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.