History
Runner’s Camp History
During the summer of 1998 my good friend, Larry Trotter asked me if I would instruct his daughter on how to run. He knew that I had run track in college at Brevard Junior College and the University of North Carolina. He wondered out loud why no one ever held a clinic or a camp for kids that taught them how to run. There seemed to be plenty of other types of camps (e.g. baseball, basketball, wrestling, football, tennis, etc). Why not have a running camp? From that initial conversation came the idea for the Runner’s Camp. I knew that we had access to a track facility at the local high school and middle school. There were two track coaches attending the church I work at as outreach pastor (North Wake Church). In about six weeks time we had gone from an idea to our first camp. The first year we held the camp in early August. August in North Carolina can be a brutal month with high temperatures and high humidity. Unbelievably, we had very sunny, cool weather all week. There were 43 kids at that first camp. The staff consisted of three coaches and six ladies who oversaw our runners. We’d never been to or seen a track and field camp like ours before so we met each day after the campers left and planned the next day. We could tell right away that the kids loved it.
That year we held our end of camp track meet on Friday morning. Many of the parents took off work to attend. We have since moved the track meet to Friday night and this past year we had approximately 750 people there to watch their children run.
Each year we have added more kids and more staff. This past summer (2009) we had 75 volunteers and 500 campers. The larger the camp has become, the more complex the preparation and procedures for running the camp.
Rob Craig
The Runner’s Camp Director