From July 30 to Aug. 4, Shayna Mehta (11) and eight other runners from the cross country team attended summer training camp in the mountains of Big Bear. Coach Amanda Sandstrom began hosting the camps five years ago, having been inspired by another.
“Prior to me taking over the Cross Country program, some athletes would attend a camp in Idyllwild that was geared towards individual runners,” Coach Sandstrom said. “Runners from all over Southern California attended. I was able to attend as well and while I enjoyed the conditioning and knowledge that these students got from this camp, I wanted to create something that was specific towards Westview and allowed us to focus on bonding as a team. ”
The primary goal of the camp was to improve their physicality to prepare for the upcoming season. Their schedule, Sofia Welton (11) described, was quite rigorous and intensive.
Their excursions in the morning usually ranged between 4 to 7 miles and their afternoons consisted of easier runs and workouts. However, the location’s high varying altitude posed a different challenge.
“Being in Big Bear for the week, we were at a higher altitude compared to here in San Diego,” Mehta said. “So though our runs might have been similar to what we’d do back home, the elevation made it all the more difficult because the lack of oxygen up there forces our muscles to work harder and acclimate to the air by forming more blood cells.”
This, of course, was by design, Sandstrom said, to challenge the students. And indeed, it worked.
“Our last run for the camp on Thursday was tough,” Parker McDevitt (10) said. “From the base we had to make it to the top of Bertha Peak in Fawnskin. There was 1,341 ft of total elevation on the run very unevenly spread over 7.13 miles. I had a harder time breathing due to the thin air, but we made it to the top and the views were worth it.”
The runners cannot quite yet quantify how much they have improved, but their runs when they got back home felt much easier, McDevitt, Mehta and Welton said. This was not the sole goal of the camp though.
“We did a bunch of other activities like swimming, hiking, or even just playing board games or watching movies,” Welton said. “All of it was for team bonding so when the time comes during the season, we’ll be able to work together and push each other, but also be there for each other when we feel like giving up.”
McDevitt concurs with this. He said he felt as though the team-bonding aspect and being forced to live and spend time together was what made the camp special and memorable.
