The annual Austin Marathon, Half Marathon and 5K is coming up on Sunday, February 18, 2018 in Downtown Austin, Texas. Register to run and join Team Marathon Kids, a group of enthusiastic runners working together to raise donations for Marathon Kids! In the coming weeks, we’ll be featuring members of Team Marathon Kids on our social media channels and hope you’ll follow along. To kick off our online celebration, we’d like to introduce you to team member Brian Hill.
We asked Brian a few questions about why he wanted to join Team Marathon Kids.
Why did you decide to get involved with Marathon Kids and join Team Marathon Kids for the Austin Marathon?
I’ve been involved with Marathon Kids for the past 10 years as a teacher, campus principal, and district-level administrator in AISD. It’s such a great organization that truly gets kids active. As a principal, and now at the central office level, I love to see kids out on the track, running, laughing, and living healthier lives. Marathon Kids makes running fun for kids, so any way that I can help promote the organization I do. That is why I choose to rock the MK gear at races, promote it on social media, and why I chose to join Team Marathon Kids and raise money for the Austin Marathon.
What are you up to right now in your life?
Working for the superintendent is awesome, but very busy. When I’m not working I try and hang out with my wife and 3-year-old son, Everett (aka The Dude), and I’ve been running as much as possible… mainly on trails.
Most recently I’ve raced the Mosaic 1/2 Marathon and the Circus 30k. On January 6th I will take on my first trail ultra at the Tejas Trails Bandera 50k trail race! It’s been fun having goal races to train for and sticking with a plan. After that I plan on running the Goodwater Trail Marathon on 1/27, the Austin 1/2 marathon on 2/18, the Tinajas 50k trail race on 3/3, the Austin Rattler 66k trail race on 4/1, the Pandora Trail Marathon on 5/5, and hopefully the Silver Rush 50 Mile trail race on 7/8 in Leadville, CO (my first mountain trail ultra!). Ok, typing that out was scary… I better get back to training!
How did physical activity impact your life as a child? Were you in sports or what did you do for movement? How did this impact who you are today?
I’ve always loved playing sports and being active. As a kid I mainly played basketball, football, and ran track. In college, I walked on to the soccer team (I had never played soccer before, but it was a small DIII school, so people weren’t dying to play there!). After college I got into triathlons, which is where I found my love for cycling. I raced road bikes for a few years, but when Everett was born, I retired from cycling because of the time commitment. I became really out of shape and gained a lot of weight. When I became the principal at Pillow, I decided to get back into running and train for my first marathon, using Marathon Kids as a way to train and motivate my students to run, too. I’ve been running ever since then.
Being active as a kid helped me see the benefits of being healthy and the fun that comes with being active. I think it’s so important to introduce kids to healthy choices and being active from an early age, and Marathon Kids helps do that!
Join Team Marathon Kids
We’d love for you to join us at the Austin Marathon and make your miles matter by becoming part of Team Marathon Kids! Click here for more information.
Get Social
We invite you to follow along as we feature more members of Team Marathon Kids on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!