Personal Narrative: Summer Run

Summer runs- Two days. Two days was how long the break between training for track, and training for cross country started. As a team our goal was to have the top 12 guys run 500 miles each, which at the time seemed to be an unreasonable goal. However Coach Hampton was confident that this was a reachable goal and encouraged not only the top 12 guys, but the the JV guys as well, to join in and train with the top 12.This was the summer of 2016, I had just had track state and made it to finals for the 4x8 only to get my relay disqualified because I cut into the inside lanes of the track before the cut off line. This had been our goal all season, make it to state, get to finals, and see what happens. Causing my relay to get disqualified is one my worst moments
Why would you go to a Camp for running? That's exactly what i was thinking when the varsity cross country guys tried to convince me to go to a Wisconsin running camp. Personally i thought the idea of a running camp was ridiculous, why would i want to pay someone to so they could “teach” me how to run? According to my teammates though, it was worth it to go and “learn” about running. I had never needed anyone to ever really tell me how to run, it had always come naturally and i was fairly self confident in myself when it came to running. The camp turned out to be a lot different from what i expected it to be.The first day that we all were there, the instructors, which were runners on the Wisconsin cross country team, took us out to a park and gave everyone the option of three groups, the slow group, the middle group, and the fast group. I decided that because i had been conditioning at the start of the summer that the fast group would be easy to keep up with, that was a mistake. That first run at the camp was the hardest 4 mile tempo run i've ever done, afterwards i realized i had over estimated how much i had actually trained compared to everyone