Running, a lifelong activity, is one of the most effective activities for developing and maintaining cardiovascular fitness. Consequently, many schools in this country now incorporate running programs (or units) in their physical education curriculum as a way to help students achieve and maintain cardiovascular fitness and to promote physically active lifestyles. Despite their prevalence in school physical education, running programs have received relatively little research attention in terms of students’ motivation, behavior and performance. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine students’ motivation and performance in physical education running programs from an achievement goal theory perspective. Participants were 461 students (244 boys, 217 girls) from two intermediate schools (grades 5-6). These students completed 5-point likert scale questionnaires at the end of their fifth grade year and again at the end of their six grade year. Four constructs were assessed: task-involved goal, ego-involved goal, work avoidance goal and students’ intention for future participation in running. All items were adapted from published measures with demonstrated validity and reliability (Xiang, McBride, & Bruene, 2004). Students also completed a timed mile run as a performance measure. A MANOVA with repeated measures yielded a significant main effect for time (p < .001). Follow-up univariate tests indicated that the mean level of task-involved goal and intention for future participation in running increased from the fifth to sixth grade. The mean level of ego-involved goal and work avoidance goal, however, decreased. The students also improved their mile run times. Multiple regression analyses revealed that task- and ego-involved goals were positive predictors of students’ intention for future participation in running and negative predictors of their mile run time across fifth to six grade, whereas work avoidance goal was a positive predictor of students’ mile run time and a negative predictor of their intention. Although classroom research suggests students’ motivation and performance at schoolwork generally decrease over the school years, results of this study revealed an increased motivation and performance in running among this sample of students. This finding is unexpected but encouraging. Future research should examine if this motivational upward trend continues through high school and identify potential contributing factors to this trend. Finally, our data demonstrated that all three achievement goals predicted students’ motivation and performance in running, providing additional empirical support that achievement goal theory is a viable theoretical model in the examination of students’ motivation and achievement behavior in physical activity settings. Keyword(s): performance, physical activity