\t\tReading Time: 2 minutes<\/p>\n
Three teens from the Youth Transition Campus ran alongside an estimated 6,000 runners in the Encinitas Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur dedicated officers share a mission to support the community by helping those we serve restore their lives,\u201d said Chief Probation Officer Tamika Nelson, \u201cWe are so proud to see these young people go the extra mile to serve as a model for their peers.\u201d<\/p>\n
To train for the 5K run, the running club youth and three Probation officers ran three times a week for a month.\u00a0They got up early so the teens wouldn\u2019t miss any school classes, Supervising Probation Officer Carlos Sanchez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got up at 5 a.m. and ran a minimum of one mile,\u201d said a 19-year-old young man. \u201cIt\u2019s hard, but I enjoyed it because it got my day started.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was happy to join the running club and plans to keep going with it, he said. Although he wasn\u2019t a runner before, he was always athletic and was a \u201cfanatic\u201d about staying fit, he added.<\/p>\n
The Probation Department uses the running club to help young men find a physical and mental outlet that can help with stress, mood problems, anxiety and self-esteem. It can also be a meditative time to refocus and set a positive goal, Sanchez said.<\/p>\n
Sanchez, Deputy Probation Officers Ana Banuelo and Pascal Orozco also teach the teens about running techniques, injury prevention, diet, different types of running shoes and training.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a runner, I am proud of these young men and their desire to try something new. They get up early in the morning while other youth stay in bed,\u201d said Sanchez.\u00a0 \u201cThe youth also have to be exemplary in the facility, in order to participate in the running club.\u201d<\/p>\n
Running pushes him to keep going and do his best time, the young man said. The 5K was a fun experience, and he got to meet lots of people, but when he\u2019s running, he views it as a mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tiring but it\u2019s all a mental thing,\u201d he said. \u201cHonestly, I just think about my family, that motivates me when I\u2019m running. Wanting to become a better version of myself motivates me.\u201d<\/p>\n
County Probation works to help youth grow, heal and build better futures, and that starts with safety, fairness and trust for everyone involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading Time: 2 minutes Three teens from the Youth Transition Campus ran alongside an estimated 6,000 runners in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[23845,23847,1492,74,76,75,42362],"class_list":["post-79329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-chief-probation-officer-tamika-nelson","tag-county-probation","tag-public-safety","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-youth-transition-campus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}