Imagining More HS Camp Write up in DSE Newsletter
IMAGINING MORE RUNNING CAMP
by Woody Szydlik
Published July 2023
A few weeks ago, I finished in less than twenty minutes on the Rainbow Falls 5k. This was surprising, because I had not come anywhere close to this fast on
a 5k for many months. I had run a challenging race the day before, so I wasn’t even fresh, which made my time even more surprising. I have since decided that this
was because of the running camp, hosted by Olympian Shannon Rowbury and her high school coach Andy Chan, that I had finished a little more than a week before. It was amazing how much information was packed into those five half days, and how this yielded near-instant results.
First, we learned about how to have better form, and how to use stretches and shoes to stay away from injury. We learned about the importance of a warm-up before exercises and races, what foods to eat before and after exercising, and how to make a training plan for a big race. These were all running-specific, and, although they have and will help me a lot on running, the final day yielded something better.
For the last bit of the last day, we listened to Shannon Rowbury talk about her experience as a professional runner. We heard her describe the intense emotions of nervousness and sometimes defeat that she felt during her career, and how she worked through these. These lessons of perseverance go so far beyond running. I think that the ability to recognize defeat as a way of seeing areas that need improvement, not as something that is blocking our way, is one of the qualities that helps us the most in achieving our goals. Shannon is a living example of this. She told us that her strategy for defeat is to always leave with some sort of information that will help her avoid the same mistake in the future. I am sure that I will use this strategy for dealing with defeat many times in my life. This, coupled with all of the running-specific knowledge that I gained during the other days, made Shannon and Andy’s running camp a fun and valuable experience for me.
Check out this TV news story on the Imagining More Camp! https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/ shannon-rowbury-san-francisco-camp/3245267/
For more on Shannon Rowbury’s Imagining More Foundation, visit https://www.shannonrowbury.com/ new-page.
