Amazing things happen when you surround yourself with the right people!

Build a strong community so you can’t fall victim to your excuses. How I completed the Oxfam 100k Trailwalker

It was 12:45 pm on Saturday afternoon and I had just crossed the finish line of the Oxfam 100km Trailwalker. As I crossed the line I literally hunched over, hands to my knees in exhaustion not knowing if I was going to throw up, cry or poop myself. As I gathered my bearings and became conscious of my state I looked up to take in the people around me.

It was then I felt incredible pride in the achievement of our team of walkers - David Shepherd, Jon Quinton, and Kimberley Kidd.

Like all good epic tales, there’s a backstory.

It’s early January 2019 and feelings were creeping into my gut, feelings about a deep need to tackle a monumental challenge, The kind of challenge that is an ultimate test of physical and emotional endurance.

I wasn’t sure why I needed to test myself, Increasingly I had a sense that I wanted to be challenged like never before, to find something that would test my character, my body, and my will. Right at that point, I got a sign in the form of a text message from my buddy..... “Hey mate how are you? I wanted to sound you out on a challenge I’m thinking of doing on August 25. It’s the Oxfam 100 km walk and you need a team of 4 to do it. Would you be interested in doing it?” Serendipity I thought, it was obvious I had to say ‘yes’.

The Oxfam walk was something I’d been thinking about and it scared me, it really scared me, not because I didn’t know if I could, I was scared of what it would take, to actually show up, to train, to hold myself accountable and to take it seriously, knowing full well that if I failed it would be because I hadn’t put the work in, or my will was broken.

Walking 100km up and down rough trail is primarily a question of will not ability. Could I put one foot in front of the other for 100kms when every muscle in your body is telling you to stop? Shouting at you via shots of excruciating pain sent from your knees to your brain.

That monumental challenge I thought I needed ended up dropping into my lap and I knew I had to say yes, so I did, then I took a deep sigh and went about my usual business.

Do you know that moment when reality hits and the enormity of your decision presents itself? Yeah, that happened about 60 seconds in, the walk starts with the cruelest 100m climb you could imagine. I’m talking so steep that it caused me to ask myself if I needed to take a breather just 50 meters in, no bullshit. Of course I didn’t, how could I show weakness so early in this journey that I’d dragged 3 of my friends into? Great, only another 99.9km of this to go, how hard can it be.

Whilst standing at the start line I had mixed feelings of excitement and anxiety, but the reality hadn’t yet hit me until that bastard hill. Then it became real, and so did my nerves.

We got to the first checkpoint much faster than expected, and with no support crew allowed, we quickly filled our water, grabbed some food and moved on to the next. As we walked I told myself; stage two is the only grade 5, everything else is a 4 with a few 3s to finish, just get this tough section behind us and we are golden. Little did I know that at that point I’d already made the biggest mistake I could.

During our practice walks I’d always felt sore at the top of my feet, where I’d gone and got trail shoes a size too big (as the googling suggested) tying them up tight caused them to scrunch at the top and rub. The result was that the toes and underfoot were perfect at the end of each training session but a slight ache on the top of the foot would last a day or two. Stupid me decided, that over 100k it would be better to loosen the shoes to make sure the entire foot would be comfortable the whole way. Smart? yep, so smart I did the one thing the guidelines tell you not to do, try something new that you’d not done during training. Turns out having loose shoes causes more friction, and at only 25kms in, I had a nice blister forming on the ball of my right foot just below the 2nd 3rd and 4th toe. Awesome.

Not realizing what had caused this, and being anxious about my grim future, the fear set in and I knew that I had nothing but pain to look forward to for 75km. Sadly, the blister was only the start. With it forming on my right foot, it must have caused me to change the way I walked and before I knew it, every downhill step sent a shooting pain through my right knee, and for anyone that has done the Oxfam Trailwalker, you’d know that it’s a series of 200m ascents and descents on some pretty tough trail.

Now I can tolerate pain when I have it, I’ve broken and dislocated fingers in the middle of cricket games and played on, but what I can’t deal with is the thought of future pain to come. I was resigned to the fact that my foot was blistered, but my right knee was fucked, and I had no idea what kind of damage I was doing to it. I started ruminating, thinking worst-case scenario, maybe this is it, maybe I’m about to do so much damage that It will never fully recover. That was scary.

What was I to do? We were about 60km in, I couldn’t quit, shit, I couldn’t show weakness at all, my team was here for me and I needed to be there for them, knowing full well I had to finish, I told myself, what will be will be. I got to each checkpoint with a sigh of relief, and without thinking of the consequences, I left each checkpoint in full stride, with my team by my side trying hard to make sure they couldn’t sense my thoughts and fears.

In some ways I was happy, I didn’t want this to be easy. I wanted a challenge, I wanted to test my character, so I guess this was the universe allowing me to do so.

As soon as the sun went down the temperature dropped, and though it was easy enough to stay warm whilst we moved, when we stopped at the overnight checkpoints, we froze. It was predicted to go as low as 4 degrees and we felt every bit of it. If not for our amazing support team, I’m not sure how this would have ended. They got to each checkpoint early, set us up with chairs, warm food, and hot drinks so we could relax whilst they filled our water bottles and catered to our every need. They were angels, and when angels show up at your time of need it creates a unique bond. I’ll never forget those faces, so happy to see us when we must have looked so miserable.

By the time we got to our second last checkpoint, I had to tell the team how bad my knee was, their response, “we’ll carry you if we have to”, how could anyone back down when they have such amazing comrades? Dave, our American rah rah enthusiast had some spare walking poles in the support car ready to make Glendon great again, and though I’d told myself I would do it without them, reality set in, if I had two more stages of 200m inclines and declines I might not physically be able to finish. So as not to let the team down I grabbed the poles, we had trained stage 7 not too long before and I knew it was a fucker, a tough grade 4 that almost beat me then, when I was fresh and not already 81km deep.

As supportive as my amazing team was, it took all of 30 seconds before I copped some slack for my new walking aids, I knew it was their way of getting everyone to laugh, and of course it did, well worth it even if at my own expense.

The last stage of the event was a 10.3-kilometer grade 3 that started at 150m altitude, dropped to about 10m and then rose again to finish at Tania park at approx. a 110m climb. Though a grade 3 is the easiest of all legs, by this point we were 89kms in, I was broken, exhausted, and pretty much out of my mind.

If you’re wondering what happened at the start of this story, well, it turns out I cried. We approached the finish line at Tanya park with our support team, friends and family cheering for us like we’d just won world war two, and the second I crossed that line I hunched over with my hands on my knees and out of nowhere a spontaneous and overwhelming wave of emotion washed over me that I couldn’t control and my cry face was in full swing. That last 5km felt longer than the whole walk put together, likely because we’d been up for over 31 hours at that point, clinically drunk and exhausted of every ounce of strength and will power I had.

There’s awesome chemistry when a group of people come together to accomplish something phenomenal. A group that included our beautiful support crew, all the donors and people that sent messages and checked in throughout, whether you realise it or not it has a big impact on you, and that impact showed in the tears that fell down my cheeks. I was free, free to just sit there and bask in the glory of completing this challenge, and free to be in awe of the people that came together to make it happen, and for what? Well, because they love us, that’s all.

Is there a moral to the story? I’m not sure, I still haven’t grasped the meaning to it all, or if I have fulfilled my desire to challenge myself, however, I do know this; even the best athletes in the world couldn’t accomplish their goals if they didn’t have an amazing team behind them – a coach, support crew, family and friends.

So, I implore you, regardless of what it is you’re trying to achieve, find the people that will support you, surround yourself with them and take them along for the ride. You will be far more successful knowing you have a sense of obligation, to give them back what they have given you, because even if you could do it on your own, why would you want to?

Our team managed to finish in 26 hours and 45 minutes, 50th overall with 537 teams starting the event, 488 teams finished and out of those 488, only 267 finished with all 4 team members (including us).

Well done to our team, 3 Men and a Kidd, I have a new-found admiration for you, and a huge thanks to our support crew; Sarah Loughlin, Rob Kidd, Crystal Jackson Evarts, Lachlan Cogan, Cain Richards, and Jess Peters, you’re our Angels!!!