Spokane Group Run

With the help of the Lewis and Clark Cross Country team, we met at Hart Field in Spokane for a Saturday group run with local Spokane schools. Spokane has a long tradition of distance running from the Bloomsday race in May to all the outstanding athletes who ran for the area schools. Gonzaga University Cross Country has been a program on the rise. To spend the morning with the local hight school athletes was a treat.

The athletes met at Hart Field which is south of downtown Sporkane, then ran down a green space in the center of a street and did loops at Manito Park. It was a warm Saturday morning, but the shade provided by the trees really helped.

We asked the athletes what are some of their fun summer activities.

Gonzaga Prep Girls

Maeve Donahue: We have team dinner runs every Wednesday. We just did a race this week called the Cherry Picker's Trot.

Emma Decker: We go to a lot of camps. We just went to a camp where we did a lot of team bonding like running to the lake and running together. It was a lot of fun.

Coach Jenn Decker: The boys and girls team are a collaborative effort. For instance, Saturdays we tend to do our long run together. We attended the Montana NW Running Camp together. We did the first session together in June. We organize runs together from Monday through Saturday. This is my first year coaching and our first year doing all this stuff.

Gonzaga Prep Boys

Zach Frazier: We do dinner runs where we all gather at people's houses on Wednesdays and then the host provides dinner for all the athletes.

Marshall Loew: I like the dinner runs and we get to run together as a team.

Henry Ehrbar: Also have to go with the dinner runs. It is really fun because that is the time most of the team shows up for practice.

Lewis and Clark Girls:

Sophia Wolf: We just got back from running camp last night. It was Farragut State Park in Idaho. We ran, made bracelets, dyed our hair and went swimming.

Gemma Cunningham: We do summer runs every morning, we have Lululemon days and we are going to try to get in some team dinners later in the summer.

West Valley Boys

Evan McKenzie: We sometimes go out in the summer and do a donut run. We basically run six miles on the Centennial Trail. So we will run there, buy donuts and then you can either run back or get a ride. You can either run six or twelve miles.

Brian McKenzie: Last year we started doing a thing where every Friday where someone different on the team hosted a run from their house. The host gets to pick a run from their house which maybe some of their teammates having done yet. Then after we hang out and have a little breakfast at their house. It is a good way to build community on the team and bring the team together.

Magnus Nelson: Some times we run to a spot by the river and kind of have run there.

University High School Girls:

Kyla Roberts: We do donut runs and we also do fun runs where we go and get lunch after with the team. We also go out to Green Bluff which has a ton of fruit. We will pick peaches.

Lewis and Clark Boys:

Parker Whitmore: We hang out with each other a lot after practice. We will go the lake, we will havre breakfast together from time to time and we just had team camp which was a great team bonding experience. We keep a good chemistry and keep each other as friends.

Click HERE for the photo gallery of the run from Hart Field in Spokane