“WHEN you feel dizzy or have a peculiar feeling about what is happening around you, pour water on your head and neck. “It was“ during the race ”good advice on the elevator, which we received before the race. It was right and right, but how do you do it when you are almost at the top of the mountain and the nearest point of water is about one and a half kilometers on both sides, and you do not have water with you?
From the initial point, it seemed easy enough, although, especially now, when it was only 30 km, how difficult was it compared to 75 km of Mossel Bay? The route consisted of loose small stones at the beginning, and everyone was optimistic, including in fact. I remember, as I said to one of the well-known strong teams in the competition, that this would be a game. I did most of the challenging routes, such as Mossel bay Vasby, Mossel bay Khoikhoi Stamp, Polsmoor, Kanaland, Gaansbaai Walking walking competitions to name only a few, so I did not expect big problems with Tulbah.
When I was sitting on the top of Mount Tulba, thinking that if only I could get water, I could use this advice (pour water on my head and the back of my head), and maybe I would be better, but where am I going to water from? I only had 500 ml of energy drink, and I hoped to keep it until I saw the next point of water a mile away. I asked my team members to leave me behind, I'll be fine, and I will find my way back when I feel strong enough. I promised them that if I didn’t feel better, I would call and tell them, and they would send a certificate, and they promised to call every 30 minutes to be sure, and they did.
In fact, it was embarrassing, just one kilometer from the walk, I realized that it was difficult for me to breathe. It was like my nostrils were closed, the oxygen I breathed was not enough to withstand heavy breathing. I felt more distant from second to second. So I was breathing, despite my mouth, which was a very bad step. After a few seconds, it looked like I was chewing on gravel and swallowing it without full processing. The pain was so agonizing, as if someone had a rough chest.
My walking shoes were hard to hold on the ground, and you can blame her for turning my legs into jelly. I continued to stumble and was afraid that I would break my leg. I heard that I was swimming and lying down, as if I did not have enough sleep. My vision was distorted, try it, although I closed my eyes when I opened them, my vision was still not close to improvement. I did not understand what was happening to me. I have never been a great sports woman, even at the school level, which I have to admit. I played to the best of my abilities, although it could never have won me in the nomination “Sport Woman of the Year”, but it was miserable, although reluctantly.
I tried all kinds of sports in which I could get to school, but was not a great athlete, with a body that I had always been taught by an elementary school teacher until they realized that I didn’t have enough energy to go faster. In athletics, I get tired easily, even at 100 meters, or would I throw the baton, who does it? Even asthmatic children are better than me.
So I tried something that I knew I could, I go. Is it easy to walk? I mean that you walk kilometers, but the end result: you walk, how difficult is it? I grew up in very rural areas where very long distances were a daily ritual. I had to walk 6 kilometers to and from school every morning and in the afternoon to my junior and high school, whether it was raining or not. Or a long walk to friends or relatives living far away, so the walk was my thing. I may not have been a serious athlete or played any particular sport, but I knew that I could walk.
Perhaps it was not so wise, after I really thought that I first met in the magnificent Mosel Gulf Wabbi 75 km with a famous walk along the beach and received a bronze medal. Or that I also participated in a walk on the Hansabai endurance and invented silver, and today I was going to scoop a gold medal. Although I did not just pull my leg, I just could not help reminding us that we were there to win. I actually competed in almost all small competitions, including the ones I mentioned, and received medals, although not yet, and I thought I was fine. My team members continued to talk about how difficult this route was on the way to Tulba, but I just abandoned it as non-optimism.
Try, although I still found out that I actually walked better with my eyes closed. It was impossible, but because we did not go on the road, but on the part of the route where there was a mini-stream with dangerously slippery rocks. I continued to walk and tried to guard my steps, but with each step it became more and more difficult. Especially since we were the first team in front, and the groups of people behind us were eager to go, and there was only one way, and I was very slow. My teammates tried to put me in front of the team for morale. One dragged me with a homemade rope bandage tied to my middle, and the other pushed me from behind, but they ever realized that I was half board.
Someone from the other team was joking as they passed by us, and I realized that he was from the team to which I had boasted about my achievements earlier. “You guys are a strong team pulling a trailer to the finish line, a typical competitor of the cause.” In any case, the paramedics were wild arrows, standing by the reservoirs at a distance of one kilometer. wild fire.
So I decided that they should leave me there, at least I could go back to the starting point we left an hour and a few dozen minutes ago. I will rest, and then make my way halfway down and find an auxiliary vehicle on the half-kilometer-long back, I will have plenty of water, and then return to the starting point with my tail tail between my shacks. Despite the fact that my teammates were very disappointing to leave me behind, they had to continue individually with the competition.
Of course, I let them down, I thought, we were not very good rivals in the gold medal, but together we knew that we could do it. I felt very bad about this, more than I was feeling bad due to my immediate predicament. I broke the team spirit, now they had to compete with a woman. Each team passing by me lay on the ground, felt sorry for me and asked if there was something they could do, and I said no, I was breathing inside. Even older teams over 50 were strong, and I was almost half of that age, what happened to me? Could not even finish the first two kilometers of walking.
Lying there, I realized that it’s not all attractive words to feel sorry for myself and disappoint my teams. I gave up, and I felt helpless, as if nothing good for a child with whom I was in elementary school again. Oh! And the reality of why I suddenly lost energy, struck me, I was even embarrassed to admit to anyone. I didn't eat breakfast, I fashionably missed every first and most important meal of the day, so I was hungry, jiz! The added tension on my body drained my source of energy and guessed that there was nothing to deplete because there was no food in my stomach, how stupid of me?
I am always so busy that food becomes difficult when I am going to a distant place. Therefore, I usually just take a meal in the morning and a meal when I arrive, but that morning we were a little late, and a few minutes after arrival the walk began. I could not eat, and since it is only 30 km, I thought I would do it, but I was very wrong. And guess what? I did not heed the advice of the organizer ( if you don't have backup help, carry some sweets, energy-boosting chewable tablets, bananas, headache tablets, etc. in the lunar bag around your middle .)
Fuzzy, although I was, I was determined to go and finish my walk, now that I knew that I was not very sick, but I did not have the strength, because I was just hungry. Although I was very much behind my team, I was definitely going to finish the walk. Failure was not an option, where it bothered me, and endurance walking was a renewed passion, the only thing that I thought that I could, by giving up on it, would betray that thought. Jelly legs, handshake, swimming head, distorted vision and everything, I tried to get up and walk. I could not allow this mountain Tulba to defeat me. Although there were very few birds on this mountain, but these little things seemed to laugh at me, loose!
Instead of going back to the camp, though, I was climbing a mountain in the direction of all the other teams that gave me regret. I was damned if I was going to give up and was beaten by a 30-kilometer route? Never! The first team with which I passed, could not believe it. One broad-shouldered member exclaimed: “Have you just woken up from the dead? Incredible! ”“ Oh yes, and I will stay here. ” I said that I had sunk past the team, still weak and shaky, but I was determined to go forward. When I continued on my way, one thing and one thing only in my opinion, I was going to complete this route, no matter what. I felt like I was getting stronger and stronger as I climbed the mountain. Perhaps the sight helped me to surround the mountain brush and Cape Finbos harder, the fresh air on the top of the mountain helped me rejuvenate.
By the time I got to the next kilometer, I recovered and felt much stronger. Therefore, my next goal was to catch up with my teammates. They were not going to believe what they were going to see. They kept their promise to call every 30 minutes, and several times I told them that I was going back to the starting point. When they call every time after this, I will tell them that I am closer or closer to the starting point, or I have arrived, and I am well. Thus, with such a repeat guarantee, they were in full swing to the finish line. They were just as surprised as every other rival I followed along the route, when I came to their opinion a few meters from the finish line.
They all asked how I did it. I definitely had a half board case, and they saw it when they left me. We did this together with our teammate in the finish line. Although we did not win the gold medal for first place due to the distance between the team members and the technical characteristics of control points, I was careless to be proud of myself for durability!
