To start, this was a much overdue post meant to be up a month ago. But as things go, I got swamped with life's never-ending stream of "things to do" and the post never stood a chance on my list of priorities. Until now of course. My first completely and utterly free Sunday afternoon. No where I want to go, no where I need to go either. Good time to just veg.
In thinking back, the 100k hike in 48 hours for Oxfam was an immensely challenging ordeal for my team and I; the sheer distance and time limit, the extra burden of a hydration pack, and the endurance required for such an event. I've chatted with a client (Sandy - the amazing individual who introduced me to this event) she mentioned how she was doing these long hikes, both daylight ones and night ones, up to 50k + at times. I was seriously impressed. Although our team did do our training bit, we as a team nor as an individual even, hiked as far as 33km! I swear, it must have some bloody miracle we survived the event as we did :P
I could say it was all miracles and such, but it also had a lot with real people -- my donors/supporters -- that made the difference. The sponsors for my event: Anna, Hoanh, Hue, Jeffrey, Joyce, Kimberly, Kai, Laura A, Laura O, Liana, Lynette, Manh, Mark, Michael, Muoi, Phuc, Phung, Richard, Seyed/Diana, Thu, Vinh-The, Yoko. My supporters, Bill Petruck who surprised me with cake and pizza! on the day before the hike at work, my co-workers who supported me, and of course, the support crew (more on them later! ;) ) - Mr. and Mrs. Tsang, Maggie, Gabe, Janet. Together as a team, we managed to raise $2,714! 108% of our original goal. None of this could have been done without the people listed above. I just wanted to say... thank you to all of you again! :)
The tale of our journey begins on Thursday, July 22nd while I sitting at work coding a new feature for an web application. I was to get off earlier, get picked up and dropped off at my friends house (I had the gatorade to distribute to my team + luggage and everything as all packed up but too heavy to bring with me).
As I'm work away, my mind drifts off to thinking about the hike,... will we survive this? Did we train enough?
Lunch time rolls around, and I'm surprised with: 1. Cake and pizza from my boss to wish us luck on completing the event! :P 2. A visit by J and his wife Meg and their little bundle of joy :) We enjoy a bit of chit chat, watch my boss as he made some funny face for the kid to giggle at :P and touched on the hike topic. Apparently Meg had a pair of colleagues who participated in the event and mentioned that it was very intense. lol Great, more to add to the anxiety!
I receive a phone call from my mom shortly after lunch. She tells me that they're getting ready to leave the house and asks me if there's anything else that I needed besides my luggage and the gatorade. I say, nope, that's it. Just the luggage and the gatorade. Nothing else.
There was a pause on the phone. I can hear her shuffling and ready to hang-up as she's heading towards the doorway (the rumbling of the shoes being shifted :)). And then she says, "I see a pair of shoes here ... didn't you always go walking with them?"
I was about to answer to her, "no I've got everythi-- ". Oh crap. lol I look down at my feet. I see sandals. lol. "no wait wait!" I remember clearly saying, "bring them, bring them. Are they.. gray and pink? yes, yes, please bring them". I didn't know at that time whether to laugh or feel miserable stupid... maybe both. I, of all the things I could have forgotten... forgot my hiking shoes. Such an embarrassing and definitely devastating moment. I was for sure not to even notice that I didn't have them till... probably when I was in Barrie already!
I felt a huge sigh of relief. In all the excitement in the morning, I was intending to wear the hiking shoes to work.. but thought it last minute that I'd rather be more comfortable wearing sandals. Unfortunately, I did not think to pack the shoes away. Silly me. Just have to say, thank goodness for Moms! lol
My parents arrive, I catch the ride, and I knock on my friends house. She invites me in, and we wait for my other two friends to arrive. When the do, we pack our luggage into her car.. as we do, I relate to my friends the tale of the forgotten hiking shoes. We all laugh at it... except one friend. Her eyes are wide. And she looks at the rest of us. "Umm.. oh no. I think I forgot it." We look at her, thinking she was kidding. She wasn't.
We drove to her house and picked up the missing hiking boots. On our way up we discovered that it was a good thing we didn't go straight away on our venture, the 401 highway was clogged up. Alls well that starts poorly lol is that they say. Or I say.
To Barrie we go.
We check in first at the Oxfam Trailwalker meeting point to pick up our bibs and our sourvineer t-shirt. Next we check in at the Days Inn, and at a whole lot of pasta at East Side Marios. This probably would be the last time we will have hot tastey food ... in the next two days.
After some reorganization and unpacking, we go to sleep.
Day #1 - 6:41 AM
To end off, although it was only 48 hours...(40 for us actually), it felt like 2 weeks had gone by. During the hike we went through many things, injuries, dehydration, moments of sheer exhaustion and frustration. We each learned things about ourselves, each other, and as a team. And that its a good thing Man invented cars! lol. The weather was also on our side; forecast was wrong for two days in a row. Apparently back in Toronto, it was just pure rains and thunderstorms. Lucky lucky. I don't think we would have made it otherwise!
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