Remember Some Heroes

Hello Crew -
Well - it's that time where we reflect on one of the toughest times in American History.
So with that:
Jeremy Glick - Judo was his sport of choice
Tom Burnett - High School quarterback
Linda Gronlund - turned down other activities to rebuild engines while in high school
Todd Beamer - Baseball, Basketball and Soccer while in High School
Sandra Bradshaw - just a gal not afraid. Once chased some thieves got their plate number and the cops did the rest.
Mark Bingham - Rugby - and this boy was good at this sport.
Most of these folks were in sports and with that knew and had experience in becoming unified and setting a goal and then going after that goal.
On September 11th 2001 they unified, they became a team, the set a goal and they went after that goal and these people brought down Flight 93. And in that process they set an example for us to follow...

Hello Again

Hello Folks - Sorry it has been a long time since I have posted on the Blog. I have been updating that face book page with Camp Photos and busy closing that all up as well as working and training.
The face book page is about stalemated so my focus is going to be on this blog and to generate a larger audience that wants to discuss elements of the sport of Distance Running.
Currently I am finding how selfish distance running really is. When I was younger and training on my own without a family it was okay and training was the main focus in my life. Here in the now years later juggling a job, a family and training I find it difficult. I am not training nearly as much as the old days kicking out the ancillary stuff - no time for the weight room, and no room for 2-a-days. However even at 70mpw I am fatiguing to the point where the kid is getting less play time. For that reason alone I will be joyous when this training cycle is done. Currently I am in my 4th week of the strength phase leading into the Twin Cities Marathon. (11 weeks of base phase) 1 down week for the camp)
I know there are some folks out there running on the other side of 40 and if you have some thoughts to share I'd like to hear them, and even those on the underside of 40 the sport has changed dramatically since my day and if you all have some insight we'd like to hear that too.
I will keep the blog updated on some of my training and perhaps some tips that I use in my revisit of training, would like to hear some of your tips as well as this is my first bout at an over 40 event.
First update: My first significant long run measured to be 18.75 miles through loops at Buffalo Park - I ran loops in order to take advantage of my self made aid stations. A few days after the run I ran the loop with Brian Shrader (one of my former athletes from - Sinagua and a bit of a high school phenom. He ran the 2nd fastest time for the 2 mile in AZ history his 8:53 is second to Jeff Cannada's 8:50. Soon Brian will be off to Oregon as one of their top recruits of 2010. Anyway he has this gps watch and was kind enough to join me for a run to measure the loop. In that run he shared with me some of his favorite high school memories, kind of cool to be a part of some of those. Anyway I run the long runs with easy progression and in doing so was able to muster 2:58:28 marathon pace for the 18.75 miles which was a might of a confidence boost because the standard of which I am entering the race is 2:40 and that 2:58 pace comes at 7,000ft and with still another 7 weeks to go before the race.
The long running will have to be my tune up in that the Flagstaff races are not conducive to the goals and racing regiment that comes with low altitude high quality racing. Here in Flagstaff race directors seem to be more interested in how many feet we can gain in elevation with in the first mile of a race, as if 7,000ft were not high enough.
that is all for now- time to fuel up - or in laymans terms - eat dinner.
Keep well and always:
Have fun!

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