Into the Woods: With Trees & Trails, Runners Build Team

The Knox College cross country teams spends three days of preseason practice on the forest and prairie trails at the College's Green Oaks Biological Field Station; below, two runners and the head coach talk about what makes it a unique team-building experience.

In a sport that's strongly individual -- where one of the most famous literary works is The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner -- how do you build a team? Knox College cross country head coach Alex Moreno starts by taking the runners to a cabin and turning them loose in the woods. 

"I had done some training camps in California as a high school student, and I loved the experience, and I wanted to create something like that for the Knox runners," Moreno says.

A top distance runner when he was a student at Knox in the 1990s, Moreno became head coach in 2011. Every year since then, Moreno has taken his Prairie Fire men's and women's cross country teams to Green Oaks, Knox College's biological field station, for an intense yet friendly preseason workout.

Located in rural Knox County, about 20 miles from campus, Green Oaks features 700 acres of forest, lake and prairie habitats; it's the site of a highly regarded long-term prairie restoration project.

For three days, the men's and women's teams -- some 30 runners in all -- are literally on their own. They live, cook, eat, and sleep in Schurr Hall, a rustic residence and classroom facility that, during the school year, also serves as headquarters for one of Knox's immersive academic programs, Green Oaks Term.

And the runners hit the trails. 

"It's one of the hardest places we run all year," says Josh Tvrdy, a junior from Tucson, Arizona. "You're running in the forest, you're running a hard gravel hill. Up and down, up and down, there's not much flat at all. I think it helps get conditioning faster. You don't realize 'this is really hard,' because it's so beautiful around."

Teammates are also around each other, 24x7.

"Going to Green Oaks is a perfect opportunity  to build us as a team," says Aly Eastman, a junior from Kewanee, Illinois. "We're living in the house together, cooking together, cleaning together. We grow as a family and appreciate each other as a family. When you're doing those individual runs, whether you're running with someone or not, you're really aware of your team, and how your hard work is affecting everyone else."

The Green Oaks preseason builds team dynamic in a unique way, according to Tvrdy. "On campus, we're scattered in different dorms. At Green Oaks we're all in the same space. That causes collaboration that you don't normally get on the track. You have to learn how to get along. Our survival out there really depends on our work together."

Moreno also believes in linking your sport with your natural world. "The terrain at Green Oaks is especially valuable for a cross country runner. We live in the middle of town and run a lot in town. Green Oaks is a full-on, 100% exposure to uphills, downhills, soft ground. The more you engage in that type of running, the more naturally you body will adapt, and the more comfortably you'll be able to run. I remember telling one of the runners, 'We're going downhill for a good quarter-mile, you know what's coming our way when we turn this corner -- a quarter-mile uphill!' "

"One of the most positive experiences that a Knox runner will have is preseason at Green Oaks," Moreno says. "We have a book that we write in, every time we go to Green Oaks. Students look back, and they see their growth, their experiences. Some put things in writing that they can't say verbally to other people. I get comments from alumni, who say, 'Thank you, Green Oaks changed my perspective on running.' If you can do that for a runner, especially if they're going to run for the rest of their lives, you've really contributed in a small way to the quality of their runs."

In Pictures:

• 2015 cross country season, including meets, preseason practice at Green Oaks and the annual trash pick-up run through Galesburg
• Classes and programs at Green Oaks, including the legendary "Prairie Burns" held each spring