Ready for rumble in the jungle
This week has been one of those ‘pack and panic’ weeks for me because I am travelling to Cambodia to take on the Global Limits Khmer Path 140-mile ultra marathon. In fact as you read this, I will be on day one of this six-day adventure.
You would think that the amount of extreme races I have managed since my cancer diagnosis would mean that preparing for them is a walk in the park, but complacency has ended many a race, so it’s check, check again and again!
There is a race imposed weight limit of 10kg for all my kit and food for the duration. My lightweight kit bag, sleeping bag and roll mat take up a quarter of that, food is 5kg and another kilo is medication. That leaves me very little for spare clothes, over and above what I will be wearing.
I have run many desert races where you are in the same kit all week, but dry deserts are very different to humid jungles. Nothing ever dries out and it’s likely there will be thunderstorms most days. My wet feet will be getting a pounding.
I have spent the last two months having halfhour daily steam sessions to help acclimatise, I’ve been to the gym five days a week and run thousands of miles in training, so physically I am as ready as I will ever be. That just leaves the mental part.
I know that at least once every day my head will be telling me to throw in the towel. It may be running through a marshy paddy field, boiling in the sun on a long, straight trail, being eaten by fire ants as I crawl and bushwhack through the jungle, fear of running into snakes or just being hungry and exhausted.
That, however, is where I have an advantage over many because, through cancer, I know that life is now and the fact that I am fundraising for Prostate Cancer UK always helps spur me on when it gets tough.
Last week, I lost another friend to this indiscriminate disease, so I will run for him and others who would love to even contemplate putting their foot on the start line.
I hope that even without a challenge in your life, you live for today too, prepare the best you can and dive in. You won’t regret it.
I know that at least once a day my head will be telling me to quit