This is my favorite time of year. The time of year when high school runners are boiling with excitement and nervousness. This is the time of year for Steens Mountain Running Camp, the best running camp in the country. I feel very confident saying that, even though I am extremely biased and haven't visited all the camps in the country obviously.

My 2008 Steens experience started last Tuesday when I rolled into camp later than I had anticipated after one of the worst cases of food poisoning in my life. Never eat at the Scholtsky's Deli in Medford, OR. I was still able to get up on the mountain and contribute to the set-up effort.

The set-up crew of Max King, David Laney, John Mantalas, Pete Voskes, John Mantalas, and myself all decided to hike down into Wildhorse Lake on Friday after a long week of work. The camp use to have a competition there called the Wildhorse Lake assault, in which Johnny "Wildhorse" Truax is named after. It is a 800 meter climb from the shore of the lake up over this lip of rocks with no clear path, at 9,000 feet elevation. Truax is the only high school athlete to ever run it under six minutes and to not stop running during the assault. Max actually ran it while we there, he ran it in 6:50. Max had been eating lots of jerky and did absolutely no warm-up however, but it puts in perspective how impressive Truax's record is.

I'm really excited for camp this year and the different role I will have. This will be the first time I will not be a camp assistant. I was fortunate enough to be able to do that for eight years and am glad others will have the oppotunity.

The Steens campers will be rolling in this afternoon and we've got some more preparation to do here in Burns before heading up, so I better get going. I'll check in next weekend and write a summary of the first session.