During most of the summer, JCHS cross country runners don’t usually work out as one large group together. In a sport like cross country, getting miles in is key, so individual runners will get their work in either locally, at other camps or even while on vacation.
But with the season approaching and a task of defending region titles and strong finishes in the state looming, the Greyhounds and Lady Greyhounds did what they usually do each summer – headed to Brevard College in the mountains of North Carolina for a week-long camp.
“Runners are a different breed of kids. This checks all the boxes that we need for a week to get better,” Moore said. “The main thing is to get all of your varsity kids together.
Some of them have vacation.
I had some go to BYU for a cross country camp. No one is in town at the same time, so it’s good when they are all together at one time. Our kids, they can do their mileage on their own, but when they are there as a team, you can see what you have and it’s always good to see that.”
Going to camp at Brevard is hardly new for the Greyhounds.
Moore says that he has taken runners to camp there now for 10 years, and that over time interest from Jones County runners to head there has grown.
“This is my 10th year going up there. We started out with four, then to six, and then to 12. This year, we had 30. We bring some of our elite middle schoolers and let them go,” Moore said.
“It’s word-of-mouth thing, and what they do up there works.
They get a relationship with other kids and teams. I’ve got multiple kids now that were campers, and now they work there as counselors.”
Over the course of the camp, the Greyhounds and Lady Greyhounds take on multiple courses, all of which have their own characteristics.
“There’s five different trails that we do, and all of them have a different difficulty level,” Moore said. “You can see the kids develop each time they go; it’s fun to watch.”
More than that, Moore said, is what the JCHS runners pick up when they are not running.
“They really listen to the college coaches talk about things like recovery, injury prevention, nutrition. They (talk about) some strength and agility stuff. You see kids with notebooks out taking notes on this stuff. they don’t want to forget what’s being said, and that means a lot to me. It means they are getting a lot out of it.”
