Not sure if I mentioned this, but I grew up in Colorado. An amazing state. An amazingly hard state to run or do any physical exercise in as well. Running there as compared to sea level makes me feel that not only am I out of shape, my body is taking the lack of oxygen personally.
My father loves to quote to me (every time I go through an experience like that) that "Pain is weakness leaving your body." Thanks dad. So what do I do about my double calf cramps? Apparently pain is a prisoner desperate to break out at any and all levels of intensity.
Now that I have moved to the east coast I rarely get to visit home much less experience the beauty and the pain that working out in Colorado allows. So when I was given the chance to head out there for an ultimate training camp, I jumped at the chance. This camp was not just your basic summer camp but a collection of division 1 athletes playing sports together, learning how to play to the highest level possible. In essence, we were taught how to endure.
To give a brief overview, the camp starts out nice. You play some volleyball and feel generally athletic. You do this for about 3 days and then you run directly into the grand event of the week. The SPECIAL - a 36 hours competition with about 3 hours of sleep in between. The SPECIAL(which one would think by its name is fun) makes all other tiredness look as easy as a nap. Below is a list of what each team does starting at 3pm on Thursday of the camp and ending at 12noon, the following day:
6 games of volleyball
6 games of Ultimate Frisbee
6 matches of Tug'0'war
Push up contest
1 hour of swimming relays
2 hours of basketball
3 mile road race (as a team carrying a tire and a 2x4)
kickball
sprinting relays
1 mile hill run (picture of the mountain we ran up above)
Talk about pain and endurance bu it comes down to the clear fact, that if you live through it, you will learn more about yourself as an athlete than you could ever have imagined. In fact in a less clear, rather counter-intuitive fact, is I look back and realize it was the best and worst moments of my life. I have found that those moments in sport are separated by a very thin line and more often than not, make you feel the most alive. So much so that I went back the next year and did it again. Though I'm not sure what exactly that says about me, all I know is that I would do it again if you gave me the chance.
