and Huntington Beach, Calif., in February 2007.

She tells her students, "You don't start thinking you'll run the Boston Marathon when you're 264 pounds. You start with smaller goals." And they believe her. The mother of four children, Hicks is slender and attractive, though she doesn't always see herself that way.

Her physical health improved, too. She feels stronger and sleeps less. The bunions on her feet have disappeared and she's shed her borderline diabetic label. She eats a lot of fiber, fruits and vegetables and doesn't touch food continuing white flour or sugar.

Her routine now is to run only 40 miles a week, between eight and 15 miles a day and cross train two days a week with an elliptical machine and weights. She sleeps just five to six hours a night, getting up at about 4 a.m. and running up to three hours before going to school. She also coaches soccer and both girls and boys volleyball.

Desert heat doesn't deter her. She tells her students that you have to be tough as nails to run outside at 110 degrees. She's given up using a treadmill.

The mornings when she rolled out of bed and asked herself what makes her different than everyone else are past. She knows what makes her stand out. Only 1 percent of runners who are in marathons run in the Boston Marathon, she said. That makes her one of 22,000 participants.

She doesn't plan to run marathons after she's 40, but likes the idea of running on trails and at the Grand Canyon. She's considering doing a triathlon.

Hicks tries to pass her passion for running on to her students. "I write running stories and tell them my stories a lot," she said. "They share in my life. I'm trying to get them internally motivated about something because there's so much apathy. They don't have to find something physically they're excited about. It could be something else"

For herself, she knows that running is that healthy addiction. "If I couldn't run, I'd probably have withdrawal," she said.

-- By Sharon Dunham
Communications & Media Relations

TUSD - Proud Supporter of Small Classes

All photos in the April issue by Jes Ruvalcaba of Communications & Media Relations.

The deadline to submit material for the May Focus is Friday, May 4. The Focus will be published Friday, May 18. Email submissions to Chyrl Hill Lander or Sharon Dunham in the Communications & Media Relations Department or use the Focus Online Submission Form.