A Sweet Victory at The North Phoenix Prep Root Beer Mile

For the seventh year in a row, Brad Curtis, the cross-country coach at North Phoenix Prep, hosted the Root Beer Run. This fun early-morning event brings middle school and high school runners to the track, along with some of their friends, family, and coaches who participate. It serves as the unofficial kick-off for the school’s cross-country season. But this mile-long race has a twist for the runners. They have to drink a can of root beer before each lap, with four laps in all, which proves to be more of a challenge for the athletes than you might think.

Root beer has proven to be the great equalizer in this race, slowing down many of the accomplished runners. The soft drink was originally made with sassafras root and bark which, due to its mucilaginous properties, formed a natural, long-lasting foam, a characteristic feature of the beverage. Root beer was originally carbonated by fermentation, but as demand and technology changed, carbonated water was used. The nature of the beverage can cause a lot of “bubbles” to form in your digestive track, making it difficult to run without “complications.”

“This event is just something we’ve done over the last seven years. Something fun for the kids to do,” explained Coach Curtis. “Our best ever has been about 8:30. So, it is a tough challenge.”

That record was broken this year by the high school cross-county assistant coach, Justin Norris who finished first with an impressive time of 8:09. “The goal was to try and break the record, but I didn’t know how close it was going to be. It ended up being by… a decent amount,” shared Coach Norris, just coming off the run. “The few minutes after you finish, it’s still pretty rough,” he explained. “I feel a lot better now.”

Norris had a large lead with Coach Curtis coming in second place at 12:08. Coach James Duran finished third at 13:30, with the Great Hearts Arizona Director of Athletics Jon Rickey, who joins the run each year, finishing in fourth at 14:39.

Senior Jaiden Ploederl finished in fifth and was the first student to cross the finish line. With a personal best of a 4:28 mile, Ploederl struggled to finish this mile at 16:31. “It added like 12 minutes to my time,” he explained, noting that this was his third year attempting this run. “The first time I didn’t finish. The second time I ran a 36:00, and this time I finished, and I did good!”

With the school year and the cross-country season underway at North Phoenix Prep, the fun comradery of the Root Beer Mile, along with the discomfort of running with a belly full of fizzy root beer is sure to stay with the runners for a while.

Do you have a story or know of one that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts? Please contactjmoore@greatheartsamerica.org.

Submit a student application to a Great Hearts Academy by visiting: https://www.greatheartsamerica.org/enroll/.