Believe it or not I am now half way through the race! To commemorate it, my best friend Liz and I wrote a blog about all the things we have discovered about ourselves and the race culture here and how NOT glamorous it is. If you are an alumni, current or about to be racer, this blog might bring a few laughs, enjoy.
- You don’t need to wash clothes for a month
- You don’t need to shower every day, or even every three days. a week is enough
- You can kiss shaving goodbye
- You can live without wifi for three months
- And electricity for 2 months
- Spotify is your best friend and if you lose all your downloaded songs you’re screwed
- You don’t need to wash your hands, just get some hand sanitizer
- You will crave food you don’t eat at home like Pringles, soda pop, grilled cheese and snickers
- The closest thing to eating healthy is a vegetable sub. Just give up eating healthy
- You can stay awake for 48+ hours, just keep pushing
- As much as you love your pack and the rest of your new camping stuff at the beginning and want to keep it clean, you will hate it and willingly let it get dirty
- Post Malone is known in the middle of the Himalayas
- You can use the bathroom any where and everywhere with or without toilet paper. You will no longer be grossed out by ANYTHING
- You will learn to sleep anywhere and everywhere, sleeping pad or not
- Seeing exotic animals in your day to day life is a regular occurrence
- You won’t remember the last time you washed your water bottle. Just ignore it
- If you’re not already, you will be unashamed about your poop. and everyone will know
- Personal space does not exist when watching movies on an 11 inch laptop screen
- You might find yourself eating things off the floor
- Time and weather no longer exist in the World Race world
- Spiders and other bugs only get bigger
- Getting told you smell good is the highest compliment you can receive
- You WILL have diarrhea
- By month three you might start thinking about skipping team time
- You can make your phone battery last for a week or more
- If you don’t get your period in 5 months don’t fret, your body is just undergoing an insane amount of stress
- Worship can happen anywhere; airports, bus stops, and atop septic tanks
- The main reason for getting sick on the WR is being dehydrated. Yes, we are given a lot of water to consume. Consuming is the issue
- You will no longer care about how you look. Striped orange pants and a bright purple shirt with chaos and socks? That’s fashion
- Missing a pair of jeans? Your team mate probably has them
- Squatties are real and they are scary
All in all, the race is incredible. It’s not as glamorous as it seems in all the photos and ads. Community, growth, ministry, sickness, it’s all hard here but in the end it’s totally worth it.
~ Elizabeth Georgiana Slager & Jordan Louise Shea ~
