Training camp, where do I even begin? It stretched me in ways I didn’t think I needed “stretching.” From waking up at 7am for “exercise” to taking cold bucket showers at night, some would say it was a hard 10 days. They would be correct. However it was also some of the best days of my life. Putting this blog into words will be difficult because I have so many different emotions for everything that has happened in these last 10 days that shaping it all into words doesn’t seem possible.
Before training camp I had no clue what to expect, so of course I read past racers blogs and found out some things that would be going on. After going I wish I hadn’t known as much as I did, so for future racers, I will try my best to not give a ton of details. You will thank me later. Maybe.
Over the past 10 days I got to venture off to Gainesville, Georgia with 150 other world racers for training camp!
We started out camp with the question of, what is your main purpose and motivation to do something that in reality doesn’t make sense? Leaving an amazing community behind at the best college, my motivation to go on WR didn’t seem the brightest. I had dropped out of school before even meeting my team. Gah. You always hear “take that leap of faith” but do you ever actually take it. I believe I have.
Before training camp I was unsure of how “ready” I was to leave. I will say that after meeting my squad and getting to truly know each of their hearts over 10 days I know I am so much more than ready. God is such a good Father and is so faithful. He really taught me this week how to put my trust in Him. He is my rock.
During worship this week we sang a song called Great Are You Lord and some of the lyrics in this song said,
“It’s your breath
In our lungs
So we pour out our praise,
We pour out our praise”
And we would just sing these lines over and over again. They soon became ingrained into my mind. God showed me that it is okay to just breathe and listen to Him. It is not my breath, it’s His. Whatever I say He is the one breathing my words out. Also, having that “go go go” mindset is not always healthy. He wants us to be still in Him and take time to just breathe. Wow. He is just so good.
My squad consists of 53 people including myself plus our 3 squad leaders and 1 squad mentor. We stayed at Adventures in Missions head quarters out in the woods. We slept in tents, hammocks, under tarps, and one night in a mock airport (picture a complete airport setting with lights and announcements going on throughout the night).
There are so many parts to training camp that I want to share, but here are a few very condensed events. I might use the word field scenario, which just means that our squad had a “challenge” that night for our sleeping arrangements.
Within the first 3 days came the dreaded 2 mile hike. I feel like if you have ever heard about the world race/ thought about doing it, you have heard of this. This is when each racer packs up their entire main pack and walks 2 miles with all the gear in a certain time. From experience I can say it is easier said than done, as most things are. One piece of advice to future racers is to NOT wear chaco’s when doing this. You will get blisters and they will stay on your feet the rest of training camp.
One night our squad was dropped off in the woods and had to “survive.” The night consisted of sleeping on tarps, campfire, sweet worship and debriefing, and a night under the stars because the field scenario did not allow us to have our tents.
Many more things happened at training camp that I would love to go more into detail with all of you. Please ask me how it was and I would love to personally tell you. Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me financially and through prayer. I am so thankful for each and every one of you. God bless.
