YEP 10 USA CAMP – Day 4

Blog written by Sylvia

Today started with the famous churchrun: five times up the hill and around it as fast as we could. This was followed by the Mayo Clinic Test where we should run as fast and long as we could to reach our peak performance and measure the oxygen we use. It was very exhausting but as soon as I stopped it felt very good. You really feel as if you could have gone on for longer; it is amazing how fast the body can recuperate.

We also measured our heart rate and oxygen levels before and after standing up. It was stunning how stressing getting up is for the body: the heart rate went up rapidly. In addition we had to hold our breath for as long as we could. It was really interesting to see the differences.
 

After lunch we had a first aid course and we carried the little Singaporean on backpacks assuming that he was insured. This was very interesting and informative. We then went on a beautiful lime stone wall where we did abseiling and rock climbing. The weather was at our full advantage, the sun showed us its full beauty.

We also had a great introduction from the company Wenger, who gave us a Mike Horn Pocket knife – everyone was really happy about that.

After the great dinner from Debby and Line we had a presentation about GIS and how they demonstrated the impacts of the oil spill on the coast line of the US and Mexico and the impacts of the rise in sea level on the Everglades.
 
It was another fantastic day in the Selection camp in Chateaux d'Oex!

Blog written by Mario

Today we began our day with the legendary church run. Here in Château-d'Oex there is a Church on a hill. The target was to run up the stairs until we reach the church, which is about 30 to 40 meters higher, and then to run down a street again. One round is about 400 meters at all. So in the beginning we walked up there to get to know the area and where we have to run exactly for one round. Afterwards we had to run three rounds as fast as possible. And finally we did a relay.

After breakfast we were split up into two groups. Mine had firstly a presentation in first aid, then we walked up a hill and did abseiling. For some of us the first steps were quite a challenge, but finally everyone arrived safely at the bottom and we all had a lot of fun. Then we tried climbing a little bit and finally we practised what learned while the first aid presentation. Exactly said how to rescue someone who got injured.
Then we had lunch. When we finished we switched the groups and now mine group had to do the basic tests of the Mayo Clinic. Testing blood pressure, heart rate and Oxygen amount in our blood while sitting and standing up, holding breath and testing our maximum of our Oxygen intake. When you watch the videos this looks quite hard, but it isn't. Everyone who made this test will agree with me.

Afterwards, we had a really short presentation about Wenger, the company producing the Swiss army knifes. Furthermore we got our own Mike Horn Wenger knifes, called the Mike Horn Souvenir – thank you Wenger for this present.

Then we got 1.5 hours spare time to work on our projects we got to do and afterwards, it was already 7 o'clock, was time for diner. Our evening programme was a presentation about GIS held by the Saint Mary's University. It was quite interesting to get to know how intelligent maps are made and how they work. Tomorrow we will do something more on this topic, but we will also use GPS to navigate ourselves a little bit here in Château-d'Oex. Even we all are feeling our muscles a little bit now, we all really enjoy the time at our Camp.