Today we’d like to introduce you to Gregory Patterson.
Hi Gregory, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born and raised in South Africa. As a child, I played soccer and rugby. It was only as an adult that I began running. I ran several ultra-marathons – most notably – the Comrades Marathon which is the world’s oldest and largest ultramarathon race (89km). The political situation in South Africa forced us to make the move to the US. It was an incredibly difficult decision to leave family behind and try to start over from scratch. It was so much more difficult than we could ever have imagined it would be. After we had been here about 8 years, I had a colleague reach out to me to ask us to run a 5k in memory of his wife who had died of pancreatic cancer. We loaded all four kids into the car and did our first US 5k! What we discovered is that one of our twins was pretty good! With no training and only being in 3rd grade, he had done really well. That is when our hunt began for a youth running program. We couldn’t find anything in our area that catered to “new runners”. We did manage to find a small group of about 10 runners who trained to compete in cross-country races, but there was nothing that was geared toward the newby-runner. My eldest son, who had also taken up running by this time, decided to try out for his MS track team – and he didn’t make the team. He was devastated and I told him he had a choice to make – to either give up running altogether or train like crazy and try out the following year. He chose to train. It was at that point that I got the final push I needed to get some kind of running program going.
I happened to be at a stage in my life when I didn’t have a job (I had been in the mortgage industry and my job was a casualty of the mortgage crash) so we decided to try and get something going for other kids with an interest in running in my free time. We approached a local church, First Redeemer, and asked them if they would be willing to let us use their grounds to hold a youth running program and they graciously agreed. They sent out an email to their database and we waited to see if we would get a response. We were hoping to get about 10 kids – we got around 40! It wasn’t long before the bug bit and all of my kids were running in the program. They discovered that running with friends was a lot of fun. Slowly but surely the word spread and the program grew from strength to strength.
Back to my son, Matthew, and the MS tryouts. I worked with him all year. Not only did he make the team the following year, but he ran undefeated the entire season and won the 1600m race at the MS County Championship. That is where our “never give up” motto stemmed from!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Not entirely! Immigrating was the single most difficult thing we have ever done, and we have often said if we knew it would have been so hard, we are not sure we would have done it. Now that we are more settled though and we see our children living successful lives, we realize that our sacrifice was worth it and we wouldn’t change it in spite of the hard times.
Having grown up in South Africa at a time in the history of immense change and conflict, we felt that we had no option but to leave. I don’t think anyone really understands just how much of a “hole” it leaves in your life when you leave all your friends, family, familiar places, network of support and traditions. We didn’t understand that it would feel like the whole first part of your life is almost erased when you move to a new country. There is no one to share those “remember when” stories, no one who understands your heritage or history – it is a very lonely feeling. People kind of expect that you should be thrilled to be living in the US (which we were!), but it didn’t change the fact that all that we knew and loved was left behind. I have only been back twice – once was to bury my father. My wife has also lost a sister since we have been here and there is no way to adequately explain how helpless and guilty you feel to be on the other side of the world when your family dealing with something so monumental.
Add to that the fact that I was in my mid-thirties with a wife and two kids under two, I had no degree (not many people in SA had degrees at the time – it just wasn’t necessary), no contacts or network of business associates, and no job prospects. We found ourselves with a young family, no job (for many years my visa was restrictive in that I had to be self-employed) and at times, we wondered if we had made the worst decision of our lives! Fortunately (as we see it now), we actually didn’t have enough money to buy a plane ticket back home – so we had to make things work! Our lowest point came after we had only been here about a year. Our oldest son got really sick. We didn’t have the $20 we needed to take him to the urgent care. I got in my car and knocked on doors and asked if I could mow lawns. I will never forget the kindness of the lady who let me cut hers and paid me $50 to do it. That $50 might as well have been a thousand – the relief was so immense. There was a decade more of struggling and trying to keep our head above water – taking odd jobs and trying to find some more direction. We would never have guessed that starting a running program would turn into an income – and more importantly – a passion! Looking back, it is clear that things that appeared to be massive obstacles in my life were actually events that were positioning me to a place that would ultimately be the biggest blessing of my life.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The youth running program that we started (gottarunkids.com) for 3rd-8th graders (5k Club) blossomed from an initial group of 40 kids to sometimes seeing 8o+ kids per session. We are at a point where we have kids on the waiting list every session. We added a Juniors program, a 1-mile club for k-2nd kids, and that has been a lot of fun. We are just in the process of opening another location in Jasper county and we are excited to be reaching more kids. The biggest and most rewarding spin-off from GRK was the competitive team that we started – Great Strides xc club. We had several kids in our 5k club who showed such potential and they really wanted to compete, so this became their outlet. The success that the team has seen has been remarkable. I could never have imagined that such a small club from such humble beginnings could take on the “big dogs” and come out on top! Our team is one of the smaller teams (mostly less than 40 kids) yet we consistently out-perform teams that have over 100 kids. The team has been around for over 10 years and we have had many “undefeated seasons” and in the seasons where we weren’t undefeated, we consistently finish in the top 3 – even when we are having a rebuilding year (a team comprised of mainly young runners).
For the 2021 and 2022 years, our boys and girls teams have won the Club State Championship titles. I don’t put the success down to me being a fantastic coach – but rather to the environment that we have created that allows the kids the face their fears, push through their mental and physical barriers and know that they have a safe space to “fail”. I like to use the saying ” you haven’t failed until you quit trying” and a team favorite is ” whether you think you can or think you can’t – you’re right”. As the coach, I do not make the focus all about winning. We never trash-talk other teams. We win with humility and lose with grace. I believe that I am teaching the kids about much, much more than about running. I want them to learn that winning isn’t everything, that it’s normal to have a bad day, that being a good teammate is the most important part of being an athlete, keeping perspective is huge – and above all – if they aren’t having fun – something is wrong! I have so often had other teams’ parents and coaches come up to me at a meet and say, “Your kids always seem to be so happy and having such fun.” That makes me more proud than any trophy.
When we began Gotta Run Kids, there were no running programs or xc teams in the schools. They did offer track to 7th and 8th-grade students, but no xc. I had been helping coach the MS track team at my sons’ Middle school, and after a year or so, I had a few MS coaches reach out to me and ask for my help in getting teams started in their middle schools, which I was happy to do. Before long, the word was out that xc was fun – and all the other Forsyth schools followed. As you can imagine, this impacted my program to some degree, but we were happy to see the sport spread across the county and we just worked with a smaller team.
My hope (and my experience so far!) is that the kids take what I teach them into high school. The work ethic and perspective that I teach them in their GRK years transfer over to their new high school teams. High school coaches often comment on what great kids they are and how hard they work. We feed kids into several different high schools and I am proud to say that we have had two GHSA state wins from high school teams comprised almost entirely of our alumni. Our alumni consistently rank among the best at the GHSA state meet – with many podium spots and even a State Champion individual title. Many of our athletes have gone on to run at college, including UGA, Mercer, Columbia, Georgia College, UNG.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I’m not a big believer in luck – destiny might be a better word. My faith and belief in everything working together for good has certainly been the bedrock of my refusal to quit when things have been really tough. As I have gotten older, I have been able to appreciate the gift of hindsight/perspective. So many things that have happened that could have been termed ‘bad luck” at the time, I can now see, were pieces moving into place to set me up for something far more worthwhile…my destiny? For example, had I not lost my job during the mortgage crash, I would not have had the time to explore the opportunity of starting Gotta Run Kids. Had my son not been cut from his MS track team, I wouldn’t have had the motivation I did to start a running program. Had my colleague not asked us to run the 5k, I would likely never have seen the potential my kids had (all four ran on their high school varsity teams from day 1, and 3/4 went on to run at college). I have had SO many parents reach out to me and tell me that being part of our program has literally changed their child’s life. Being lucky enough to do what I love may not make me a rich man (far from it!), but it definitely makes me a fortunate man – after all – isn’t it everyone’s dream to be able to make a living doing something they love? The fact that what I do is changing lives for the better is a huge bonus!
Pricing:
- Gotta Run Kids 5k program $185 (including race entry and GRK shirt)
- $135 Gotta Run Kids 1-Mile program ($135 – inl. shirt and medal)
Contact Info:
- Website: www.gottarunkids.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gottarun_kids/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GottaRunKids/
