Starting on a positive note, our team "the Skinny Flat Whites" successfully completed the Coastrek 50km team trail walk last Friday and had a WOW! of a time doing it. While personally I found it much easier than the likes of the Wild Endurance 100km (yes, I know, Coastrek is "only" 50km compared to 100km and the Blue Mountains terrain is MUCH tougher), it was not without its challenges. One of the challenges was the amount of walking we had to do on road. The road really is significantly harder than trail and relentless pounding on such an unforgiving surface takes its toll after even a short time. Secondly, the weather was terrible - it rained and rained and rained. And then, when it stopped, it was soooooooooo humid. But, on the up side, as a team we walked well together. There were some silences and some swapping of walking partners, but there were no cross words and we walked across the finish line hand in hand and with smiles on our faces :)
Completing Coastrek was definitely on the "up" end of my physical extremes this week. 50km is the longest distance I have done on foot since May 2013 - ie, 6+ months. The rest of the week I took very easy physically in order to get over my calf stiffness from so much Coastrek walking on the hard road and through sand (which you can't train for in Canberra!), and my general lack of sleep.
Mentally this week, the extremes consisted of a high demand at work on the one hand, but great enjoyment as I really got stuck into my new university studies on the other. It's my 3rd uni degree and I'm doing it "for fun" and truly loving it so far.
Emotionally, the extremes this week were unfortunately skewed towards the less happy end. Again, on the up side I felt great satisfaction with both completing Coastrek and enjoying uni, but on the very down side there was the devastating loss of one of our best family friends. He was the 19yr old son of friends of Special K and mine (ie, neighbours for 10+ years) and the childhood friend (ie, sibling-like friend) of Capital I and Little A. As youngsters (ie, from babyhood through primary school) the kids spent time together every day. For reasons no one will ever really know or understand, he took his own life. Our hearts go out to his family. We will miss him terribly. But we will cherish our loving memories of the important place he had in the lives of each member of our family.
RIP Justin.
2 comments:
Well done Skinny Flat Whites! Doing 100k in the Blue Mtns in that weather would have been 1000 times worse!
So sorry about the family friend. That's sad.
Congratulations to the four awesome skinny flat whites.
Such very sad news about the young family friend. Just give each other a very big hug and cherish the precious family love. And a hug going your way from me Liz. I feel so sad for you all. Treasure the good times and memories.
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