I fell in the mud within the first 20 minutes. On my butt, pants ruined, clean pack now dirtied, surrounded by other racers probably very confused as to why I wasn’t able to function like a normal human and not make a mess.
In almost 12 days I took only 3 showers. Let me clarify that the term ‘shower’ meant fill a bucket with ice cold hose water and dump it on your head. Bonus, you only have about 3 minutes to get in and out so the other 240 girls from every other squad have a chance to ‘shower’.
I realised very quickly that my cute little one person tent that was saving me, ‘so much space’ was definitely a one person tent. With hardly enough room for my tall long self, let alone my pack/daypack which is equivalent to the size of another person.
By day 3 my jeans wouldn’t stay on anymore. I’m not sure if it’s because I lost weight, they stretched, it was so hot they kept slipping, or a combination of all three.
I successfully went almost an entire day with food stuck in my teeth. Braces, oh how I hate you.
As I’m sure you can tell, I was thriving at the highest of highly thrived levels.
But here’s what my disastrous self came to know in those 10 days:
- I have new family members. 46 to be exact.
- I have 7 older brothers who’d do anything to help their 40 new sisters.
- Bucket showers are actually really refreshing.
- God won’t ever give me anything I can’t handle, and will always pull me up before I drop.
- Spiritual warfare is a reeeeeaaaalllll thing.
- Asian food always has rice. Always.
- Georgia dirt stains and will never come out of ANYTHING. Including my skin.
- Embrace the porta potties while you can – squatty potties coming soon.
- Consuming platefuls of dairy loaded food items after a week of rice and beans makes you really regret the fact that you consumed platefuls of dairy loaded food items after a week of rice and beans. Enough said.
- I honestly need coffee to survive. And Cheese-its. Definitely cheese-its.
Here’s the thing: I was terrified of going to training camp. If my italicized, bolded editing doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will. TERRIFIED. 10 days is a lot longer then I realised. 46 people is a lot more than I thought. Running full force with limited fuel and energy is a TON harder than I ever could have prepared myself for. To be totally honest and real, I was ready to quit by day 2. Like, pack up, find a flight, call an uber, walk back to Indiana, something and/or anything to get me away from that place and back home. I wasn’t homesick, just broken. It wasn’t a gradual process, but most definitely a ‘thrown into’ kinda thing. It also wasn’t just me. There were plenty of other people on my squad who wanted to go, and about a handful of people from other squads who actually did leave early and quit the race. Like I said, spiritual warfare is real, and the doubts, fears, and anxieties that come with such a huge trip came charging in like every mosquito when they saw me open my tent at night. It’s utterly indescribable how lost I felt, how lost everyone felt at some point during, or for a majority of training camp.
I think the beautiful thing about our brokenness – it’s when we all found each other. The awkward stage passed fairly quickly and we just got real with everything and everyone. We were able to use it to support each other and make it through those strange, completely bizarre 10 days that feel like they passed 100 years ago. And even though it was weird at first, I still felt like I had known everyone longer than just a few days. Social media helps, but the fact that we all pushed through it together as a family, so loving, kind, and accepting of everyone and everything that came with them, it’s what made our relationships stronger and feel so old. Like we’ve already been together for so long, we’re family, and that’s that. Sure, we could’ve used that campfire cookout night to coordinate 47 people together into the dance we needed to come up with for squad wars the next day, but instead we ate and shared testimonies around the fire. We kind of blew our chances at winning (we lost…heh), but you could ask anyone on U squad: we’d do it again in a heartbeat. We got poured rain on, worshiped acapella in the storm, ate great food, and loved every minute of it. If there’s anything I took away from training camp, it would be that I’m totally unprepared for the race, and it’s likely I’ll experience even more ’messes’ than I did in Georgia. But I’m completely okay with that. I have a family that I know will pick me up out of the mud, share a tent, and tell me when rice is stuck in my teeth.
I have just about 6 weeks left at home. 6 weeks left in the U.S.A.. 6 weeks left with my family and friends. 6 weeks left to come up with another $3,000 so I can launch with my team and do this thing that I’ve been running towards for so long. It’s such a short amount of time. It may seem long to some, but by the way the last few months have flown by, I know 6 weeks will be next to nothing. There’s soooo much to do. I feel like my lists have their own lists. Some days I lose my mind a little, but surprisingly most I have an unexplainable peace about it all. About packing, travel, fundraising, everything. Never in my entire life have I had so much on my shoulders, but felt so at peace. Training camp was draining in every way possible, but I’ve never felt so full, so prepared, and so ready to go. Soon as I know it, those 6 weeks will come and go, and I’ll be standing in Atlanta, surrounded by my family of 46 again – ready to serve the world.
T-Minus 6 weeks.
6. Weeks.
