Lees McRae Visit

Well, I finally made the voyage down to North Carolina to visit Lees McRae. In January at Cross Nationals in Wisconsin, I finalized the recruiting process with the team and signed on to race mountain, cross and road next fall for them. Interestingly enough, I committed to the school entirely...without seeing the campus yet! Good thing it was admitted students day too during my visit...

One of the buildings on campus. 

This is the studio where I'll be doing my designing as a communication arts major. 

This is the gym inside the student center. Sick climbing wall!

Anyways, the drive from Charlotte to Banner Elk, where the college is located, was beautiful. Except for the billboards on the sides of the roads, I felt like I was still in Vermont! Banner Elk itself feels like a mini Killington, and the campus sits at over 4,000ft. 

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Dorms.

Outside the entrance of what will become my second home-away-from-home.

The ideal set up for maximum bike storage... 

During my visit, Coach Winger also gave me a LMC kit, so I can rep the school here in the Upper Valley!

Admitted Students day came and went like that, and every afternoon I spent in the bike room on the trainer. For once, I did not bring my bike with me but head coach Luke Winger gave me the access # for the cycling room to use one of their Lemond trainers. Other kids on the team would come in and out of the bike room, although the majority of them were gone for the weekend racing in GA. 

Another perspective of the LMC bike room.

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Iggy (a decorated track racer and roadie on the LMC team), as well as recent graduate Jordan (aka J-Rad!!) took me under their wing during my visit and I was able to spend time with a bunch of my future teammates. I hung out with a lot of down to earth people who are extremely talented at what they do (shout-out to Kerry, Rachel, Prentiss, Dylan, Sam, Joe...the list goes on!). I was worried that the team would be extremely serious, so I was relieved to see how in many ways their team dynamics are similar to that of my own team: complete your training, ride hard and dominate during the races, and have a good time off the bike. They referred to me as the 'Recruit' – and as a thank you for showing me the ropes around LMC for my four-day visit, I built the boys a longboard so they can do some shredding in Banner Elk next fall!!

My longboard that I built for the boyzzz in Banner Elk. 

Looks and feels just like Vermont! 

Next year, I am looking forward to becoming a Bobcat. Things immediately felt good when I was on the LMC campus and the people were genuinely nice. Could life get any better?