At 53 Rachel Pratt is Still Reaping the Rewards of an Active Childhood

Rachel Pratt joined New York Road Runners in 2015 as the senior vice president, youth & community services. Last year she led the organization in launching Rising New York Road Runners, a free youth fitness platform based on physical literacy, or the ability, confidence, and motivation to be active for life. The program centers on long-term athlete development—a lifelong journey that begins in early childhood and guides an individual’s lifelong experience in sport and physical activity. At the start of the year, Pratt also took on leadership of all of NYRR’s community efforts as well as Team for Kids, our adult runners who raise money for youth programs.

Pratt represents NYRR in the Aspen Institute’s Project Play 2020, a national, multiyear effort by leading organizations to grow national sport participation rates and related metrics among youth.

Pratt recently sat down with The Run On to discuss her own personal and professional journey and her beliefs about lifelong health and well-being.

I grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania, the youngest of five kids. We were always active—playing kickball in the yard, doing gymnastics in the basement, riding our bikes, swimming in the lake, climbing on rocks. Living that way, getting those fundamental movement skills, gave me a confidence and a joy in moving that have stayed with me ever since.

I wasn’t much of a team sports person. I played basketball, and in high school I ran for two years—first the 100-meter hurdles and then the 2-mile, which I found painful. I always felt like everyone else was sitting on the bus waiting for me to finish. So for me, running didn’t really stick, and team sports in general felt like something you sort of had to do, versus just being active and physically confident as a natural way to live.

In college my sister’s boyfriend ran the Philadelphia Marathon and we went to watch. We saw him a couple of times along the course and then at the finish, all salt-lined and worn out but with a look of triumph in his eyes that struck me. I said to myself, someday I’m going to run a marathon. It was just too bad I didn’t like running! I was active, though—I biked, swam, lifted weights, worked as a lifeguard. When I moved to New York for graduate school and my career I never got completely out of shape—and I didn’t forget about my promise to myself to run a marathon someday.

For two decades I had a career in child welfare and human services. I was the Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Administration for Children’s Services, and then became the CEO of the Adoption Exchange Association, a national membership organization and the lead agency in AdoptUsKids, the Children’s Bureau’s national initiative to recruit and support foster and adoptive families for waiting children. It was fascinating work and felt like such an important cause, but at the same time I felt like it wasn’t a perfect fit for me.

In child welfare there’s a three-part mantra: safety, permanency, and well-being. To me, it always felt like well-being was given the short shrift. I started having conversations with a colleague who’d started a program in Chicago called Pathways to Development, which brought quality classes to kids—music, drama, cooking, theater, all kinds of things. It was a way to give kids something to become interested in and passionate about that they could carry through life. Because that’s what we want for our own kids, so why couldn’t we give it to kids in foster care?

At the same time I was also feeling like I had to claim back a part of myself. I was 44, working from home, with a 2-year-old, 4-year-old, and 17-year-old. Where was me? I wondered. I thought about the promise I’d made 25 years before to run a marathon. I started running two miles a day, three times a week. The next fall I ran the Portland Marathon in Maine and was totally blissed out the entire time. Since then I’ve run a total of 12 marathons and dozens of shorter races. I have a goal of finishing all six of the Abbott World Marathon Majors—I’ve done New York, Boston, Chicago, London, and Tokyo, and in September I’ll finish up with Berlin.