Tiered pricing rewards early commitment. Optional cancel-for-any-reason insurance allows cancellation up to two days before camp.
Where the Method Was Built
Norwegian distance running is organised around restraint. Most of your quality work belongs just under the line where it stops being repeatable, so that you can do more of it across a week without paying for it in the days after. The approach is usually called double threshold, and it was developed by Marius Bakken, a two-time Olympian and physician who did much of his own training in the forests north of Oslo. Lactate threshold, the point where controlled effort tips into effort you cannot sustain, is among the strongest physiological predictors of distance running performance. This program gives you twelve days to learn how to train against it, in the place the method came from.
You will train in Nordmarka, the forest on Oslo's northern edge, with Sognsvann at its edge. Gravel and trail start at the door of the hotel and run for kilometres under tree cover. Sea level, soft footing, no transit in the training day. You warm up by running out of the building, and the volume lands more gently than the same volume on road or track.
Mornings are for running. Afternoons are for understanding what you just did. You will work through how a training week is actually put together: why most of the running is genuinely easy, why quality sessions are held below the second threshold rather than run to exhaustion, and how the Norwegian method stacks them morning and afternoon on threshold days so that more controlled work accumulates than one hard effort allows. The distances are matched to high school training, not to the mileage a senior international runs.
Most athletes arrive knowing two speeds, hard and not hard. Most have never had their easy pace checked against anything outside their own sense of it, and most find it is not where they assumed. Learning to recognise an intensity from the inside, hold it deliberately, and notice when you have drifted off it is a skill that keeps working in every season after this one.
Structured reflection runs through every day, in small groups at a 1:3 staff-to-athlete ratio, with a cohort selected through our admissions process. You will talk through how sessions felt against what you predicted, and what that tells you about how you train when nobody is watching. Then you write your own training plan across the two weeks, session by session, with staff working the reasoning through with you.
The camp is based at the Olympiatoppen Sportshotell, a plain, functional sports hotel where national team athletes are routine fellow guests. Bedrooms, communal meals, trail access from the door. The plainness is the point, because the building is not what you came for.
You will leave Oslo with a written training plan you built yourself, the reasoning behind every session in it, and the self-coaching habits that carry it into your fall season.
Hear More About the Sparks Athlete Experience
Norwegian Cross Country Challenge
Tiered pricing rewards early commitment.
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Go To Pursue Self-Mastery
Go For The Group
Go For The Environment
At A Glance
Staff Ratios of 1:3 to 1:5
Admissions-Based Cohorts
High Standards of Behavior
Reading & Reflection
Healthy Hospitality
Action → Reflection → Intention
Camp Focuses
Goal Setting
Injury Prevention
Recovery
Nutrition
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 $995 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: Video Response Prompts
Sparks uses video response prompts to get a genuine sense of who you are as an athlete. Keep your response natural and conversational. We're excited to hear your authentic voice and learn what drives you in your sport.
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 application contains these response prompts:
- Tell us a story about a team (yours or another) that stands out to you and why it means something to you.
- Tell us about a time when you had to choose between what was right for you personally and what was right for your team. What did you do?
- How would you like to grow as an athlete and why?
- Why do you want to attend a Sparks camp? Also, what specifically draws you to this program?
- 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.
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.
Included in Camp Fee
- Lodging and Meals
- Camp Gear
- Coaching & Equipment
- 1:3 Staff to Athlete Ratio
- Pre-Camp Training Program
Not Included in Camp Fee
- Personal Gear
- Airfare to and from camp
- Trip Protection (strongly recommended): Learn More
Photo Gallery
What goes into a Sparks Camp?
You get more out of a Sparks camp because we put more into a Sparks camp*
*These numbers are an approximation across all of our camps.
†Housing includes meeting and activity space for the camp during the day as well.
FAQ
How can I prepare to get the most out of camp?
Sparks camps train approach and mindset, so think about how you want to improve in those areas before you arrive.
After admissions and before camp, campers journal on their approach to performance and their goals for camp.
On the first day, after arrival, each camper holds an entry interview with camp staff about those goals, so the athlete and the staff share the same picture of what camp is for.
On the physiological side, we expect you to run the splits in your MileSplit profile when you show up. Camp is about taking greater control of your relationship with performance, and that work may carry you beyond those splits at camp.
How do I know this is going to make me a better runner?
We believe the answer to this question resides in whether you believe an improved approach and mindset towards running and performance in general is going to make you a better runner.
We provide facilities, staff, food, venues, and structure to enable you to explore how you pursue running performance from an informed and well-resourced perspective. Our admissions process is geared to admit thoughtful, emotionally mature athletes who have the ability to utilize those qualities in growing their awareness of performance.
Once you possess a greater awareness of your performance, what you choose to do with it will determine your improvement.
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. 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.
The distances are matched to high school training. Refer to the Norwegian Cross Country Challenge program specifics for experience requirements.
Do you offer scholarships or discounts?
Our prices reflect what goes into the program: separate coaching and operations staffs, capped cohorts, and collegiate-level coaching. Our prices increase as spots fill. The earlier you register, the better the price you'll get.
Regarding Scholarships:
Please see this link to our NCAA Compliance webpage.
Tell me more about admissions. How selective is it?
Admissions combine a video response and an interview.
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.
The Norwegian Cross Country Challenge is designed for athletes who want to understand controlled effort and build self-coaching habits. You will leave Oslo with a written training plan you built yourself and the reasoning behind each session.
We welcome your questions either via phone or in the chat box in the right hand corner.
What differentiates Sparks camps and this program specifically?
When asked to perform, many athletes ask themselves why they're there in the first place. While we seek to help them answer that question, that also plays into a defining greater self-awareness.
Our mission is to challenge young adults to grow courageously as people, and as athletes. To support that mission, we're the only teen sport travel adventure camp with a full-time staff that has academic and professional backgrounds in experiential education. Program design is thoughtfully crafted and executed as a result. 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.
Camp culture rests on four practices: vulnerability, thoughtfulness, responsibility, and initiative. Every camp runs the Sparks Process: prepare for a hard piece, do it, then reflect on what happened. These qualities along with our values of growth, kaizen, and endurance dictate the culture our camp community forms around. Our focus is on utilizing sport to create the self-awareness necessary to master one's relationship with performance.
This program gives runners twelve days in Oslo to learn controlled, repeatable effort in the Nordmarka forest. Mornings focus on running and afternoons on understanding the work, with structured reflection and a written training plan built by each athlete.
How big is the program?
Structured reflection takes place in small groups at a 1:3 staff-to-athlete ratio. For cohort size and separate coaching and operations staff details, refer to the Norwegian Cross Country Challenge program specifics.
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.
The cohort is selected through our admissions process.
What can you tell me about housing and supervision at camp?
Campers stay at Olympiatoppen Sportshotell in Oslo, beside Sognsvann and Nordmarka, with trail access from the hotel. Official hotel website: https://www.scandichotels.com/en/hotels/olympiatoppen-sportshotel
Structured reflection takes place in small groups at a 1:3 staff-to-athlete ratio.
For supervision arrangements, refer to the Norwegian Cross Country Challenge program specifics.
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.
How do you handle travel to/from the camp?
For arrival and departure airports, designated travel windows, and family drop-off arrangements, refer to the Norwegian Cross Country Challenge program specifics.
The camp is based in Oslo at Olympiatoppen Sportshotell.
Refer to the Norwegian program travel details before booking flights or planning family drop-off.
The journey itself is part of the experience and we design travel to our camps to invite athletes to take a personal journey with sport at its center.
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?
Yes. Schedule a call and a staff member will answer your questions.
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 is the cancellation/refund policy?
Refer to the cancellation and refund details for the Norwegian Cross Country Challenge.
Are there any additional costs beyond the camp fee?
Refer to the Norwegian Cross Country Challenge program specifics for what is included in the camp fee and any costs outside the standard program.
