Souza shares.

What a great honor it has been to be part of this camp (videographer and blog editor) for the last 3 years. The experience always energizes me and is so much fun.

The knowledge about running (and life) that campers have the opportunity to take from this place is incredible, and I often find my face hurting from all the smiling I am doing as I am capturing images of the week on my camera.

The councilors here are awesome--really loving and playful and knowledgeable--as well as having proven themselves "in the trenches" of distance running and coaching. It is an honor and inspiration to be around them.

These are images are from HUMAN SCULPTURE which is one of the wacky, team building activities that are "peppered" in to the day's training sessions and lessons that adds a dash of fun to the day. Pictured here include a team creating a bowling alley, one group is putting final touches on their, "human bench press" sculpture. The 'Human Cadillac" pays homage to Bo's iconic camp sing along song, "Cadillac Ranch", and finally we see Todd (Camper extraordinaire) tinkling the ebony and ivory feet of his fellow team-mates.

And then there's a shot of Bo preparing to bring on the first act of the last nights Camp Talent show. Which made me ask the question, "How much talent can one group of kids have? Shhheeze! They already can run like the wind--and then I kept witnessing skit after skit after skit of amazing creativity and talent. Action Shots of the show will follow in tomorrow's blog.

More of the action

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here are 5,000 more...

Shots include:

1. The "Boss" and the "Big Man" belting out a rousing rendition of the iconic, Cadillac Ranch.

2. A brief rest during a morning run.

3. Two campers "thumbs-upping" either the snack they are enjoying or the company they are keeping.

4. A camper enjoying the sun, the cool mountain air, the invigoration of a post run stretch at 7,000 ft. elevation.

5. A "grumpy" pre-race ritual.

Random Shots from Camp

Some of the moments from camp captured on film....

Day 6--Abs of steel

Day 6--Camp Blog

David Haun (with help from Brianna Zamora)

Today we started off the morning at about 6 a.m. with morning stretches-- nothing really ha

p

pened. Everyone was starting to feel the week’s runs and workouts, and at first were too tired and groggy to even talk. However, we toughed it out and our groups went on to do either transitions, hills, or the hardest runs of our lives... that’s how we start off the mornings. Camp life is brutal...Miles and miles of training, No food, no sleep-- no nothin’. Just messing (kidding

)... we’re just always late to breakfast.

Then after Breakfast, Souza did a talk to get us to think about the how running makes our lives better in a lot of ways and to remember that it should be fun. Later in the day we did an egg drop where our teams had to build something out of 7 or 8 straws, a marshmallow, some floss, a balloon and tape that would protect the egg from a fall. Yeah. A single marshmallow. “The ballon was useless. It didn’t help at all and the thing just bounced off the ground and broke my egg.” said Brianna. I agree the balloon

was pretty-much useless. Only two teams went on to the highest egg drop, both eggs broke from the highest drop... but my team’s egg protector thing was better (naturally). NASA couldn’t make a better egg drop protector thing.

Little did we know that the egg drop would mark the end of fun as we knew it. It was all hard work after that. We went to a grassy field near the dorm to do stretches and somehow got into a, “plank off” (a contest to see who can hold the plank position the longest). If you've never done planks they’re plankful (my new word f

or, “very painful”--kinda combines the word

s, pain, and awful, and puke). After about 4 minutes most of the camp had dropped like flies. It was down to just me and Steve-o --an epic “head to head” “big man to big man”, “cookies to cream”, “mano-o-mano” battle of guts and determinations battle was shaping up. I thought to myself, “I’m going to drop Steve-o like a twinkie on a hot summer day!” We stayed there, each refusing to give in to the other for 11 minutes. I tip my hat to Steve-o for today he was the better man. The whole camp still congratulated both of us.

We quickly went on to our long run for about 45 minutes to an hour. As soon as we came back from our death defying run through Flagstaff we did an “extreme killer ab work out”! 45 minutes of brutal, six-pack producing, core building, mental toughness demanding Ab work! Lesser men would have been broken by it. After this camp, bullets will not be able to penetrate my steel abs.

We then nonselaughntly went off to eat dinner--trying not to show that our abs were burning. The day became much better from here. Our now semi-crippled campers went off to swim in the pool for much needed R&R. It was “Party time” in the pool--except for the realy-strict lifeguards. They kept shouting stuff like, “GET OFF THE LANE LINES!” or “NO DIVING!” or “HEY, YOU WITH THE “RIPPED” ABS--THOSE ARE CAUSING ALL THE LADIES TO DROOL ALL OVER THE DECK--somebody is going to slip!”

Exhausted, we ended

t

he day at 8:00 in the best w

ay p

ossible...we went to bed. Just messing with ya, Homie.... Bo had one more surprise waiting for us....we all had “Upside down Ice cream Sundays”! We had to (I guess I should say “We got to”?) sit back on a bench, lean our heads back, and open our mouths (no bowls or spoons allowed) and prepare for dessert. The counselors then shoved ice cream, bananas, berries, chocolate syrup into our mouths --and last but not least topped it all off with WHIP CREEEEAAAM. WOOO! ;). It was kinda fun--but got a little messy. Some of the campers went to bed, others hung out in the lobby telling stories or making frien

dship braclets. I somehow got talked into typing out this blog.

At the end of the nigh

t I talked with Bo and Mark B about my 800. They got me pumped about next season and think that if I plan my races out and make some slight changes to the way I train, will “have huge personal records for my times and become one of Arizona's top 1/2 milers next season”. Souza (who’s son runs the 800) wants Bo and Mark to stop talking to me... just kidding.

That’s it... the end.

ps: All the exclamation marks are Brianna the good parts are David ;)

ps#2: he is being a lint licker! dx

Dear Blog-Followers,

Today was a fairytale...I wore a dress, and you wore a dark grey t-shirt.

Hah. Just kidding. (By the way, that was a Taylor Swift song allusion.)

Today was most definitely NOT a fairytale, except it wasn’t that bad. We started off our day 34 minutes late thanks to some late-night partiers who could not roust themselves from their beds. But don’t worry, Bo made sure that they would suffer harsh punishment by public humiliation. (They only had to apologize in front of the whole camp using the microphone from a karaoke machine.) We split up into our teams to go run after our late start. This was followed by breakfast and a lecture on nutrition for newcomers and “prehab/rehab” for returners. Then we began our “6-Pack Summer” training with an intense core workout comparable to the military in intensity.

Next, the coaches played a cruel joke on the exhausted campers, involving deceitful lies, causing stress and extreme nervousness. (They said we were running a two-mile time trial and had us do our pre-race rituals, only to reveal that the whole event was a “test” of our mental stability in an anxiety-filled, pre-race situation.) After lunch, the campers played another high-stress team building activity involving a helium stick...don’t ask.

Our final athletic event of the day consisted of a “sample workout”: sprinting on the top of an open field, in the mud, rain, and lightning. It was great. And safe. (Just kidding, don’t worry, as soon as it started to lightning, we climbed off of the tall, metal fences that we were playing on and went inside.)

Dinner arrived soon after, and we clogged showers with the mud that was sloughing off our filthy, aching bodies. Once we freshened up, we participated in “Speed-Get-To-Know” (Sort of like Speed Dating)...we got to know each other by answering questions about things we would do or choices we would make in a given sitiation....AND WHY. This was done in a "cooped up", small, enclosed dusty chemistry lecture hall.

Presently, we sit in a pitch-black room, listening to the creepy sounds of Bo’s horrific ghost stories. It’s been quite an eventful day.

Good riddance,

B & E

Day 4 (#2 of 2 posts for the day): Todd Todd the Dancing Machine summarizes the day

“I think I like today, I think it’s good, it’s something I can get my head around” -Angels and Airwaves. This was my thought as I woke up this morning. After Bo’s lectures of positive thinking and leadership I figure I might as well start putting these principals of good character into action.

The morning run was particularly good. It’s been nice to get away from cow town

Amarillo and enjoy the nice weather in Flagsta

ff. It was the last run with just the 8 day campers so it was nice to soak that in. I know I enjoyed running with the small group of campers and getting to run with Mark was something I had missed. However, when breakf

ast came I was slightly disappointed because there was no pineapple but I just took a deep breath and ate some raisin bran and it was all good.

As the day continued we went through our normal routine of drills and stretching. The core session before lunch was rather fun and I’m sure Stevo enjoyed it as well. Lunch was nice, and myself and a few other campers took a nice power nap to rejuvenate for the evening activities.

It was good to see many friends from last years camp check in for the 5 day. Everyone starts to meet the new campers and catch up with the old ones. Bo sings his classic Bruce Springsteen song and introduces the counselors. Then we form into groups and think of our own way t

o creatively introduce each other. After we introduce ourselves we play an activity with balloons to see which group could work together to get it around in a circle the fastest. However, we have to move our game inside because of rain, and in the end the mighty panda bears took the victory. After the game, we head out for a group run on the trails for a half hour.

In the evening, There were two lectures for returning campers and new campers. I went to the returners lectures to talk about the importance of race plans and strategies. Brian Schrader came to talk to us and it was interesting to see what he had to say.

To wrap up the night we had a scavenger hunt that was very fun and of course Mark had a couple of new ghost stories for those willing to stay up and listen. I am excited to see what the rest of this week holds for us.

Day 4: The 5-Day Campers join the Crew!

What was once 13 now numbers at 42! The teams have been chosen by fate through a draw of a hat, and already the bonding and friendships are forming. Team mascots include: Cheetahs, Lions, Pandas, Dogs, Giraffes, and Oysters.

--and an impressive gathering of some of Arizona's elite distance runners (past, present, and future)has assembled to form the counseling staff.

Day 3--Cross Training--Joey's words of wisdom

Blog Entry 7-10-10 -- Swimming Gazelles (aqua day)

After a long day of camp my legs feel sore and my quads are on fire. The morning tempo run we were up and early in front of Wilson Hall. The beginning of the morning we started with some static stretching. No one was talking besides Bo. He seems to be a morning person. Bo decided that we would do a "steady-state" run, something I had never heard of. It was a whole lot of fun running with Stevo and Jessie at the front of the pack. Bo instructed us to encourage our fellow campers as we started to pass them. This tactic helps to build a feeling of team unity.

The leadership and motivation blended in with one another; which helped me to understand how to be a better leader by helping people and teammates by motivating everyone; especially by staying positive. The blindfold game, enforcing trust into teammat

es, was after the lecture. Bo loved to continuously chunk tons of “land mines” into the center of the sand volleyball court. This game taught me to listen to my teammates and at the same time have fun with everyone. In somefashion or form your teammate led you by being your eyes as you walked, shuffled and crawled all

across the sand volleyball court. The only rules to the game were: Do not step on the land mines! Once we were finished teams switched the blind fold to guide their partner whom they just guided across the court.

Instead of doing a run for the afternoon session, Bo and the counselors decided to take us to the pool to te

ach us how to cross train with free weights, med-balls, stationary bikes, elliptical machines and aqua jogging; as well as underwater workouts. Aqua jogging had more to it than meets the eye. It was very easy to incorporate the wrong form even when using an aqua jogging belt. I think underwater swimming was the toughest out of all the workouts. We moved quickly, with little rest, through the underwater swim, but each and every one of them helped us to swim with little breath.

One of the most fun parts of the camp, personally, is the bonding time that the campers share with one another. Even when some campers are not with the counselors we talk and tell stories as if we’ve been around each other for more than just two days. Bonding time is not given as some certain point during the camp, but each and every camper is conversing with one another 24/7. Bonding isn’t only among campers, but also with campers and counselors who converse and tell stories to bond all the time.

Day Two (Zero is a number day) Alison Shares her perspective...

Track Camp....Alison’s Blog Entry 7-9-10

Ah day 2. The soreness from yesterday’s core work has set in and 5:45 seemed to come much earlier than usual.

We got up and went for a 20 minute run, much of which was spent running many laps around the student union searching for Addison. Who knows what he was doing. Breakfast was alright, nothing like some good cafeteria food. Actually, the fruit was pretty good :) Next was a leadership lecture, which was really good, specially for those of us upper classmen looking to lead our team to the next title.

After that we did some more stretching with those nifty ropes. Thankfully that took long enough to use up all of our core work time so we got to go right to lunch. Mmmmm stale food :P

After lunch the girls and in my hall and I spent our rest time napping (a scary story kept us up last night), which was quite nice.

Arts and crafts was next. Just kidding, it was some activity to make us see the point of communication between teammates but to me, it was arts and crafts. Three people were on a team, and each member was assigned to make one part of a ring (the band, the crown and the diamond). For some reason all of our rings were hugely oversized, with the band big enough to fit over someone’s head. My team’s ring looked like a sailboat, it was pretty sweet :) I think I get the metaphor.

After that was even more stretching (I’m starting to think this is a stretching camp with some running on the side) and a loooooooong run. Well, really it was only about 60 minutes and the weather was perfect! Overcast sky, wonderful temperature and a

slight sprinkle the whole time. Mmmm! It was like heaven.

When we finally got back it was time for some drills and form analysis. Well, the filming for it.(We watched them later and had our form broken down--the good, the bad, the ugly).

All i really wanted was to go get a drink of water after 60 minutes of running, but no, we had to do drills. So I put up with the drills for a while. During form filming, the kickball game the music camp kids were playing got a little little out of hand and I almost got hit by an errant kick ball. I got in trouble later when we were watching playback for flailing my arms around until we figured out what was happening.

Next some of the girls showered up, me being one of them and went to dinner. Little did we realize that we still had a game of capture the flag to play later that night, but it was kinda lame anyway so it ended up ok.

Dinner was fun, my table exchanged stories about everything from running to prom to freaky teachers. Then we came back, played a game of capture the flag, which consisted of us standing around looking at each other a lot. It was hard to play with only 5 people on each team. Nicole fell down and hurt herself during the first game (chasing me) so that was bad. As Jesse would say “Sad Face”.

We wrapped up the evening watching and analyzing form, and of course listening to stories. Todd had some pretty great ones, as usual. Tonight involved being pulled over by cops for no good reason and getting the car searched. The best part was the line, with his Texas accent, “There was nothin’ in that car except for some pe-cans!” It was great.

I can’t wait for the next 6 days of camp, I love it here. All the people are great, super nice and pretty funny and of course, the running is fun too :D

Bo Reed Camp --Day One. Hilary Acer's Blog

Today marks the first day of camp. So many diverse backgrounds, mindsets, and lifestyles unite for eight short days, only because they share a love of running. Each runner leaves those lifestyles behind for a change of pace, so to speak. They pack their bags, they gather their strength, and they get ready to embark on the incredible journey we call the “Bo Reed High Altitude Distance Camp.” But it is so much more than a journey. I have already started to experience enlightenment.

The first stage of my enlightenment occurred when we headed out for our “easy run,” and I realized that high altitude has more of an impact than you think! The second was that the weatherman can lie on occasion – and when he says it will rain this afternoon, he actually means it will be very hot during the exact time of your run.

After a tough run, we returned to the Wilson Hall Dormitory where Mark Souza greeted us with a unique post-run treat – which was relieving because he was not filming us as we trudged in red-faced and panting. He taught us how to mix a drink of cold water, freshly squeezed lime, a pinch of honey, and Chia seeds, called Chia Frescas...a specialty of the Tarahumara Indians of North Central Mexico--the one's who run for 50 to 150 miles in sandals made of old tires and some leather straps. The seeds are not like sunflower seeds – they are smaller, like the seeds of a strawberry – and they have the tendency to expand and get slimy after being soaked in water for a while. I was shocked by how open everyone was to drinking the slimy-seedy water, and moreover, how refreshing it was!

During core workouts, we learned that when you count down from 10 – you are supposed to include zero (thanks to Todd). . . however that means we are really holding the position for 11 seconds; I guess that just makes us overachievers for a day.

My favorite activity of today, however, was the night-time story-telling. After our first lecture session about team dynamics, we moved into the open-mouth section where everyone shared their own stories. They talked about their backgrounds, their lifestyles . . . their bathing in other people’s showers, their worst falls while running, their battle wounds, their defining moments, their crazy relationships, and their spirituality -- and Leon’s and Wayne’s stories about their culture were fascinating!

I am sitting here in this nearly-empty lobby, going through the first day of camp, and all I can do is smile. I have come from a small town I call home. I have packed up my bags, mustered my strength, and tried to prepare for the tidal wave of growth and enlightenment that this camp presents. After the first day, I have learned so much that I am already wishing I had more room in my suitcase to pack up all these lessons, these experiences, and these memories up so I take them on my next journey.

Camp starts tomorrow!

Okay gang -
Camp starts tomorrow however keep in mind 5 day camp registration is open until the time of check in so even though the 8 day starts tomorrow ya'll can still register for the 5 day and for the 8 day as well.
okay have fun,
Bo

Greetings From the Oraivi Footrace

Quick Update from Juwan -
Early Registration Deadline has been changed to Monday July 19th 2010 for the Oraivi 8k Footrace, 2 mile Run and walk and the 1/2 Mile Kid Dash.
8k Race Fee 20$ on or before July 19th 2010.
2 Mile Fee = 15$ on or Before July 19th 2010.
After July 19th 2010
8k - 25$ up to day of race
2 mile - 20$ up to day of race.

for more information visit www.oraivifootrace.com
928.814.1589
Oraivi Footrace held August 8th 2010 in the Hopi Village of Oraibi, AZ

hello out there

hello world!
Okay well not the whole world or even half well hello some folks in the world.
Soon we are going to delete these posts and put up the Camp Blogs.
That's right come July 8th - the evening of - we will start having campers blog in their camp experience, get a few pics and that way you at home can follow along a little of each camp day.
Lately I have been busy with the camp that is why I have not blogged in a while.
Oh and I should note despite my busy schedule my Wife and I still make the time to continue our training for the Twin Cities Marathon. We are about to close out the base phase and uh oh the hard stuff is right around the corner! I'd write more about that but I've always been secretive in my coaching and training - just one of those insecure things.
okay see you in a few days - camp is coming.
have fun,
bo