Finally facing my Waterloo!

by Natalie Ashdown

This is my short story of my journey to complete the Oxfam 100km walk - a walk (or run) that covers 62.1 miles (100kms) in 48 hours for charity. In 2010 I had formed a team of 4 people to complete the event.  We had spent hours and hours training, and raised $5000.00. 

We started the event early in the morning at 7am with the brilliant sun-rise which promised a crisp, great day and importantly no rain.  We walked through the morning, through the afternoon and into the night, stopping at checkpoints along the way and meeting our crew for peanut-butter sandwiches and energy drinks. 

At the 45km mark we decided to stop and sleep – it was 1am.  We fell into the make-shift tent, with 4 people, we begged some students to tape our blistered feet, but no amount of taping could keep my feet warm from the cold night which promised nothing but a challenge.  I put my head into my sleeping bag to let my warm breath warm the bag and my body and willed myself to sleep counting backwards from one-thousand.  999 inhale, exhale, 998 inhale exhale.

It was not yet morning but 21 hours into our journey, I got up at 4am as promised, I would not let the team down.  Ploughing on with a spirit in my step and being grateful for being alive, and for the opportunity to achieve something that I had set out to achieve months and months before.

I had a new relationship with health and what was possible, and now as I climbed the latest hill and crossed the dirty, dry grass, willing my body to get to the checkpoint with my personal trainer herself pushing me from behind we were headed for 37.3 miles checkpoint (or 60kms).

I had walked over some of the steepest hills, taking in the breath-taking scenery as part of the journey.

Then I heard a voice saying “perhaps you should call it a day”.  But it was not my voice.

I looked across to the checkpoint and all the support crew had already packed up.  The white tents had been pulled down and some where flapping freely in the breeze having one last dance before being stuffed into their carry bags and now, only the banging of steel poles could be heard as one by one the structures where dismantled.

Two people remained to check us in, encouraging us by saying we were not the last group to cross the line, but that they were worried about us because they couldn’t contact us on the trail.  Water was all that they could offer us, not even the energy drinks that we had grown accustomed to filling up on.

“Perhaps you should stop.”

It was not my voice.

“You’ve come this far, I’m worried about you.”

It was not my voice.

He cared for me, my husband, I could see the pain in his own face, and in his body.  He was one of the team members and going strong on the trek, but doing it hard.  His face was as muddy as his shoes and his energy was as grey as his unshaved whiskers. 

He cared for me.

Never had I considered stopping, not ever.

Until now.

It was not my voice.

It was his voice.

A voice of pain and caring, of not wanting to see me suffer.

Yet I was not suffering. Not really.  Not until that point.

I collapsed on the ground with my peanut butter sandwich.  Willing the energy from this squashed white bread, flattened beyond recognition, to come into my body, yet it seemed to refuse to give me the lift that I needed.  Betrayed by a poor excuse for a peanut butter sandwich. And some berry flavoured energy drink that drained out of my body as quickly as I could put it in.  Berry flavoured. I preferred orange.  Orange would give me energy.  But orange was not available.

Then my head filled with new voices. I was letting the team down by continuing.  I could continue but at what cost to the team.

I told the team I was thinking of stopping. I looked at my blistered and worn feet.  I willed them not to hurt, I willed the strapping upon strapping upon strapping to prevent my toenails from coming off.

And then the deed was done.

I made a decision.

I would stop, for the benefit of the team. 

I was slowing them down. 

Better that I stop and let the team finish, than to hold them back. 

A mercy killing on the side this pathetic road, in the middle of an abandoned soccer field, that nobody had cared to play on for many years now. “Take a bullet for the team” said the voice, and it was my voice.

The tears flowed now, pouring from my eyes uncontrollably and stinging my face in a cruel salty twist. And my nose joined the blubbering mess I was becoming.

“You’ve done the right thing”. Said a voice. It was not my voice.

“There’s no shame in stopping”. Said a voice. It was not my voice.

“You’ve achieved so much, you can be so proud”. Said a voice, it was not my voice.

Words of comfort, but not from my voice.

The team carried on, they finished the journey, a remarkable feat of physical endurance, crossing the line at 3am with a massive crowd of 3 people cheering in the darkness as a beacon for them to follow and the sounds of Abba’s Waterloo blaring over the PA system to anyone who cared to listen.  Just my team.  Waterloo – I was defeated you won the war.

It has been over 18 months since the event finished. Yet my voice would not let me fully appreciate my journey.  What it takes to be able to walk 60 kms (37.3 miles non stop), what an achievement.

My voice called me a failure.

My voice said I let the team down.

My voice said I didn’t achieve my goals.

My voice said “how could my husband do that”.

My voice said “how could my team do that – leave me behind”.

My story said “that’s not what team members do, they should never have left me, we agree to cross the line together, the team sticks together, they don’t let each other down, they cross the line together”.

My voice, my story, would I have my happy ending? 

The words of the song, they are calling me now, beckoning in a new story.

Waterloo – I was defeated you won the war.

Waterloo – promise to love me forever more.

But how could I ever refuse, I feel like I win when I loose.

To feel like a winner, when you loose?

What did I loose? – nothing!

I gained so much from this journey and there is so much more to come, so much more that is possible because of the journey.

So much to learn, so much to celebrate, so much to forgive.

A new story to write.

Promise to love me forever more.

Now I’m a runner!  Just completed my first 5km run!  What a buzz!  Aiming for 10km and going strong.

Promise to love me forever more.

Footnote:
Oxfam was spurred on after a team member my business development manager had a heart-attack and nearly died.  My voice said I was a bad boss, I caused the heart attack, I put her under too much pressure. None of that was true. She had a generic heart disorder and naturally very high levels of cholesterol. Her mother had died at the same age that she had had the heart-attack. It didn’t help the voices. 

Promise to love me forever more.