Swiss Running Challenge
Challenge
15
-
18
2,320m up & 2,980m down
Trail, Hills
80-120 km
63oF - 83oF
Please Join Us - Early Bird Rates Available Until January 31
The mission of Sparks challenge camps is to intensively train athletes in key areas of athletic development while exploring their personal relationship with performance.
Pursue Running Self-Mastery in the Swiss Alps
Our Swiss Running Challenge is designed for high school distance runners seeking to train in the Swiss Alps in a small, thoughtfully engaged group seeking to define better personal relationships with performance at a 1:3 staff to athlete ratio.
The program informs athletes' approach to running performance by enabling self awareness to guide independent development. This program balances speed sessions with longer, lower heart rate runs, to emphasize the importance of workout variability and exercise science.
We'll start the program with acclimization and speed work in Lucerne, known for its beautiful mountains and lake. The trails are relatively flat with good footing, and the food is Swiss organic and chef-cooked. The lake is so clean and clear you can see to the bottom, and we utilize our access to a private dock for recovery swims.
The group may also enjoy some hiking on steep trails in the Lucerne area before we change venues to the world famous waterfall-laden Lauterbrunnen Valley, at the base of the Eiger - for distance work.
The program has full-time access to a physiotherapist and is coached by Swiss and US collegiate coaches. Sparks utilizes classroom teachers and high school distance coaches on the operations side to ensure safety, group cohesion, and effective reflection on daily performance.
Some photos in the gallery are from our Swiss Rowing Challenge camp.
Go For The Environment
Go To Pursue Self-Mastery
Go For The Group
Admissions
Our challenge two week programs offer athletes a chance to improve their athletic self-awareness so they may better pursue performance.
First: you should aspire to improve your perspective and reflection as an athlete through running.
Second: you need the desire to independently integrate new ideas into your training to enhance physical and mental performance.
Finally: you seek to improve on the execution of your current training through strength and fitness.
Step 1: Initial Application
Submit your registration and pay the $895 deposit; we will accept the deposit to process your application and hold your place. If you are not offered a place, the full deposit is refundable.
Step 2: Written Application
This program informs athletes' approach to running performance by enabling the self awareness to guide independent development. Athletes should seek a deeper relationship with running, possess a drive to learn and improve on all aspects of performance, and have an adventurous spirit.
The Swiss Running Challenge Written Application is comprised of these response prompts:
- What about this program appeals to you?
- Evaluate yourself as a running athlete - what are your strengths and weaknesses, and how will this program help you grow?
- Evaluate yourself as a teammate. Discuss the ways you are a supportive teammate and explain how you'd like to grow.
- What running injuries have occurred in your running career?
- Please provide your average training volume (minutes or miles) and if available, a link to your performance bio (milesplit/athletic.net account) as well as your strava account.
- What about this program appeals to you?
The prompts will be submitted on your Sparks user dashboard and are due within 14 days of initial application.
Step 3: Zoom Interview
You will schedule your interview from your Sparks user dashboard after you submit your written application. During the interview we will talk about the program, your written application, and how the opportunity aligns with your experience, values, and goals.
Step 4: Decision
Upon acceptance full payment is due by March 1. Full payment is due within 14 days for applications received after March 1.
Admissions occurs on a rolling basis. Timeline for decisions is within a week of the interview; if your timeline is shorter, we can work with you. Written applications must be submitted within 14 days of initial application, and interviews must be scheduled within 30 days of initial application.
Photo Gallery
At A Glance
Excellent Staff at Low Ratios
Thoughtful Admissions
High Standards of Behavior
Reading and Writing at Camp
Healthy Hospitality
The Reflective Cycle
Camp Focuses
Goal Setting
Injury Prevention
Recovery
Nutrition
FAQ
What level of experience is necessary for this program?
We band athletes into smaller groups by ability per their applications.
Ability levels in the cohort as a whole will differ - but that is why we maintain a low staff to student ratio. What matters is not your ability relative to the others in the group, but rather your desire to accurately evaluate your performance and plan to improve.
As a result, while this camp requires a higher level of maturity and thoughtfulness.
Do you offer scholarships or discounts?
We offer discounted prices for "early bird" registrations prior to January 31.
Regarding Scholarships:
Please see this link to our NCAA Compliance webpage.
Tell me more about admissions - how selective is it?
Our admissions process is one of the most thoughtful in the travel camp industry and we evaluate each athlete on a case by case basis.
While we look speed and experience, we are also very interested in your motivation and passion for running. At our camps, the drive to improve leads to increased maturity and thoughtfulness - which leads to performance.
We also consider your ability to live, train, and support others in a community committed to utilizing challenge for personal growth. Sparks camps are unlike traditional training camps in that progress in self-awareness per your relationship with performance is as important as acute technical progress. Ideal candidates will complete the program with gains in both self-awareness and corresponding ability to improve long after camp ends.
Switzerland is designed for athletes who seek to better define their relationship with performance. You do not have to be a high performer relative to others, but you should be interested in how you might define peak performance for yourself. To be clear: we are not a performance "boot camp" whereby students are pushed beyond themselves so much as an opportunity for students to unlock the mechanisms that contribute to performance within themselves in a community committed to doing the same in a thoughtful, intelligent manner.
We welcome your questions either via phone or in the chat box in the right hand corner.
How big is the program?
Sparks multi-week cohorts are typically between 12 and 20 athletes. Coaching and operations staff ratios are set at 1:6, making overall staff to student ratio 1:3 - however, sometimes it is even lower.
Of chief importance to us is the quality of our cohorts - which we believe is a product of admissions, staffing, and group size to facilitate activities (eg. bands of runners at different speeds) as well as friendships that last long after camp ends.
We seek the highest international-quality level in coaching staff and our senior operations staff is made up of runners turned educators with a number of years of prior experience in our camp system; many hold graduate degrees in education.
What can you tell me about housing and supervision at camp?
Campers lodge in a backpackers immediately adjacent to the lake and take meals across the street at a rowing club with a private dock that be used for recovery.
At Sparks camps, we have two staffs: a coaching staff and an operations staff. Our operations staff is responsible for the experiential education and pastoral care at camp. In Switzerland, we seek a 1:3 overall staff to student ratio.
The Program Director lives amongst the student athletes, and has oversight 24 hours a day. Unhealthy substances and/or behaviors are strictly prohibited.
How do you handle travel to/from the camp?
Flights arrive and depart out of Zürich International. We seek to help families connect who would like their students to travel together.
Our Program Director (already on the ground in Switzerland as students depart) tracks student travel into Zürich, where they are picked up from the airport and transported together by train to Lucerne. In the case you will arrive in Switzerland as a family and drop your camper off, we will meet at the Lucerne train station.
The journey itself is part of the experience and our international camps invite athletes to take a personal journey with sport at its center.
You will fill out a travel form after registration that enables our staff to make sure your camper arrives and departs camp safely.
If you have questions, we're happy to answer them in the box in the lower right side, or you can schedule a call with us.
I have questions before I apply. Is it possible to speak with someone?
Certainly - we completely understand your need to connect about this commitment!
We just ask you schedule a call with us (click here) given we're a very small office.
Where are camp forms found?
Camp forms are issued at least six weeks prior to camp on our site via your dashboard.
What differentiates Sparks camps and this program specifically?
We are the only teen sport travel adventure camp with a full-time staff that has academic and professional backgrounds in experiential education. We also have a summer operations staff (many are returners that teach during the school year) who buy into the idea of personal growth at camp not just for campers - but for themselves as well.
The result is a culture sincerely committed to the power of rowing as a personally transformative experience built on vulnerability, thoughtfulness, responsibility, and initiative. These qualities along with our values of growth, kaizen, and endurance dictate the culture our camp community forms around. Our focus is on utilizing rowing to create the self-awareness necessary to master one's relationship with performance.
We chose Switzerland as the first venue for our running camps because it's perfect insofar as beauty, logistics, safety, and ability to provide a high-end experience for runners. We know the venue having run rowing camps there for a number of years, and felt it would be the ideal point to kick off our efforts to combine our culture - focused on growth and self-mastery - together with the sport of running.
What is the cancellation/refund policy?
Camp purchases are fully refundable minus transaction fees until March 1 for summer camps.
- We strongly recommend you purchase travel protection with cancel for any reason coverage.
- We offer these plans from Travel Insured International during the check-out process for our four and five day camps and during final balance payment for deposit-based multi-week camps.
- Learn more about travel protection here
- If you withdraw after the above dates, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever (including, but not limited to: voluntary withdraw, illness or injury, summer school, security concerns or other reasons).
- If your camper leaves camp after it starts, there are no refunds for any reason whatsoever, including but not limited to: voluntary withdrawal, illness or injury, dismissal by Sparks (due to discipline, behavior, lack of fitness or motivation, etc.) security concerns, or any other reason. Any costs incurred by Sparks as a result of an early departure are the sole responsibility of the parents.
- In the unlikely case a camp does not proceed, we'll work to notify you by March 1. You'll be offered a different program or a refund. In some cases, we may extend the 'go, no-go' date. We recommend buying your flight after March 1 or later, if we advise.
Tell me about safety at Sparks
We employ safety and risk management practices from the adventure education industry, where some risk is inherent but must be quantified insofar as educational value. These practices are initially employed in program design and we work hard to train operations staff to seek to maintain an awareness of specific risks at all times. We retain a risk management advisor and an MD on call during the summer. No outdoors programming can guarantee safety, however professional management of risk is key to the art of providing consistently excellent experiential education programming.