It’s coming on March 24th! Are you ready? Here is lots of information about our BIG Event! Please read through and if you have any questions let me know.
Why Maryland Day?
We are named in honor of the longest serving Governor in Maryland history! To help our students understand why we are celebrating Maryland Day, here is some information about our namesake Albert Ritchie!
Wear Maryland Colors
To help make this event tremendous we are asking all students, staff, and participants to wear Maryland Colors (red, gold, black, and/or white)!
Metric Marathon
Our main event is a metric marathon 16.3 miles. We will be running laps around the building. Each lap is .268 miles in length and a total of 61 laps will be achieved. We will be having a relay team of students, staff, parents, and RM Track Team relay!
Making It Festive
We will have balloons and a DJ to keep up the momentum and fun! We encourage students to make posters or cheers to help maintain the fun and excitement. We also will have some chalk to write messages of support on the bus loop when runners aren’t going by!
Maryland Facts
Each time staff crosses the start line a 4th grader will be sharing a Maryland Fact on the microphone!
Parent Relay
We are seeking to have parents sign up to run laps for the parent relay. While we need parents to follow through on this commitment, parents can remain on site and run a lap with their child(ren) when they run. We want this to continue to be a community event and balance the parent relay with supporting your own children. Please take some time to review and sign up for slots. Remember you can run or walk the parent team lap to keep it going and you may sign up for more than 1 lap if you would like!
RM Track Team
We are so very excited to share that we will be having the Richard Montgomery Track team join us and they will have their own relay as well! We have a system in place for members of the team when they are not running to help support our students on their laps in addition to our 4th and 5th graders who may be helping!
Water Station Support
We will have a staff member at the water station but welcome having a few students who are not running at all when your grade level is outside to assist. This will create further participation of all students.
Lap Counters Support
We will have a staff member at the Lap Count Board for the 4 groups of runners, Staff, Students. Parents, and RM Track Team but welcome having a few students who are not running at all when your grade level is outside to assist. This will create further participation of all students.
Support
I am so very pleased to share that we will have extra staff joining us to support our event! Thanks to the office in MCPS of Student and Family Support and Engagement we will be joined by several of their staff! Additionally neighboring schools are letting us borrow more safety cones and providing some support as well. This extra help will help ensure a safe event for all!
Mementos
Every student, staff member, community member who participates in the run, helping with the water station, counting laps will get a certificate of participation and students will also a special Maryland Treat! While all students will receive Maryland flags to wave only fifth graders will keep them. Flags will be collected from other grade levels for future use.
Finish
With any live running event lap times listed are estimates. We will determine when to invite the entire school to the finish. We also recognize that not all running teams will be finishing at the same time. Clearly the RM track team will finish first! Judgment calls will be made on who to include for earlier or later finishes but we are hoping that some teams finish around the same time! Announcements will be made when it is time to have classes join for the finish.