Lyndsay's Camp Log

Words by Lyndsay Harper

Friday

The blinker ticks as we turn off the two-lane highway onto a coarse gravel road. It’s lined with overgrown grass.  Tall trees frame a rolling landscape, punctuated with sprawling houses. We pull up to our own house, foreign, but welcoming.  We’ve just arrived at fall training camp. 

There’s an air of giddy excitement before embarking on a weekend of unknown possibility. New faces, new trails, new friends. You can feel it as we begin hoisting bags out of cars and through the front doors. The entrance greets us with a scratchy note “please leave shoes in mudroom.” We hastily de-shoe and step into the living room, anxious to meet the whole crew.

An immediate bond is forged before words are even spoken. We’re all obsessed with running. Some are fresh out of university, some amid their fifth year of marathon training. Many with race goals, others with nothing but a passion for logging miles.

No need to justify, here. We’re all masochistic and devoted runners. It’s simply in our veins.

We shake hands and “officially” meet each other: 3 women, 5 men. We’re given a training schedule. Eyes bulge as they go over the workouts, mileage, and (very) early morning start times.

And so it begins. We scatter throughout the house to find beds for ourselves. We put on our running gear and head out for the first run – 60 minutes, easy. We find a windy road, dappled with light and shaded by trees beginning to show the first signs of fall.

You can get closer to someone during 60 mins of running than you can on a first date. Something about sweating next to someone, keeping pace, and discovering a new place with them… it’s intimate. We tell each other where we’re from, how we got there, and who knows who.  

Returning to the house, we all go into our separate post-run routines: stretching, core, shower-beer. A poor wifi connection is just what’s needed. People are inclined to mingle, pick up a book, sit on the porch and chat about the random stuff of runners’ minds.

While logging miles, we realize a few of the athletes are just short of their highest-mileage training weeks ever. Unacceptable. Peer pressure and overly-competitive DNA forces them to squeeze in 1.5 more miles before we sit down to dinner. We rally and head out into the night, claiming 100+ mile weeks for some. Satisfied, we come back to the house for a carbo-loaded dinner and immediately head to bed, knowing hill repeats await us in the morning.

SATURDAY

Early start the next day. Coffee is a necessity. We tumble into vans that will take us to our hill. Most of us are silent – the early morning weighing on us like a mute button. 

We arrive at the park and start jogging through an impressive trail system that leads us to a 200-meter hill. Girls first, then guys. The hill is steep and covered with gnarled roots and loose rocks. A trail runner’s dream, a track runner’s nightmare. We survive the hill repeats, ending our last one hunched over and breathing hard. Time for a nap.

Back at the house, the kitchen becomes the most popular room – the epicenter for conversation and the one true way to a runner’s heart: snacks. Endless snacks. We feed ourselves and some peel away for naps, while others settle in for a rare, but exciting televised track meet. It’s a runner’s getaway. 

The afternoon run comes quickly – a shakeout to prepare us for our final session on Sunday morning. The guys and girls run together, streaming through the woods that lead to Walden Pond. One of the guys tells a story that lasts the entire run. He’s very thorough in his telling and the forty minutes fly by. We arrive at the pond, sticky with sweat, and immediately dash into the cool water for a post-run dunk. 

The evening has crept up on us. It’s our last night together. There’s an unspoken agreement – we will make it one to remember. After showers and dinner, we gather in the family room for a game of charades-like shenanigans. Things get heated. It’s a good match. Everyone’s in stitches while someone acts out “speed bump” and then “a sh*t ton of rosé” at lightening speed. 

Infused with IPAs and a few more games, the night is full of laughs and candid conversations. No one wants to go to bed for fear the fun will end. But slowly, one by one, everyone fades off towards much-needed sleep. Happy. Buzzed. Ready for the last day.

SUNDAY

We drive to a grass loop – 400s for the girls, 800s for the guys. The grass is slick with morning dew and muddy patches litter the trail. It’s the last workout of the weekend. The last hard effort. Knowing this, we push through the early morning fog and lack of sleep from the night before. 

We hammer out the repeats, picking up the pace with each one. The workout flies by, almost too quickly. We stretch out together, lingering and moving slow – a subconscious attempt to make these last hours of camp last just a little longer. One more stretch. And then another. Eventually we get up, grab our gear and head back home. 

All packed up and ready to go. The house is no longer foreign, rather, full of familiar interactions and meaningful moments: sweating together, joking together, suffering together – the unique bond of teammates.  One last look at the house before we all leave our separate ways. With a few more miles under our belts, we embrace our new friends, teammates and training partners. But it’s not goodbye. 

“See you next year?” 

“You bet.”