Wildwood Running hosted their annual running camp for girls in the Oregon Coast Range on the last week of June. On Thursday, the girls spent the day in Eugene to watch the Olympic Trials. Co-founders of Wildwood Running Marie Davis Markham and Robyn McGillis coach high school athletes in Portland, Oregon and host group runs, clinics and a running camp that focuses on helping the female athletes grow as runners and people.
Markham and McGillis traveled with eighty girls and nine college age counselors to Eugene on the Thursday of the Olympic Track and Field Trials. The camp arrived to the On Running group run where they ran with Juliette Whittaker who recently made the US Olympic team in the 800.
After a lunch at the University of Oregon, students then arrived at the Runnerspace house to hang out, watch highlights from the Olympic Trials, draw and play various games. The featured event was a presentation by BYU women's coach Diljeet Taylor. Taylor encouraged the girls to be coachable and celebrate moments in the sport. She also explained that it is important to help each other since "we are in it together."
Afterwards a panel of athletes competing this week spoke to the camp. The panel included Jaida Ross from the University of Oregon who will throw the shot put later in the trials, Juliette Whittaker from Stanford who qualified for the Olympic team in the 800 and Nia Akins of Brooks Beasts who won the 800-meter trials and is headed to Paris. They spoke about how they got into the sport, how they stay positive, favorite post meet meals and fielded a number of questions from the campers.
After the panel discussion, the campers hung out at the Runnerspace house and ate pizza. Thanks to On Running, who provided 90 tickets, the campers were off to the Olympic Trials to watch preliminary events and an exciting women's 3000-meter steeplechase final.
Photos from Thursday's events are HERE
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