The second section of the trail incorporated the first real hills of the walk, and while challenging i found myself remembering the first time we had tackled this section in a practice walk- it had been the hottest day on record for February for many years (climbing to about 37 degrees) and the hill had nearly slaughtered us. compared to that day we climbed the hill with ease and i marvelled at the improvements in my own physical fitness. the rest of this section into checkpoint two was relatively easy, after walking back down the hill we'd just climbed it was fairly flat and level and we had ample opportunity to regain our cheery outlook despite our soggy shoes and clothes. the rain disappeared and the sun came out as we walked into checkpoint 2 at lysterfield lake picnic ground.
After a hearty lunch and a change of shoes and socks (as well as re-taping of feet to prevent blisters) we set off again. by now it was around 2:30 and we were an hour ahead of schedule. the third section of the track incorporated some extremely challenging landscape, with steep roads and paths and treacherous slippery mudslides. Overall this section was 15.5 km and involved climbing 400metres in elevation over a distance of less than 7km. i had been dreading this section so much and was looking forward to checking into checkpoint 3 shortly after sunset. Because of the terrain (rainforest), the rain and the resulting cloud cover the light disappeared much sooner than we had expected and we found ourselves walking in the dark without our headlamps or other night gear for the final 45 minutes of this leg- so the lights of the checkpoints were so very welcome when they finally appeared in the night sky.
It was starting to get quite cold after sunset so we stayed at checkpoint three a little longer than planned. Hannah (my team mate) and I visited with the podiatrists and physiotherapists on duty in the body tune tent where I got taped up to try and help relieve some pain i had developed in my shin and the top of my left foot. when we were finally rested and ready to go again it was about 7:30pm and we headed out into the night comforted by the thought that at the next checkpoint we would have dinner waiting. the early parts of this section were fairly uneventful, just a quick wander down a wide open path before meandering through a public garden. once out of the garden was where the real fun began...
When we first encountered sassafrass trail (the name still makes me giggle) it had been raining the entire week preceding our training walk and the slippery mud trail was treacherous with 2-6 metre drop off into the ravine along the right hand side. It was so confronting at that time, as we slipped and slid our way along the trail carefully placing our feet to avoid tripping over vines or slipping off mossy tree roots, that Deb and I became quite panicked when we realised that our timing would have us walking this part of the trail at night. the second time we walked this section in training we were mentally prepared for what we would encounter and so it was a much more pleasant experience. the organisers of the event had informed us that they would be placing guide ropes along the trail if it looked dangerous, so we approached sassafrass trail with cautious confidence when we came upon it Friday night.
... as you can imagine it was incredibly muddy after the rain of the day plus the 2500 people who had since walked this section ahead of us, to my dismay the guide ropes had not been put out and it was very dark and cold. It was at this point that i discovered sometimes breathing can be inconvenient
As i walked (and breathed) i became aware that with each breath out the mist off my breath would fog up in the beam of my headlight leaving me momentarily blinded. to make matters worse with the uneven terrain and the careful foot placement required to prevent slipping my left foot began to give me grief again and i found every time i placed my foot on uneven ground (which was more often than not) a shot of pain would run through my foot and up my shin. so now i was cold, scared, blinded, in pain and (as you do in these situations) crying. Boy was i glad to see the end of that particular trail! after a quick stop to let me regroup and calm down again we headed off to the next challenge of the section...
Hackets Road- oh how i loathe thee!!
hackets road is a relatively short private road, only notable by its 30% gradient incline- that's steep! this continues for 200 metres before leveling off ever so slightly (still quite steep mind you) for another 600 or so metres.
since we had tackled this particular section twice before we were well prepared for this devilry so set to it with considerable gusto. by leaning into my hiking poles i found i was able to drive through the climb and before long i found myself at the top (much to my surprise!), once again i was struck by the noticeable improvement in my fitness as a result of the months of training. after another quick break to gather our team and catch our breath again we were off, there was only 2.8km left until checkpoint 4 and dinner was so close we could just about taste it! About 800 metres from the checkpoint Hannah and i were powering along keen for some nourishment when we looked back and saw Ja lagging behind. This was unusual, all day i had been walking behind him, (so much so that if i closed my eyes i could've perfectly visualised his water pack and drink bottles), however we figured he must have been feeling quite tired (as we all were after more than 12 hours on the trail) and pressed onwards. As we drew closer to the checkpoint we took in Jason's white pain-drawn face and noticed he was walking with a limp, rather than simple exhaustion it was obvious there was something else going on here. Ja told us that he'd felt something "pop" and then just pain.
it was 9:30 when we checked into checkpoint 3 at olinda, we sent Ja off to the podiatry tent and eagerly tucked into a plate of piping hot ravioli, I've never eaten it plain before but it was like manna from heaven it tasted so good after the efforts of the day. It quickly grew colder and while we waited for Jason to receive treatment for his foot i finally changed into long pants and a long sleeved top- it felt so good to be warm again! Ja still wasn't back so i headed over to the body tune tent with deb to get some physio advice about some niggling joints that were making their displeasure known. the podiatrists were just finishing up with Ja and as he left the tent I overheard the man who had been treating him say to his colleague "I'm not convinced that he doesn't have a stress fracture" - my heart sank and i knew that it was unlikely that Jason would be continuing on with us. After a quick massage and tape-up of my knee we headed back to our team. Jason was still in considerable pain and it was obvious to all of us as we watched him attempt to walk just the short distance to the car that he would have to retire. so it was with a sad hug and heavy heart that we said goodbye to Jason and took his bib to report to the check-in/out volunteers that we were now down to 3 team members.
As we left Olinda we were considerably behind schedule, we had planned on only stopping for an hour but it was just over 2 hours later that we set out again. the fifth section of the trail wound down through the dandenong ranges into a forest valley. it was a bit disconcerting to be walking in such isolation so late at night and we stuck close to the other teams on the track. fatigue had started to kick in now and as i got more tired my mind enjoyed the opportunity to suggest crazy scenarios. at one time we heard rustling in the bushes alongside us for a short distance... it occurred to me that ninjas could easily pluck us one by one, silently in the night until no-one was left. Of course what ninjas would be doing in the middle of the Victorian bush, or what they could possibly want with us didn't come into it at all, this was pure irrationality at its best.
Sometime after 1am we finally crossed the road that marked the halfway point- 50km done and dusted and we were still going (relatively) strong! i had noticed for some time that both of my pinky toes were in a bit of discomfort, it felt as though the nail-beds had been bruised and i assumed it was just a case of them being squashed into the shoe as my feet swelled (as they do when you've been on them for 16 hours). The next part of the trail was long and boring, with no distinguishing landmarks and no way of knowing how far we had travelled or how much further we had to go, it was easy to get discouraged and to feel like we would never reach the next turn off. the pain in my toes grew progressively worse and i flinched every time i placed me foot in such a way that bumped the front of my toes. Downhill sections were extremely painful and for the first time in my entire life i found myself dreading the downhill bits (where my feet would slide forward and squish my toes some more) and looking forward to the uphill bits (where the pressure moved to my heels and gave my toes some relief). It was at this point that i grew despondent, swearing at rocks and growling my frustration i felt like we were getting nowhere. Deb and Hannah were wonderful, despite their own discomfort they encouraged me on, and it was with tears of relief that i finally heard the words that we were at the turn off and could move off this cursed rocky track. once final descent through a field and we made it to mount Evelyn football field where we stopped to recoup and check my toes.
I had thought that maybe the tape i had applied to my pinky toes to prevent blisters may have been adding pressure to the toe by reducing the available space and I hoped that by removing the tape i could get some relief. I knew that something was wrong when I felt the pain of removing my shoe and sock. When I tried to remove the tape it was stuck fast and as I pulled it I noticed that the skin on my toe was very loose. Using the scissors from the first aid kit I cut off the tape and discovered my worst fear. My whole pinky toe was blistered, there was a large blister on the inside edge from rubbing the adjacent toe, an even larger one on the top of the toe from rubbing the top of my shoe, but by far the most disturbing (and most painful) was the one on the underside of my toe, under a callus of thick skin covering the entire underneath of my toe. My heart plummeted and the alarming statistics of the number of participants forced to retire due to blisters began to run through my head. I knew from an earlier Oxfam information session that due to the way it sits under the other toes and how it moves during every step the pinky toe was the worst of all toes to get a blister on and I had the mother of all blisters. Looking at just this one toe and remembering the pain encountered in the previous section of the trail I couldn’t see how I could even put my shoe back on, let alone get to the next checkpoint (still just over 4km away), let alone finish the next 50km of the trail. But I couldn’t just sit there; somehow I had to get to the next checkpoint at the very least. So I lanced the blisters and Hannah kindly applied the blistex plasters she had carried in her pack. I decided not to look at the other foot. I assumed it was just more of the same bad news and knew that we didn’t have the time or equipment to deal with them properly. I gritted my teeth and began the seemingly endless trek to the next checkpoint. It hurt. Badly. But I made it.
The walk from the entrance to the checkpoint to the check-in desk at the far side of the camp seemed endless, but we finally got checked in, noted that the podiatrist volunteers had gone home for the night, and headed for our own “camp”. Once there I immediately removed both my shoes and socks and then tentatively cut off the tape from the right pinky toe. I couldn’t believe it, it shouldn’t have been possible but this toe was worse that the left toe. The blister on top literally popped when I lanced it, but the one underneath was beneath so many layers of hard calloused skin that I had to push and saw with the safety pin in order to drain the fluid away. My stomach turned. I felt totally beaten. I dressed the toe as best I could and laid back on the picnic mat to give my poor feet a chance to recover. Obviously I couldn’t continue straight away as we had originally planned (to walk through the night) it was just after 3am when we first arrived at the checkpoint and we decided to rest for a couple of hours and then decide what to do. By the time I had finished with my feet it was around 4:30, by 5am I had put my old runners on and we decided to sit in the warmth of the car and try to catch a few minutes of shut eye. I managed about 2 catnaps of around 3 minutes each; I was too keyed up to sleep.
By 5:20 we had given up trying to sleep and decided it was now or never. We had to get moving or we would never make it to the finish line. Walking was painful, but the thought of retiring was even more so, so I made the decision to push on to the next checkpoint. I thought that I could manage some “mind over matter” I knew that the blistered toes were now as protected as I could make them and that even if they were causing alarming levels of pain the chances were that they weren’t really getting any worse. Surely that should count for something when it comes to compartmentalising pain? It was about 5:45 by the time we checked out and left for Woori Yallock primary school (checkpoint 6 and breakfast). After a while I found that I could push the pain aside by walking in a particular way and leaning hard on my walking poles. My old runners were looser around the toes and weren’t rubbing as bad as the offending shoes had been. For the first time since seeing the blisters I began to believe that I could push on through to the finish line. We were making fairly good time all things considered and had picked our pace back up to round 5.5 km/hr- this section was 13km of hard compacted pathway, uncompromisingly flat and exposed.
It was the hardness that proved to be my undoing. Mentally I was drained from trying to block the pain through the preceding night’s walk and now again through the morning walk. About 7km from the end of this section I began to doubt the wisdom of donning my old runners. I had retired these runners from service because they were over 18 months old and had probably pounded out about 2000km on pavement and bitumen. Their soles were thin and shock absorption non-existent. I had thrown them in my gear bag for the walk on the off chance that I had some major catastrophe and had no other choice. I had put them on that morning because they were preferable to the trail runners that I had developed the blisters in and my newer ‘normal’ runners were still wet from wearing them in the rain on Friday morning. The hardness of the footpath began to pound through the ball of my foot and before long I had a new type of pain to deal with. I tried to change my gait to alter where my weight was bearing on my foot but any alterations to minimize the shock through the balls of my feet through the impact through my toes and my mental pain blocks weren’t strong enough to resist that impact. I tried using a cushioning pad I had worn the day before, purchased for precisely this eventuality, but it was sewn into a sleeve that I had to wear over my toes and, since my feet had swollen, the seam of the sleeve was tight and cutting into my blistered toes. I had to take them off. I tried putting them on the innersoles of my shoes rather than on my feet and after about 3 trials and error (each time stopping, sitting down, unlacing my shoes getting my foot out carefully, repositioning the padding, putting foot back in and re-lacing my shoes again) I finally found a position that provided the most relief for the least amount of exacerbation of pain. I still had just under 7km to go, i put my head down and just walked, I was slow, my poor team were well ahead of me and I knew I was frustrating them and holding them back. They kept having to stop and wait for me. I felt terrible.
As the kilometres wore on, the relief felt from the padding reduced and I had nothing left. Without the padding it was excruciating on my feet, with the padding each step was agony as it rubbed my blistered toes. I went through phases where I just cried and cried during that last few kilometres. I knew what this probably meant for me, I knew I was unlikely to finish and I felt so bereft at the thought that I could train so hard for something and put my all in but still not make it. So I held out some hope; I just wanted to get to the next checkpoint- perhaps there the podiatry volunteers could provide some treatment that could keep me going for the final 27km. When the checkpoint was finally in sight I felt like I was still miles away, I was walking so slowly at this point that I felt I was barely moving forwards. The last 400m felt like 4km in itself and when the volunteer on the gate cheered me and congratulated me on my progress I just sobbed. I felt like such a failure
Steve and Eli were waiting for me at this checkpoint having just arrived as we did. I have never felt so much love for them both as I did just at that moment. They were the most beautiful people in the world to me. Eli wrapped her little arms around my neck and whispered “I love you mummy, I missed you” and I just clung to her for dear life. I was so torn for such a long time about what to do. I went to see the podiatrists who ripped off my painstakingly applied band aids (re-opening the blisters in the process) cleaned the wounds with betadine to discourage infection and reapplied their own dressings. They discovered more blisters on the balls of my feet, lanced and dressed those too and then provided me with tape-on padding for the balls of my feet. I began to feel encouraged that with all of these changes, perhaps I really could actually make it. It was only 27kms to go after all, I had been walking that distance one day a week every week since id signed up for Oxfam in October. Compared to what id already covered it was nothing. Apart from my blistered feet and bruised soles I wasn’t even tired or sore, and now it seemed that they had provided remedies for all that ailed me
I CAN DO THIS!! I thought....
… and then I put my shoes back on….
SHIT!
… ow!
And I cried. And I cried. And I cried. and I cried. I knew this was it…
Then I tried a different combination of shoes and innersoles…
Then I tried different socks…
Different lacing methods…
Extra padding under my toes…
No padding…
everytime i thought of something new that might help my hopes lifted only to come crashing down when nothing worked; I couldn’t take more than three steps without being crippled with pain through my feet. There was no way I could walk another 27km within the time frame we had hoped to finish in and there was no way I was going to force my team mates to walk through another night just because I was so slow, especially when I knew there was no guarantees that I would even make it to the next checkpoint at all, even at the pace of a snail the pain was excruciating.
I had to retire. I didn’t want to do it. But I did it.
Retiring felt like failing, I felt about a millimeter tall. It didn’t matter that I had made it as far as I did. All that mattered was that I had trained so hard for so many months; sacrificed time with my family, time with my friends, spent so much money on so much gear to ensure success and I’d still failed. I had let everyone down, my friends, family and our sponsors. I hated that feeling, I hated myself. I just wanted to crawl into a cave and never come out...
Then I shared my failure on facebook and a something happened that forced me to reconsider the situation. My friends rallied around me and told me they were PROUD of me…. WOW!
TBC in redefining failure
