This is an expanded version of the article "More than a 12-step process," which ran in the Sunday Sports section of The Gazette.

Discovery High School junior Desider Simcoe's Saturday mornings used to be spent working beside his step dad, slapping burgers on the grill and dropping fries into vats of oil, preparing for the lunch rush at Charlie's Pit Bar-B-Que. It's a job Simcoe, 18, has been doing since he was 13. But yesterday morning it was the soles of Simcoe's shoes doing the slapping as he made his way up the first brutal hill of the five-mile race at Garden of the Gods. As I watched him churn his legs and pull away from me, it was hard to believe that just over a month-and-a-half ago Simcoe had been smoking a half pack of cigarettes a day.

I know this because I'm a team leader on the Students American Discovery Marathon Team (SADMT), a District 3 grassroots program that challenges at-risk students 15 years of age and older to train for and complete a marathon. All high school students in the Pikes Peak region are welcome to participate.

The program is based on the 17-year-old Students Run L.A. program, where more than 2,200 students from more than 150 schools participate each year. Widefield Community Center director Ben Valdez and retired Pikes Peak Region YMCA director Jim Klever started the SADMT this spring when they heard Los Angeles-area high schools graduate 90 percent of the high-risk students that complete the program each year. Other students in the L.A. Unified School District graduate at a rate of 65 percent.

I've been running four times a week at the Widefield Community Center with 12 students and 11 other adult team leaders for six weeks. Most of the students are not high school athletes. Some walk to the community center from their school because they don't have a ride. Many don't own a proper pair of running shoes or even clothes to run in. But team leaders have donated shoes and offered rides, and the program is reaching those most in need of its benefits.

"Since I started I haven't had any cigarettes," Simcoe told me. "You start noticing a difference, too. In my everyday life, I've noticed how much easier it is to breathe."

These kinds of comments have become commonplace with the students. Like the casual conversations between friends, I've learned details of their lives ranging from the banal to the bizarre. Simcoe told me how he bought his first vehicle, a '71 Ford Grand Torino, for $400 from a septuagenarian taking the car to the crusher. Sara Swartz, 15, told me how she got grounded and would have to miss the battle of the bands at Widefield High School on Friday. Others relate what they plan to do with themselves after high school. And all the students say their friends think they're crazy for trying to run a marathon.

Simcoe said he plans on going into the police academy after he graduates. "Since I was a child, other kids were like, 'I want to be a doctor,'" he said. "I've held onto that. I've wanted to be a cop since I was a little kid."

The program is teaching students to set and complete short-term goals as well as aim for bigger accomplishments (i.e. a marathon). The time spent with adult leaders provides opportunities for learning as well. This has been the most rewarding part of the program for me thus far.

Four of the student runners won awards in Saturday's "Take 5 in the Garden." Simcoe was one of those who placed, and he posed proudly for pictures with his second-place plaque.

Simcoe said he's already looking toward the American Discovery Trail Marathon on September 3. "I've been thinking how long it's going to take and wondering if I'll be ready for it or not," he said. "It's going to look good to go to the police academy and say I've done it."