Kragthorpe: SLC Track Club's Making Strides program captures young runners at the starting line

At first, Meryl Call remembers, the fifth-grade girls she was coaching wanted to attend the weekly sessions only “to put on their matching pink shoes, chat with girlfriends and repeatedly ask if they could have their treat,” she said.But then something about the Making Strides program began to register with the girls. “I saw the girls’ attitudes shift as they became more interested in improving their speed and consistency and always trying to beat the fifth-grade boys,&rd