Family School Staff and Students Get in Shape with Beautiful Campus Runs
By Jake H.
With nothing but the rhythmic reverberation of footsteps and the gentle breeze in your face, all the distractions of life are set aside. It is just you, a quiet country road winding through the hills, and a group that shares the same desire for relaxation in motion.
With the new summer light cutting through the morning fog, the silence screams serenity. The calm energy radiating from mother nature’s beauty washes away the ache of tired legs and sore feet.
The body and mind enter a state of complete tranquility.
As the weather warms up students and staff are becoming more active. Tommy Cummings is taking students out for bright and early runs on weekdays at 5 a.m. and weekends at 6.
Other staff members, Kurt Hock and Carlton Williams, have begun running with students during the last two periods of the day.
For the morning runs, Cummings requires students to be either RAs (Residential Assistant) or interns. Hock and Williams hand select the runners for the afternoon to ensure that they will keep themselves and others accountable to the school rules while out of sight from staff.
A typical run leaves the school and follows the road down to French Woods Camp and further if the runner desires to push on. The staff that oversees the run encourages the students to keep their own pace and not to exert more than they can handle.
Students are required to run in groups of two or more for safety reasons, such as cramping or injury. Students are instructed to run along with those who can keep the same pace or to run alongside of the staff who are willing to keep whatever pace is necessary.
In addition to the run, Williams has initiated a workout for students who want more. The workout begins with jumping jacks then moves to abdominal and arm exercises. To top it off, Williams ends with as many sprints as a student would like, up a sharply inclined hill. Williams claims that his workout will get a student in shape if the student will keep up.
The path taken is endlessly undulating. The run has its ups and downs, its lefts and rights, and its flat spots where a runner receives a break from burning legs. As it continues, the runners come to a beautiful road overhung by trees like umbrellas placed on a sunny beach. The further the group carries on, the more primitive the road becomes. Eventually the pavement flows into a swath of gravel carved through the hills.
“When I reach the four mile turning point, I no longer have any worries about my life; it is just me and mother nature,” said Bennett O. Once the point is reached where one can hear water spilling over picturesque waterfalls and splash through quaint mountain streams it is time to turn back.
On the way back to the school the runners begin to realize how far they have come and how they dominated a seemingly indomitable task. The path back is just as beautiful, if not more than the first pass because seeing the length of the ground covered by the run is unbelievably satisfying. After a good six to eight mile run, one can rest assured that the day was filled to the brim with both excitement and beauty.
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