Running Around Europe 2018

At the beginning of the Active Schools process in September 2018, we chose Running Around Europe as our first initiative. Running was chosen as our first initiative because it can be done anywhere and getting used to running early in life helps to instil a life-long love. No doubt Mr Byrne and Ms Clare were also hoping it’d wake us up a bit for their maths lessons! 

Running Around Europe involved the teachers choosing various landmarks around Europe to which to run. Ms Clare made a lovely display in the lunch-room for us to track our activity. It also definitely improved our geography of Europe! Our journey would start in Dublin on the 27th of September (National Fitness Day 2018). Each lap we ran of our senior football pitch would equal 1 km to our destination. Easy, right?

Every Thursday we would all head out to the pitch, class by class, as our teachers put us through our paces. Running Around Europe was harder than it sounded! At the start, even though it was enjoyable, the time seemed to go by slowly. As the weeks went on though, and we began ticking off our destinations (and receiving our certs!), we all really noticed our fitness starting to improve. Each week, you could proudly write down a higher number of laps than the week before. Our teachers paired us up and this really helped as each person could encourage the other to keep going! 

Having said that, once or twice, the teachers encouraged us to walk, especially if there was a big football or basketball match on in school later that day.

All in all, the Running Around Europe initiative was fun but also challenging enough for everyone to improve their fitness levels. Some of the Destinations we visited were:

Big Ben, London.

The Eiffel Tower, Paris.

The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen.

The Bernabeu Stadium, Madrid.