Wednesday, August 18, 2010
One of the additions to camp this year are wristbands. Every camper gets one. Well, except for my cabin mate, Bernard England (Easton, Pa.) because he was dead to the world when co-director Bart Sessa came to our cabin to hand them out. Anyway, there are 10 different bands, each with a different inscription. Mine says, “iRun… can u?”
Additional bands are given as a reward, for example, you get a band if you are one of the first 100 campers to arrive to the tennis courts for our stretching sessions with Jim Wharton of Wharton Performance. Once you have an extra band, you’re in position to trade for a different one. To do that you have to meet someone you don’t know and learn something about them before you trade. First camper to snag all 10 earns a prize.
Now there’s a certain swagger that comes with being in boys Cabin 1. Having swag means being fashionably late, so when we strolled in as one of the last cabins for our 7:25 a.m. stretch routine, I knew we’d probably have to find another way to earn extra wristbands. Stretching with Jim Wharton aka “The Whisperer” is always a trip. He’s always more awake than everyone else and when he throws in a couple HOO-AH’S (think Robert De Niro in Scent of a Woman) or Good God’s (think James Brown), if the stretching doesn’t wake you up then the comedy does.
I didn’t go for the morning run. Cabin 1 went out for 8 miles. I jumped in Sessa’s truck. Cars drive through the routes to make sure none of the groups get lost or to pick up anyone who might have been forced to stop because they were either sick, injured or secretly decided to bail during the run. Bart and I mostly check on Cabin 1 since they had the longest run. They all looked smooth, clipping off 6:30’s a mile, which made me all the more glad to be in the car with Bart instead of needing to have someone scrape me off the pavement with a spatula.
Evan Bloomberg, another counselor, arrived late last night. Evan went to Northport and was coached by my college teammate Jason Strom, competed at Binghamton last year and has since transferred to Georgetown. He’s exactly what our cabin needed: full of jokes, outrageous comments and things not suitable for print but perfect for camp. As soon as I got out of bed he walked up to me.
Hey, I’m Evan.
Yeah, I know who you are. I’m Chris Hunt.
Oh shoot, I thought you looked familiar. I kept thinking, who’s the old guy?
I let that one slide. The next “old guy” comment will be followed by a shift kick. But for now he’s safe.
We had a core exercise workshop today where we went over about 15 ab exercises. It was more of an overview than a workout but it’s exactly the kind of thing that runners should be doing in addition to just pounding the pavement. I heard two guys from Fairfield Prep in Connecticut talking about how they could bring the ab work back to their cross country team and implement it before practice, which is the point of the workshop in the first place.
I actually made the second run today. Our lead counselor, Sean Brosnan, said we would only go 2-4 miles and go really easy, like 7-7:30 pace. That sounded perfect to me. Yes, I said yesterday that I was on crutches last week. Yes, I know that I probably shouldn’t be running. Yes, I know that if I hurt myself I’ll be called an idiot for the remainder of the summer.
But look, I have to watch kids run twice a day everyday and all I’m supposed to do is watch? Gimme a break.
We went about 3 miles. Sean said we were around 6:50 pace. And I’m still alive. Please pause here and give me a round of applause.
All the random stuff…..
Funniest thing I heard today: “I don’t run in the morning unless I look good.” – Evan Bloomberg as he styled his hair before the morning run.
- Sean Brosnan is really an endless wealth of knowledge for our cabin. He was coached by Steve Scott for two years, 2007-08, while he lived in San Diego, Calif., and remains close to Scott to this day. Scott, is considered one of the greatest milers in American history.
- Three-time Olympian Jim Spivey was the guest speaker today. Spivey made the 1984, 1992 and 1996 Games in the mile. He showed us a video of him winning the 1992 Olympic Trials at age 32, coming back from a fifth-place finish at the 1988 Trials. He told an honest story about what most runners need – perseverance. He also made a great point, telling the camp to write down their goals but also to tell someone. Sometimes athletes like to keep their goals private. This way you’re held accountable to someone other than yourself.
- Weirdest thing I saw today: My cabin mate, Joe DiRienzo (Sachem East) bought a pair of Nike Victory spikes from the makeshift 2nd Wind store here. I was coming from lunch and saw a group of girls huddled in a circle nose-deep into his new kicks, deeply inhaling. Just weird. And I told them so. Later they found me at lunch and told me that they all walked over to the store. A room full of new sneakers. They did a lot of sniffing. When I was young, I remember kids sniffed magic markers. I’m not sure if this is better or worse.
- During our dead time between runs I learned there’s a track and field game iPhone application. We played outside the cabin while listening to Bob Marley on someone’s iPod. … iPhone, iPod, iRun, iClearlydontknowenoughabouttechnology.
- They always remind us that The Running School is a family. Here’s an example: Al Berkowsky started the camp almost 40 years ago. Co-directors Bart Sessa and Sean Rice met in Cabin 5 in 1984. Bishop Ford coach Larry Medina, the senior counselor in boys Cabin 7 coached Sean Rice when he was a high schooler at Ford. Sean’s son, T.J. is currently in the youth cabin with three Syosset graduates, Thomas Wilkens, Tommy Broulliard and Josh Suen. Bart coaches at Syosset.