Thursday, 4 June 2009

Ady's Story - Doomed to Failure?

Starting my journey with an age, fitness and girth handicaps I was determined to give myself the best chance of completing the course. Being the oldest by at least 13 years was no excuse for not doing the work required to get ready. Having complete faith in my team mates put a little extra pressure on so that turned into a great incentive for me to keep on going. A bit of a set back in March when my mum passed away put Trailtrekker on the back burner for a while but on the day I felt ready willing and able to do it.
Giving up booze and spam since April 1st (no joke) was really helpful in making sure my stamina was as good as the rest!

What I really needed was a good start with few if any blisters on the first leg and ideally the second too. What I got was something a little different.

By the first checkpoint 5 comped were applied and while they did their job it proved a distraction analysing every step for further signs of pain and damage. By checkpoint 2 each step was painful and the comped were running low.

My journey from that point forward is a series of remembered feelings of levels of pain from my feet. A good step was a painful one, while a bad step made me wince and a really bad step generated gasps and swears... (sorry anyone within earshot)

By the 4th checkpoint I was in real trouble and went to the first aid people for help. There advise was simple, stop! Which was not what I wanted to hear. The only thing they could offer was more padding and in hindsight accepting this was a mistake. The padding crushed my feet in my shoes and affected my gait putting additional pressure on my knees.

I would never have forgiven myself for not attempting the last leg but it was probably doomed to failure. As the pain grew worse and my speed became little more than a crawl I went into denial, probably costing the others their chance of making 30 hours. When my knees started to buckle on a particularly steep hill it was time to call a halt. Little did I realise how emotional I would feel as failure is not an experience I am used to.

The next photos are not for the squeamish!

As you can see the damage done was significant and now, 4 days removed, I cannot walk pain free and my feet are still very swollen. Time will heal them and, fingers crossed, my walking will return to normal.

In the end the disappointment of not finishing I'm sure will be overtaken by the fact that the real goal of Trailtrekker, raising money, was not only achieved but when we have finished should have been exceeded by over £1.000 giving us a final total over £2,500.

A huge thank you to our support team, all the Oxfam marshal's, first aid and masseuse who kept us going. To the team who fantastically got to the finish line, you should be very proud guys. And finally to Oxfam's Kim who who is one of the nicest and honest people one could wish to meet.

Look out for my epic poem coming soon...

1 comment:

joel dalby said...

you can hold your head up high Ady. to battle on as far as you did - just watching the video from Malham reminded me how long you were suffering for - is inspirational. I'd have packed in before Horton if I'd been in your boots. Your story is more about success (raising shed loads of cash and breaking 80km) than failure. 100km is there for the taking next year if you're up for it!!!