Training Camp!!! with Pictures!

For those of you who don’t know earlier in July I went to Gainesville, GA for 11 days of training. During this time I got to meet my squad for the first time and also meet our leadership. Here are just a few things from training camp:

 

Meet my squad:

There are 23 of us who will be traveling together (19 girls and 4 guys). These are seriously some of the most amazing people I have ever met. I couldn’t be more excited and I feel so lucky that I get to travel and do ministry along side them the next 9 months

My squad on the first day of training

Some of us just hanging out during some free time 

Us on the last day of training camp

As you can see we were just a little bit muddy lol. We just won Squad Wars when this picture was taken. Squad War is basically a bunch of competitions your Squad plays against other Squads and you earn points. We won, and yes it is possible to win without winning a single challenge!

 

Meet my team:

Team Hygge (I’ll talk more about them in a later blog!)

Left to right: Aidyn (our team leader), Kylah, Emi, Paige, myself, Valerie, Mackenzie, Olivia (one of our squad leaders)

My team in the middle of a team building activity.

 

Fitness hike

Yes, we had to do a fitness hike. What did this look like? Well we had to hike 2 miles in 38 minutes with our big pack on. For any future racers that may be reading this please be prepared to hike up a massive hill and then another massive hill annnndddd the second hill (which is the worse of the two) oh no, you don’t just have to hike it once, but TWICE!! Have fun and pack light.  

This is the aftermath of us having to get up super early to hike up massive hills. As you can see we were pretty tired after the fitness hike. 

 

Squad time:

We had some awesome time set aside to just be with our squad. This looked like many different things throughout training. For example, a few days we got to have a Q&A with our leaders, we sat down and asked them literally whatever we wanted. One of last days we had squad worship, which was awesome because it stared pouring rain. Soaking wet, surround by my squad, everyone singing, it was pretty cool to say the least.

Us at two different squad times

 

Leadership:

I’m definitely biased, but we have the best leadership EVER!! 

The different rules of our leadership can be confusing, so let me explain:

Squad Mentor: Kate. If you are thinking about our leadership as a church she is the Pastor. She will not be traveling with us the whole 9 months, but she will be with us in the field during our debriefs after every country.

Squad Coaches: Brian and Cathy. They are like the elders in the church. They will also not be traveling with us for the 9 months, but they will be with us at debriefs. 

Squad Leaders: Olivia and Taylor. Olivia and Taylor are both World Race Alumni. They will be traveling with us the entire 9 months of our race.

Team Leaders: Aidyn, Cami, Kori, Philip, and Jacob. These amazing people are also World Race Alumni and actually just finished their race and got back to the US around the beginning of June. The are Leaders of the individual teams and will be traveling with us for the first 3 months of the race. 

Kate (squad mentor) and I

Our amazing leadership team: (Left to right) Top: Philip, Brian, Cathy, Kate, Olivia, Taylor, Jacob, Aidyn. Bottom: Kori, Cami. 

 

 

 

All that being said, I leave in just over a month. That is absolutely CRAZY!!! I cannot wait to start this journey with these amazing people.

 

That’s just a little bit of information about Training Camp! I hope you enjoyed this blog and thank you for reading!

 

Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far. I cannot thank you enough for your prayers and financial support. I will have an update about fundraising soon.