Bold New Camp Plan Surfaces (but anonymously)

"Well, we always see some type of organized resistance to the rigors of camp," said Camp Organizer and ultramarathoner Joel Pennington, "but I guess we underestimated the organized potential of a subset of 800."

That was the immediate reaction to Saturday's delivery of what has become known as "The Two Week Manifesto," a formal statement of protest that a 13-week organized camping experience, with all the repetition and drawn-out training, is unnecessary. Pennington was said to be meeting with other camp leaders later this weekend to review the manifesto to determine if it had any merit whatsoever and if not, what kind of effort would be undertaken to seek out the malcontents and how severely to punish them.

The unsigned document, attributed only to "The Sovereign Sisters of Sanity," condemned the camp, as it is presently organized, as "vituperative, abusive and marginally cruel."

The manifesto went on to propose a two-week camp, describing the advantages as "almost too numerous to delineate," but the most obvious, the document said, are these:

• Fewer injuries;
• Less exposure to unreasonable weather conditions;
• Less costly to operate, meaning lower cost;
• No need for 'tapering'
• Less wear and tear on running shoes;
• More environmentally friendly;
• No need to tape-delay Saturday morning cartoons;
• Less-complicated training schedule; and (the big one)
• No need to explain you only own one running outfit.

"Blaine doesn't remember our names after two weeks, so you know full well, he won't know them after 13. This camp is an exercise in redundancy," the document read.

The two-week plan calls for camp to begin four weeks before the race, with team formation the first week, Superman and Barking Dog clinics in week two, allowing a week off for full recovery prior to the race.

"There simply is no downside to this well-thought-out strategy," the document said. "We expect action."

None was expected soon, Pennington said.