If you are a kid 11 or under and live in Portugal you can not even run a mike race and Bob Anderson says this is not right

As some of you might know, we are setting up our second KATA Running Retreat in Central Portugal.  We are in a small village called Monforte da Beira.  There are only 310 people in our village.  It is a very cool village with cobblestone streets, olive and cork trees nearby and miles of roads and trails for running, hiking and walking.  

We bought our Anderson Manor House Feb 1 of 2024.  It is an amazing three story place of 15,000 square feet with another 12,000 feet of out buildings and caves plus two acres of land with olive, fig, orange trees and a big area of land for our garden and farm animals we will have. We want to be as sustainable as possible like we are in Kenya and produce at least 50% of our food.  

This is going to be our base in Europe for us personally and the location of our second KATA Running Retreat.  We are welcoming our first guests in June and we have not even officially announced our opening.  Just today we already got a booking for two weeks in December.  

KATA (Kenyan Athletic Training Avademy) Running Retreat Kenya officially opened in Sept 2021. We currently have 22 Kenyan athletes living, eating and training with us there.  We have eight rooms for guests and  already we have had guests from England, France, Poland, New Zealand and the US come train with us.  (Third photo shows one of our guest rooms)

Our training program is Train The Kenyan Way. We currently have five accredited AK coaches on staff.  Already our top runners are running world class times.  Peter, one of our top runners won the 2023 Philadelphia half marathon and has clocked one hour 16 seconds for the half.  

Anyway, things are going well for us and we look forward to develope our second location in Portugal.

One of the things we do is we do a monthly time trial and we stage races.  Our Double Road Race Federation company founded in 2010 is the owner of these projects.  We stage three races in Northern California annually attracting nearly 1500 runners as well. 

One of the events we have been doing since 2010 is the Bob Anderson Kids mile.  It is an event for kids 13 and under. In Palo Alto, California last December we had over 70 kids run our mile, some as young as 2.  It is up to the parents to decide if their child is capable of running (or walking) a mile.  

Each kid gets a medal, a t-shirt and a chance to win a raffle prize.  We also give out a special medal for each winner for their age.  2-3-4-5 and so on.  The kids love our event and we have had thousands of kids run our mile race over the years.  There has never been an issue.  Entry fee is $12.  

Let’s get back to the point of this post.  To celebrate the opening of our new retreat in Portugal I asked the Mayor in our lvillage if we could stage a race.  It would be Monforte da Beira first running race ever. He agreed and we started things rolling for our June 23rd event.  Besides the 10k we also would do a 3k hike/walk and our Bob Anderson kids mile (for kids 13 and under).  

So I hired a race director Nuno.  He said he could handle everything.  I did not know at the time that he had never put on a race before.  He said he was very connected to the running scene since he had been running for like 15 or more years.  

Things were moving along fairly well until today.  After paying him for a month he informed me that only kids 12-13 could run our mile race and no one under 18 could run our 10k race.  

I told him this was backward. Maybe it was too strong of a word but it reminded me of the time in the US where women were not allowed to run over a half mile and certainly not a marathon. 

I mention that in the US we have thousands of kids under the age of 12 running one mile and up,  Plus even more kids under 18 running 10k and beyond.

I found this story from September 2023, 

“Olivia Hawes of Blacksburg (USA) holds world records for running and when she crossed the finish line last week for a 6.15K in Virginia Beach, she topped 200 total miles in her young career. She has run more than 20 5Ks in nine different states and has a goal to run one in all 50 states. The unbelievable fact is that Hawes is only two years old. 

She has the fastest mile and most 5ks for a 1-and 2-years old along with being the youngest and second youngest competitor in the VA Commonwealth Games’ 33-year history.” (First photo)

Now this is an extreme example.  Two is young but there is even more examples of a little older kids not only completing a mile or more but loving every minute.  My grand kids ran races at age 4 and loved doing so.  I started running races at age 15 way back when and at 76 I still love running 

According to Nuno this is the rules of the Portugal Athletics Federation.  And since he “loves his country” he has to follow the rules.  Sorry but these rules are just not fair for kids under 18 in my opinion, 

So I told Nuno that I can’t endorse these rules.  The Bob Anderson kids mile should be for all kids 13 and under.  Nuno then said we have to follow the rules of Portugal.  

I didn’t agree and even suggested not even doing a kids race as a compromise.  But he did not even want to listen to anything I was saying. So he resigned not giving any notice.  Right  now I have taken over the duties of race director of our June 23 event.  I simply could not endorse this rule.  We are new to portugal but certainly not new to running.  

posted Friday April 5th
by Bob Anderson