CONNECTICUT HOME SCHOOLED HARRIERS by Dan Dillon The take off Patti Dillon, Matt Dowthit, and Dan Dillon My wife, Patti Dillon, and I started the club, the Connecticut Home Schooled Harriers, this past September. We have really enjoyed our first year of coaching the club. And likewise, the Harriers seem to have enjoyed it, too. If you had asked most of the parents last fall if their sons or daughters would actually be looking forward to going out running, they would probably have been doubtful. But as the weeks went along, and the more fit the kids got, the more fun they had running. The joy of running came upon some of them more quickly than others. But by the wintertime, the club awarded several "Hardy Harrier" certificates to runners that ran the most distance in the extremely cold New England weather. Some Harriers play other sports in addition to the running club, and have found that running has helped them improve at basketball, judo, soccer or even horseback riding. But for several of them, running has become their favorite sport. We teach them to be goal setters. Our aim is to help them understand not only the health benefits of the sport, but to grasp the fact that consistent work brings results and builds character. Since they are all home schooled, we are free to meet on a weekday afternoon. A state park, a couple of miles from our house, has become the preferred meeting spot. It is on Long Island Sound, and has beautiful ocean views, huge grassy fields, and that unique sound of the pounding surf. During the first six months after we began the club, we encouraged the younger aged children to work up to a point that they could comfortably run thirty minutes or so without stopping. The older Harriers can all do an hour now. They all have learned that the more they train during the week, the more relaxed and fun the runs are the next time the group gets together to train. Too many days off makes it harder to keep up with the others. Since it was our first year, we decided not to race any other clubs yet. But we staged quite a few time trials to check our progress. Depending on the season, we've had from fifteen to fifty harriers at practice. Two of them are our own. Our son will be 10 soon, and our daughter will be 7. The ages of the members of the club are from 6 to sixteen. LINKS: homeschooledharriers.com youcanhomeschool.org pattidillon.com Contact Patti and Dan at livesound@myeastern.com FROM PATTI My Greatest Running Accomplishments - I am most proud of my first marathon win in Rhode Island, the Ocean State Marathon. It was life affirming, and I had the "I can do it" attitude after this accomplishment. ( I would win this race fives times in a row and set a course record each time.) -The New England X-country Championships in 1978. I was in quite the battle with Lynn Jennings and at the wire I won with a kick I didn't know I had! -The Honolulu Marathon, I would win this race four straight years with a new course record each year. I was inducted in the Honolulu Marathon Hall of Fame last year. You can find out quite a bit about Patti by using any search engine for "Patti Lyons" or "Patti Catalano", which are the names she competed by in the 70's and 80's. Basically, you name the distance, and most likely Patti broke the record for it at one point or another. She didn't start running until she was in her twenties, but before she was thirty she was already at the top in the road racing world. During that same time Dan Dillon was also among the top long distance runners. He was twice All American at Providence College in Cross Country, and made several US National Cross Country teams. He also qualified to compete in the Olympic Trials in 1980, 1984, and in 1988. He began running before he was a teenager. Of course, both Patti and Dan developed a life-long love of running. Running back goodrow@infionline.net