NAME:

Susie Stevenson

HOME TOWN:

Cortland, Illinois

SKILLS:

Hi! My name is Susie Stevenson and I am an Athletic Trainer in the Athletic Training Education Program at NIU and Doping Control Officer for the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Strong skills I have to offer Team Carpenter are medical, driving, GPS; Good skills to offer include navigation and computers; Fair skills would be in massage therapy; and I definitely have poor skills as a mechanic. I got #7 wrong on the RAAM personality profile because I don’t know anything about transmissions. As for the tires, I would totally have just gone and bought 4 tires, that one was easy.

EXPERIENCE:

My only experience with crewing to date was for Paul and Bill Pitney at the 24 hour race on Labor Day weekend in 2009. I do, however, have 15 years of experience working and traveling with athletic teams as an athletic trainer. Again, I don’t have any experience as a cyclist but I am a runner and have completed 3 marathons. In order to get in touch with my cyclist side, I did begin working-out on a bicycle on a trainer in my basement this year. I am proud to say that I am up to 25 continuous minutes and sad to admit that I may have a minutia of an inkling into Shermer’s Neck.

EXPECTATIONS:

What do I hope to “get” from crewing? I’ve read the material and talked to a few people and from that I guess I would expect to get dirty, smelly, cranky, tired and hungry. It is my hope to get Paul to finish and gain valuable experience as an athletic trainer working with an ultra cyclist. Along the way I hope to laugh, sweat, maybe cry a little, and make a few friends and to persevere.

BACKGROUND:

My preferences – I don’t really like to eat a lot of greasy fast food. I am not a vegetarian but I do try to maintain a healthy diet. And if it was at all possible to get in a short run in now and then (and this is not mandatory) it would probably go a long ways to keeping me sane. Outside of that, I will do my best to fill what ever role is asked of me. It may help to know that I really like Red Bull, a lot. How do I know Paul? He’s my department chair. Did I volunteer to be on his crew because he is my boss? – heck no! I like my job and this is probably the surest way to jeopardize it. I volunteered for Team Carpenter because I believe that my skills and experience as an athletic trainer can be an asset to Paul during this event. Also, I like knowing that in some small way I helped Paul to achieve something so difficult and challenging that only 200 people have ever completed it.