On a warm, rainy, summer day, I crunched up a gravel path at the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park in Blowing Rock, N.C. It was my third day of running uphill — in the rain.

On the way up, I tried to chat with Chrissy Stuckey, a 36-year-old dancer from Toronto, but I was running out of breath. She was training for a marathon, and I was not. I prayed we’d soon reach the top of the hill so I would stop huffing, embarrassing myself in front of the 30 or so other runners out on the trail that day.

I’m not on a high school track team, or a college runner. I’m not even that fast a runner for someone my age. I’m 36, and last August I went to camp. To run.

Running camps for grown-ups aren’t exactly new, but they have become more popular, according to Randy Accetta, director of coaching education at the Road Runners Club of America and the mentor in residence at the University of Arizona’s McGuire Entrepreneurship Program.