OUR CAMP LEADERS: Today Michael Leary and Bill Beaumont were joined by another special guest, Rosa Haslip. She talked about the advantages of taking part in high school sports teams. Your training now can have extra benefits for you later, when it comes time for college.

Our camp leaders, Michael Leary and Bill Beaumont, have been in a lot of races and know a lot of secrets about winning! So keep reading!

Bill talked about what he does before, during and after a race to make sure he does his best. Of course, long before race day, he has been training to get ready. Trust your training, and come into race day with confidence, Bill says. You've eaten right, trained, rested, hydrated, and you know you'll be the best you can be.

Don't be nervous! You're gonna have butterflies in your stomach, but that's a good thing, Bill says -- it's not nervousness, it's excitement! Don't confuse that with fear. You can do it!

Bill says he doesn't want any surprises on race day. He gets all his equipment and gear together the night before, so he knows exactly where it will be on race morning. The night before the event, he has a big pasta dinner with whole-wheat spaghetti. Carbs are what it's all about before a race, because they give you energy.

On the morning of the race, you need to "top off your fluid and fuel tanks." Bill eats a pre-race carb meal, 200-500 calories, finishing 2 hours or more before the event. Oatmeal is great, or wheat toast and honey. Bananas and cantaloupes are good even up to a half-hour before the race, because they have fluid and are easy to digest. Stay away from proteins and fat (like milk on your cereal) because they take longer to digest. Bill likes orange juice before a race, it's a carb and it tastes good. (Sometimes he even puts it on his cereal!! You can tell he's really serious about racing!)

To top off your fluid tank, you need to drink 16 ounces of water or more during the last two hours before the race -- but not all at once. Of course, this means you'll need to do something else too -- plan for a bathroom break! Check out where the port-o-potties are located, and don't wait till the last minute to go: there'll be a long line. Mike says that if you're properly hydrated, you'll need to go 15 to 30 minutes before the race begins.

LONGER AND STRONGER: Today's camp ended with another run through the Fernandina Beach Greenway, and our campers went farther than before. When you train properly and are dedicated, you can increase not only your speed but your endurance, so you can run longer distances. Just remember the 10 Percent Rule -- don't increase your training mileage by more than 10 percent a week.

You need to get to the race site early, Bill and Mike say, for the port-o-potty check and lots of other good reasons. You need to be dressed for the event -- your shoes, shorts, shirt and race number, and chip-timer for your shoe if the race has them. Bill always gets there at least an hour early.

For one thing, you need to do your warmups and stretching. That helps your blood circulation and warms up your muscles so you can stretch. Start with a light run, and you can also try strides, running 20 seconds at a time at your race pace, five times. Once your muscles are warmed up, you can do stretches.

Bill likes to see the race course ahead of time. Sometimes he'll check it out the day before. Remember, he doesn't like surprises on race day! You can use your warmup run to preview the course. Most important to check out are the starting and finishing areas. Bill likes to check out at least the final half-mile or so of the course and remember landmarks that will tell him how much farther he needs to go to get to the finish. As you preview the course, be sure to look for rough areas of pavement (for a road race) or hills (for cross-country), and any sharp turns you might have to do. You should be finished with your stretches and strides by 15 minutes before the start.

Make yourself relax! Bill likes to close his eyes and breathe deeply -- he breathes in confidence, and exhales nervousness! He also thinks about happy thoughts, like a cool breeze along the beach, or a pep talk from his family and friends. Always think positive! Trust your training! He also tells himself before the race that he's going to run the pace he planned for, and he's going to win his age group. He's confident!

OK, now it's time to race! Bill and Mike shared a secret that many runners either don't know or forget about:

Your pace is the most important thing when you're racing. You learn about pacing yourself through training, and through the experience you gain by doing races.

FUN ON THE RUN: Joining us for our group run today were our special guests, Rosa Haslip (left) and Pat Hood (second from right) of Amelia Island Runners, along with our club president, John McBrearty.

When the race starts, lots of runners take off as fast as they can. That's not smart! Experienced runners call that "going out too fast." You need to pace yourself and try to maintain a constant speed that you can keep all the way to the end. That way, you'll have energy left later on in the race. It's hard to do, because you get caught up in the excitement of the starting line, and you don't want to be left behind. But you can actually finish ahead of people who are faster than you, if you run smart and run your own race, to meet the goal that you've trained for!

Runners talk about "positive splits" and "negative splits" in a race. In this case, positive is bad and negative is good! A "negative split" means you ran the last part of your race faster than the first part. This means you had energy left over so you could run hard at the finish. You can only do that if you pay attention to your pace and don't go out too fast! There's also a psychological advantage to this, Mike says. Suppose two runners are doing a 3-mile race. One of them goes out as fast as he can, while the other holds back a bit and sticks to the pace he trained for. The first runner is ahead in the beginning, but by the end of Mile 2, the second runner has caught up. When he passes the first runner, that's going to give the second runner an extra confidence boost.

Mike says another advantage is that when you're a bit behind other runners, you can see what they're doing but they can't see you. So you can react to what they're doing. Some runners will try to discourage their opponents by doing "surges," running as fast as they can for a while to try to build up a big distance between them and the others. They are tempting you to run their race, Mike says. You need to run your race, the one you trained for. Mike also says it takes 2 to 3 percent more energy to lead a race, just to break through the air. So, keep to the pace you trained for, run your race and finish strong!

Bill has some racing tactics of his own. He keeps his mind busy during the race. This keeps him from thinking about things like discomforts or being tired.

He keeps track of his stride, as he talked about on Day Three. His left foot should be hitting the ground 45 times in 30 seconds.

He also monitors his breathing, to make sure he's running a smart race with the right pace. For about the first third of the race, he should be breathing in (inhaling) every three footsteps, then breathing out (exhaling) for the next three footsteps. During the middle of the race, he rotates between that and inhaling every two steps, and exhaling every two steps. During the last third, when he's really running hard, he inhales each two footsteps and exhales the next two.

AFTER THE RUN: Here's Pat with two of our summer campers, Jazz and Jack Tomassetti, following our group run. As Bill said, when you're running a race, think about the happy ending!

Bill also thinks hard about maintaining his form, especially toward the end when he's tired. And he thinks about a happy ending -- how good it will feel at the finish line. Finally, he remembers to relax and enjoy the run, because after all, running is fun. With all this counting and thinking, he doesn't have time to think about negative thoughts!

Racing is a reward for your running and training, but there are other rewards, too. Our guest speaker talked about that. She's Rosa Haslip, a member of Amelia Island Runners. She ran for the University of Utah, and her daughter Melanie is the captain of the swim team at Florida International University.

Working hard at high school athletics isn't just good for you physically -- it can get you a scholarship! Melanie received one, and the swimmers also have their own study counselors. She has also been able to do a lot of traveling, to go to the swim meets. And she has enjoyed the special bond that you get from being on a team. When high school students go off to college, they often don't know anybody when they get there; it can be a lonely place. But from her very first day, Melanie had a connection with the other team members.

Rosa traveled with her running team, too, and got to see lots of places she never would have otherwise. Now she still gets to travel -- when she picks out places to run a marathon!

OK, now the race is over. What do you do? (Besides getting water and doing cool-downs and stretching, of course.)

Bill spends time evaluating his race, while it's fresh in his mind.

He had a race plan -- did he stick to it? What went well, and why? What didn't go as planned, and why?

Maybe you won, maybe you didn't. Maybe you met your goal -- or not. Sometimes you're disappointed. "Life's like that, and racing too," Bill said. And you can't win every race every time.

"I give myself 10 minutes to pout," Bill said. "Then I move on!" You can learn from what went wrong, and use it to run smarter next time.

Even if you don't meet your goals, you have a lot to be happy about: "You just added to the quality of your life. You're stronger, smarter, healthier and faster." And if you keep using what you learn, win or lose, you'll keep getting better!

Mike left our campers with some more excellent advice: The races are in the future, but now is the time to start doing the work that will pay off on race day. He said, "The state championship this year is being run right now." The runners who will win it are training -- right now.

Be serious about your training, Mike says. He challenged our high school campers to put in 10 miles of training during the next week.

Don't run if you're sick, but if maybe you're a little tired, or it's muggy (and it is!), do a training run anyway, Mike said. It will build your confidence. Next time you're tired or it's muggy, you'll know you can do it.

Remember what you've learned, listen to your body, and have fun!