"I feel bad when you spread rumors about me because ... " she begins.

It's a different sort of warm-up, as track practices go. But this is a different kind of track club.

Girls on the Run was founded in Charlotte in 1996 by marathon runner and Ironman triathlete Molly Barker. It now has more than 140 locations in the U.S. and Canada. The program's target audience is girls 8 to 12 years old, but not because of their budding athleticism.

"We're so much more than a running program," says Kelly Hurter, executive director of the Triangle branch, which was founded in 2000 and has about 500 girls training in 20 Triangle locations.

"Our main focus is helping them establish themselves as a whole person, to discover why she is, her values, and to establish healthy lifestyles."

Or, as the Girls on the Run mantra goes, "to help get them out of the girl box."

The 8-to-12 audience is key. Girls on the Run hopes to get girls into a healthy frame of mind before they encounter the incivility of the mean girls of middle school. Different lessons are covered each week, from keeping promises and valuing what's really important to handling gossip and bullying to listening and cooperating.

Which is why a recent weekday practice at Root Elementary School in Raleigh began with role-playing rather than a warm-up run.

"Today we're going to talk about gossip and bullies and how to stand up for yourself," says Gillian Carlin, now in her fifth season as a coach. Carlin talks briefly about how gossip hurts and how to react if another girl tries to bully you. The first mention of running doesn't come until several minutes into the hourlong "practice."

"We're going to run a lap," Carlin says, "but before we do I'm going to give everyone a slip of paper." The slips have one of three things written on them: "I feel ...," "It hurts me because ..." or "I would like for you to ...."

The prompts are intended to give the girls a framework for addressing taunters, for telling bullies and gossips how they feel and to knock it off.

"It gives them a chance to change their behavior," Carlin tells the girls before they do a quick lap on Root's eighth-of-a-mile cinder track.

When they return, the girls gather into groups of three, each with a different prompt. Together they think up a hurtful scenario and a take-charge phrase using their prompts. They read their results aloud, then discuss them with the gentle direction of Carlin and assistant coaches Corrie Mosteller and Mary Rob Green, all volunteers.

"Some of them don't like to run, but they put up with it so they can talk," Carlin says. "The running is great and important, but it's the curriculum that really counts."

There really is some running, though. At the end of the 10-week program, the girls will run a 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) race as a team at Meadowmont in Chapel Hill. The girls' families are encouraged to run with them.

Before practice ends, Carlin raises another point that distinguishes Girls on the Run from your typical athletic program.

"Why is it more important to talk than to yell?" she asks. The girls do their talking thing -- raising their hands first -- and Carlin synthesizes their answers. "When someone is screaming, do you listen to anything that they're saying?"

The message?

"This yelling thing isn't going to work."

Novel idea for a modern American coach.