Day 10 - Hills workout with Olympian Sophie Duarte and very fun afternoon

This morning we had the privilege to run with Sophie Duarte - European cross country champion and 5th place at the 2007 World championships in Osaka on 3000m steeplechase (PR on the Steeplechase: 9:25, National French record holder. She alos has a 15:14 PR on the 5k). Sophie Duarte is from Toulouse and comes several times a year to train in Font-Romeu. She was very happy to meet for the first time a group of young American runners there. After 20min warm up jog and some drills led by Sophie, the workout was 5x (150m + 120m), focusing on form and breathing. We then took advantage of the sun to do some foot work in order to show our campers some exercises that could prevent injuries. We also worked on arms form, as that is something a lot of runners are lacking. We finally did a few rounds of core & abs, but that's a given.

The afternoon was fun to say the least, and all activities were less than 5 min drive from the hotel. The girls went to a treetop adventure park (with zip-line etc) while the boys chose to do laser game. They will tell you about it and they loved it! One camper even said " best experience of my life" !! Back to the hotel earlier, the boys played soccer. They will sleep well tonight for sure...

We finished the day with another cool game after diner : Twister 3D - each team has to use parts of their bodies to hold the biggest amount of papers in between them in a limited time. It got competitive yet super fun. We love how everyone is giving their best at the games and how passionate they get about them !

Finally we took some time to get feedback from the campers on how they like the camp (this was the second time we did an assessment - The first time after few days in Font-Romeu we asked them how they felt about different themes such as transportation, food, housing activities, French classes, training, etc. An example of the improvements we were able to bring is that most campers were missing eggs for breakfast so we talked to the chef and since then he is making omelettes every morning). We asked everyone to tell us one thing they like(d) about the camp and one thing the dislike(d) to get some constructive feedback and see how we can make their stay even greater.

The "sad" news is that tomorrow morning at 11am, we will leave Font-Romeu for good. The great news is that we will take the road to Port-Vendres, city located by the beautiful Mediterranean sea where we will spend the night (4 apartments are waiting for our group).