As I am sure most of you can understand…the past 10 months of my acceptance on the World Race have been nothing but waiting. Waiting for the funds to roll in. Waiting for the gear I would need. Waiting to meet the crazy people I've been talking to on Facebook. And waiting for that thing called Training Camp. Now, I was first accepted on the World Race in August 2012…obviously about a month after the July'ers launched. So there was a plethora of blogs about training camp and one thing that drove me right crazy is that NONE of them actually told me what happened there. All I saw were pictures of Fish Head Soup, a few crazy Squad Wars outfits, and that's about it. It frustrated me when the writer of the blog told me that they were intentionally keeping the information from me. I couldn't fathom as to WHY they would do that to their readers, most of whom were anxiously awaiting their own training camp. Would a simple "How to" or "What to expect" be too much to ask?
Friends…yes. It would be. But not in a selfish way. Because I could sit here all day and write about every second of every moment of Training Camp.
But I'm not going to.
Now…wait. Stop right there. By now you have most likely rolled your eyes and scrolled your mouse over to the "Back Button" to see if any of my other squad members leaked more information. I promise you that in this blog you will know exactly what you need to know. Which, hopefully will be all you want to know.
As I said before, I remember the excitement I had when I was first accepted. I remember combing blogs…searching for as much information about Training Camp, Gear, Fundraising, and Launch as I possibly could! I was a sponge for information that would satisfy my need to leave for the race right that second. Now that the time had come…I couldn't believe I was there. All the prep…all the money spent on the gear I would need…I left on Friday the 17th at about 4/4:30am. I picked up two of my Squadmembers who live in Michigan as well and we started our journey. Along the way we stopped in Indianapolis to pick up two more S Sqyadders…and of course we stopped at Chick-Fil-A to eat some of that glorious fried poultry that Michigan is missing out on. Afterwards, I beast-moded it all the way down to Tennessee where we stopped for probably the best BBQ I have ever had the pleasure of tasting and that was featured on Diners Drive-In's and Dives, and the stopped for the night in Chattanooga. We decided to stay the night at a camp ground (because it was only $12 for the 6 of us to stay…) so by the time we got there at about 9:30, we were all spent. And it was raining. My tent for the race was one that was donated to me by a super gracious friend of mine. It's a two person tent, bought at Cabela's, and in theory would have been perfect! Praise Jesus that I decided to sleep outside that night to test it out. Because it was probably one of the worst nights sleep that I'd had in a while. My tent leaked…like, bad. Water everywhere. The next morning I decided that it would probably be a good idea to buy a new tent. So, my awesome group of squaddies accompanied me to Dicks Sporting Goods to get a new one.
My new tent is a Köppen 2 person tent…I love it. It's bright yellow, found at Dicks, and is literally $110 bucks. It's not free standing, but can easily be tethered to other things in the room to keep it up. I highly recommend it.
The people I drove with are just amazing…the entire way down to Georgia we laughed, teared up, snored, and pranked each other. The people in my car were a preview to how amazing my S Squad would be. Looking back, it just blows my mind. Right away there was a giant sense of Intentionality with each other. No conversation was skin deep…they were as deep as our hearts could go…wasting no time or sparing no expense. It was an awesome first day to a really intense week. Even as I was searching for a tent, my squad members were SO involved! And desperately wanted to be! While me, Jake, and the girls were looking at different options Zach was pulling up reviews on his phone of each tent. I love my family.
We arrived in White, GA to this little restaurant called WesMan's…where we met about 1/3 of our squad (pretty much the road trippers) and ate some delicious food. It was surreal to see these people in person that I had been talking to for 10 months…and it was so wonderful to finally hug them. I was so thankful that The Lord got us all there safely…and that His provision had been on us the entire trip thus far!
Enjoy the Trailer to the full length S Squad video that will be out soon…
More to come…with processing and lack of internet, it's taking me longer than I wanted. Haha the perfect World Race Prep!
