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Republished with permission granted by The Washington Newspaper Publishing Co. LLC d/b/a MediaDC. Back to Montgomery Journal articles
Cross Country-ers Enjoy 'Summer of '42'
By Katy Williams
Special to the Journal
CAPON BRIDGE, W. VA - Imagine a morning in the just-over-the-state line town, when runners string out along a twisted road that descends to a river, then climb the hill to complete an eight-mile circuit, finishing in time for breakfast.
Some 100 young runners, many on the verge of their first cross country season, are going to remember last week - and its early morning runs - like the "Summer of '42." There was no beach at this running camp, only mountain trails and a lake, but the kids were misty-eyed when leaving all the same.
The occasion was the Buffalo Gap Running Camp, a week-long gathering of some of the county's finest cross country coaches and runners whose teams are normally rivals come the season opener in mid-September. But no one was keeping track of team scores last week, only distance, as runners logged upwards of 60 miles.
"I know I did 65 miles, and my distance was light compared to some of the others," said Andy White, the Churchill coach who organized the camp for its second year.
White led the runners' retreat with Kennedy coach Al Bellman, Woodward coach Greg Dunston, and Seneca Valley's Randy Changuris. Gerry Link of Cabin John Jr. High, Chris Elliot of the Landon School, Ralph White of Roosevelt in Prince George's County, and Bob Jasper, the former Sherwood football assistant trying cross country coaching for the first time, rounded out the staff.
Tom Cuff, the William and Mary-bound Seneca June graduate; Joe Abernathy, a Woodward '78 grad now at West Virginia; John Holcomb, running as Furman's first man out of Kennedy; Mary Jane Drengwitz, the Georgetown runner who led Northwood to state cross country championships; and Erika Wiemann, the Cornell runner from Springbrook acted as counselors.
The campers ran in small groups with staff leaders twice a day, and listened to lectures on aspects of running - training, racing, blisters, weightlifting, footwear, and the psychology of the sport. Wiemann, a vegetarian who completed the Boston Marathon last April in less than three hours, talked about diet, and each coach shared his specialty during evening sessions.
Dunston talked about runners' first aid and prevention of injuries, and Bellman stressed the importance of keeping a running diary for training references. Andy White described how wightlifting runners and Link, reading "The Little Engine That Could" to his groups, took on the psychology of running hills.
Reeks talked about runners' physiology with fresh knowledge derived from a six week long course he attended this summer in California.
Elliot, in the meantime, led a group of the oldest, most experienced runners in determining the kind of runner they are with regard to racing.
Runners who have been 'names' and arch rivals in past seasons were roommates for the week; runners who are novices were their teammates. Campers divided into groups for 'initiative games,' a series of tasks that became more complex day by day, culminating with the 15-person groups scaling a 16-foot wall. One group, the first of any team between the two years of camp, was able to lift over all its members.
The interdependency between teammates fostered by the 'initiative games' is similar to runners' dependencies on each other during cross country practice and racing.
Changuris, who involves the tasks in the 'Search for Adventure' class he teaches at Seneca Valley, led the 'initiative games,' while Gerry Link introduced the 'New Games' with its 'everybody-wins-don't-worry-about-winning' strategy.
Besides bringing up a greased watermelon from the lake bottom, playing various sorts of mass tag with Link's variations, and scaling the wall, a final activity - a camper-initiated one - was a dance.
"You should have seen this one girl," White said. "She had been shy all week, but she was dancing all night."
The camp coincided with the final week before cross country practice gets underway, and the mileage the campers ran served as a padded distance base before the season opens Sept. 18 with the novice meet at Lake Needwood.
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