Slippery When Wet

With Christmas break coming to an end and the start of a new year here, now is a good of time as any to do a post on some winter running. This post is primarily about the Big River Running Winter Distance Camp that I attended this past week.

But before I get to camp, I’ll start with last Sunday December 26th. It was the day of the 10m Frostbite. Zach Boyle (HOF) and I helped pace Coach Traughber through his marathon workout. We were just about right on the 7:15 per mile goal pace the whole time. Also there in his Marquette gear was former Spartan Connor Callahan who finish second in a little over 55 minutes, and Rob who ran the race as work out finishing 7 in just under 58 minutes. Zach and I ended up running over 12 miles; it was great to catch up with him and we had blast running together—just like old times.

On Monday through Thursday I hung out with about 50 other middle school and high school boys and girls interested in distance running. The camp counselors were coaches, college runners, and Big River employees. Each day we listen to a running talk, go for a run, learn some core and drills, eat lunch and play a game.

Monday
We listened to a talk on motivation. As part of it I made an ornament with my motivation on it: the Milk Table and the School Record. Interestingly, I wrote this down while sitting next to the 1600 record holder, Jeremy Doherty. Then we went on a run Queeny Park. I had a chance to run with Eric Fernandez. Eric currently runs for the University of Arkansas, and he was a 2-time state champ at Parkway West. It was really awesome to run with someone at that level. He was a lot fun to be around during the week and I enjoyed meeting and getting to know him. I am a proud member of “Taking Babies, Taking Names” (the nickname he gave the group of guys that ran with him).

Tuesday
I heard the famous “Spoon Speech” which deals with the importnace of training. We also learned about workouts and putting together a training schedule. For the run, we did 8 times up Dog Museum Hill at Queeny Park. As many of you know it’s quite the hill so it wasn’t just a jog in the park. Rob came and joined in on the fun. I ran the cool down with DeSmet grad Coach Porter from SLUH. He did half of the hills with us and it was cool to get to know him. After the run we watched some races including Eric running a 28:37 10k at Standford last track season, and Ben and Matt (co-owners of Big River) going 1-2 in an indoor mile at Mizzou in just over 4 minutes. I got through the first two round of Big River Madness, the camp game. It was a bracket trivia challenge with a sweet prize pack going to the winner. Best 2 of 3, winner moves on. First question on camp, the second on running, and if need be the third on pop culture.

Wednesday
We did a panel discussion that had questiona about every facet of running. Everyone is so experienced and I was able to learn a lot. This day I ran Lutheran South grad Adam Behnke who currently runs for Columbia University in New York City and Aimee Bonte who runs for Mizzou. She's a 2-time state champ for Rockwood Summit HS. Once again, I meet some great people and had an awesome time.

Thursday
Camp moved from CPop (Christ Prince of Peace) to SLUH. This was for the camp race—a 2 mile at Forest Park. I won the race in 10:53 running a big negative split. My team, Slippery When Wet, finished in 3rd out of 5. After the race I cranked out another 2 miles at tempo pace before heading back to SLUH for pancakes. Oh and of course Chocolate Milk. The final rounds of Big River Madness were played. I lost in the quarters to the eventual champion getting knocked out on a Justin Beber question. After this I hung out with the counselors for about an hour just to kill some time.

All-in-all I really enjoyed camp. It was a very good way to get my runs in over Christmas Break which can be a bit of a challenge sometimes. I had a great time and meet some great people. It was a blast.

REMEMBER: 2 months till track. Take care of business now so we’re ready to go. As the camp motto says, “Everybody runs in the summer. Champions train all year long.”