Training Camp will forever be in my heart! I made great friendships with people from all across the country. At the beginning I showed up a day sooner than most for a storytelling workshop that I signed up for. I had no clue what to expect, but I found myself amongst a small group of other Racers from all different squads with similar interests and passions as me. I was forced to make friends with complete strangers which definitely took me a bit out of my comfort zone from the beginning because I struggle with talking to people I don’t know. Those struggles definitely began to dwindle some at Training Camp. Setting up camp on the storytelling workshop day, I met a guy named Parker from Oregon and we became tent neighbors. Parker was scared of spiders so I had to get rid of quite a few for him that night. The next day we continued the workshop and eagerly waited for the rest of our squads to get to camp later that afternoon.
We eventually were united with our squads and found out our teams within the squads. My team started out with 9 guys and we met our team leader Will Holt who is tagging along with us for the first 3 months. The 9 guys included me, Ben Taylor, Justin Shaner, Austin Roberts, Kyle Chapman, Landon Mullins, Tikki Martinez, Zach Gregory, and CJ Shiner. Eventually we lost two guys from our team Kyle and Austin. Kyle left for personal reasons after day 2. Me and Austin got pretty close and he was there for most of camp, but he too had to leave for personal reasons. Both of these guys will always be loved and in my heart forever!
We got to bond with our squads and even people outside the squad a lot! Our squad even made a rope swing to entertain ourselves. Me and Will got super close on that rope!
Also we had another guy Caleb Steifel, that was on our route, but he switched routes before camp. He is still apart of the family and helped create somewhat of a bond/alliance for R Squad and V Squad. This brings me to Squad Wars!!!!
Sadly we got dominated and I believe Justin Shaner and I took the worst beatings. We may not have one any of the competitions, but we worked hard and had fun. I still believe we deserved a second or third place finish for our dance, but hey I won’t hold it against the judges.
Over the course of Training Camp, we grew substantially and worshiped whole heartedly. We were challenged by many things and at times we wanted to give up, but we stuck through it. Then came the hard part, which was leaving and transitioning back to our lives back home, but I think everybody was ready to get some Chikfila and a warm shower. Personally, the bucket showers grew on me, but I definitely couldn’t wait to get my hands on an Oreo Milkshake from Chikfila.
Even though we had to part ways with our squad which had become family so quickly, we now have that drive to push forward with fundraising and any other tasks, that way we can be reunited in just over a month. I hope to see that come true and be back with this wonderful group of people I had the privilege to meet.
