Topeka ? When they run, the women imagine themselves with their families, near an ocean or skiing.

Anywhere but the prison that confines them.

“I think how I’d like to be a better mom,” said Michelle Eicher, 36, as she jogged around the outdoor track of the Topeka Correctional Facility, blond hair bouncing against her shoulders, breath smoky in the frigid winter air. “I want to be a better example to my two kids.”

Eicher and about 20 other women belong to the prison’s running club, dubbed “Running Free” by the inmates. They run every Saturday and Sunday between 9 and 10 a.m.

Besides exercise and a momentary sense of freedom, the club has offered the inmates an opportunity to assist local nonprofits. Since 2007, when the club was formed, the inmates have conducted three charity runs and raised more than $2,000.

A recent Saturday, the running club gathered around a metal cabinet filled with donated running shoes. Earlier, some of them had shoveled snow off the track, refusing to allow overnight snow flurries to deny them their hour outside.

“It’s about so much more than running,” said Carol Hill, a prison volunteer since 2004.

Hill started the club with another prison volunteer, Suzanne MacDonald. Hill, who began running 20 years ago to stop smoking, thought running would help the inmates change their lives as well.

“Running is an opportunity for them to do something they never thought they could do,” she said.

Inmate Diane Raab, 36, has been with the club from its inception. Convicted on drug charges, she won’t be released until October 2012. Perky, with long brown hair and a ready smile that interrupts her rapid-fire talking, she joined the club to help release frustrations.

“When I run, in the summer, I’m thinking I’m on a beach,” Raab said. “In the winter, a mountain trail. Sometimes, I think I’m in my neighborhood. If I don’t run, I feel blah. Before I ran, all I wanted to do was sleep.”