Summer Camp #3

Mom & dad,

     What a week here at camp. The weather has been amazing and amazingly hot sometimes!! Got some faster runs in Luda and a new kid, called the attorney general, from Cabin 2. Sometimes he goes by AG because he is always an age group winner too. He took me out on some of the backhills. Wow a run it was. Climb up, up ,up and then now. My legs felt like they were on fire. Cooled off in the stream on the way back. A neighboring cabin got all cranky because thus felt we were too close to their personal space.

     In addition, this week Coach Aimee put me through two strength workouts and a tough track session. The picture I included is me sporting a 20lb vest and holding a 9lb bar. I had to lunge walk like that repeatedly up the hill. I actually look forward to the easier bleacher repeats, lol.

     Craft time this week was weak nothing cool to write back about. The friendship bracelets got put on hold. The fingerpaints were all dried up because some kid forgot to close them ip. Oh well!

     In the morning I head to a cabin on the beach. They want me to run the beach for a week and do some two-a-days by adding trail runs. One kid said he will try to teach me how to surf by close of the week.

P.S.  Still waiting on that care package. Hopefully, you have forgotten about me :-)

Love
Steve

Summer Camp Letter #2

Coach Aimee & me at the XC Meet

Mom & dad,

     Over the weekend we held a "time trial" XC race amongst the cabins. Cabin #4 brought a ringer from overseas, but as a team they didn't podium. The campers from Cabin #2 won it by a single point. It was a lot of fun for everyone. All of us from Cabin #8 were banned from the meet because of the raid we put on girls in Cabin #6. I am sure you got the letter already from the counselors. There will be a second XC Meet on July 15th. I hope I get to run in it. Here are a few pictures of the course from the weekend's race:



The course





     On top of that The President took a branch in the eye during trail work. Then the next day during a run with Luda & Green Hornet I tripped and took a hard hit to the ground. I crashed on to an abrasive root. When I crashed I was dreaming of Dairy Queen; next time I will pay more attention. I got back up and finished the 20+ mile run. The following day Coach Aimee cut me some slack during strength training and just focused on legs since I was still sore.

The mark of the Tiger, lol



      The weather has been good so we have been getting in a lot of outdoor activities. A few of the kids this weekend are going to Camp Mohican to have a little race with the kids from that camp. It should be a good time for them. Next weekend I get to go to Camp Virginia Beach. Coach wants me to cross train while there and get in a lot of miles.

     Outside of that not a lot else going on here at camp. I noticed on the calendar there are only a few weeks left here. It is amazing at how fast time flies. Well I have to head to activity time now. We are learning how to make friendship bracelets today.

If you can send more Cytomax that would be great.

Love you







Summer Camp Letter 1

Mom & Dad,

       Thanks for sending me back to the running camp for my third summer. This year looks like I am in Cabin 8 with the President, Green Hornet, Tumbleweed and a few others. Most of the other kids are back too. I am sure everyone will be on their best behavior, of course.



I got the top bunk, hooray!!



The spot....Cabin 8

       Over the first weekend some of us got out for a group trail run and knocked out 15 miles. This year the camp has a new coach "Coach Aimee." In addition to running our coach has been putting us through two strength lifting sessions. The first day was brutal. She called it, "a street fight gone bad." Well let's just say a real street fight would have been a lot easier.  On Tuesday coach had us running with the girls from Cabin 1. Let me tell you the First Lady and Luda are some fast girls. It was work, but we stayed with them on a very technical 12 mile trail run. Today coach had me sporting a 20 lb weighted vest while I was doing hill repeats. I have a feeling this year will be the toughest. Outside of that we have been doing some daily short runs.

      The weather has been getting hot here so in the afternoon, we get to do some kayaking on the lake. Outside of that we have the usual afternoon camp activities. Like on Wednesday, we had to write haikus. Here is the one I wrote:

Running in the woods is fun

Up a hill and down a hill

You can hear me breathe

 Not a lot is going on besides that in the first week. Except, Tumbleweed lost one of my water bottles in the woods. Can you send me a replacement?? Also this weekend there is a competition 5K between cabins. Here are some photos of the course. 





Check my flow

       I have one goto source to check my performance when it comes to running. Within 48 hours of running a 100 mile race I have my bloodwork drawn. This let's me know what is happening internally. After my first 100 in April 2009 I was a mess from the race and that prompted the bloodwork request by my doctor. Well I had a lot of abnormal readings over the three pages. The one that stood out the most was the CPK. Basically, this number indicates when your body begins to eat muscle to survive. The goal is to be under 250 IU/L. Well the I had hit just over 5100 IU. He looked over at me and sternly said do not ever run over 26.2 miles again. I was crushed.

      A few months later I ignored the advice and ran another 100 mile. This time I scored 3800 IU. Subsequently, each time I did another race my number continued to drop. In November 2011 now nine races later my test was just under 1900 IU.  Yesterday I headed up to see my progress on improving the number yet another time. This bloodwork was for the Massanutten 100 just recently. We sat down and he looked up calmly stating, "I can't believe you." Now I am all nervous about what is going to happen. " Your CPK is 244," he replied. Shock to both of us!

     After talking about the changes I made in training this year. He concluded that the personal training sessions were the source to moving the number so drastically. Each session was teaching my body how to handle those intense moments more efficiently. On top of that I had ran three 50 km races in the six weeks up to the blood test too.

     Overall, I had an almost perfect three pages of results. The only metric I was abnormal was my red blood count that just missed the mark. So now it appears my body can not tell the difference from sitting around watching tv or running a 100 mountainous miles. I will choose to run any weekend over tv, lol.
Thank you to Cytomax too. They have for four years help me improve my fueling during training and racing.

Here is the scientific breakdown of CPK:

Summer camp is here!!

In 2010 I decided that I miss summer as a kid. So I created an imaginary running summer camp for myself. Each day or weekly I would send home mock letters to mom & dad. Well it is time for my third summer camp. Stay posted as I chronicle another summer of fun and running!

Gotta go time to get on the bus..