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The pain I have to go through. It’s like getting hit by a train and then asked to walk to the hospital. I cannot describe it better. Your muscles feel like it’s tearing itself apart, your joints feel like you’re hitting it with a hammer every step you take. The only thing that can keep you going is your own mental tenacity. Some of my colleagues have to give up 10km short of the target of 60km, after walking for 50km! Some finished short of a few km as time ran out, 24 hours have passed, spending the last few hours limping and dragging their feet to try to finish ahead of time.
After 70 laps, I rested for a while and woke up with difficulty of standing up. It’s the same for a lot of participants around me, most of us walk more like a penguin  than a man. As I went back on the track, I glanced at the clock tower, it was around 12+am. I’ve got 26 more laps to walk, around 16km. With this kind of pain, I’ve got to walk 16km more! It wasn’t until 5 hours later that I finished walking the 26 laps, making frequent pit stop at the medical booth for analgesic cream and spray. Which by this time has already been used up, leaving only ice packs to relieve pain. It does numb the pain for 1 to 2 laps, but then the pain will be back. I went on to walk 8km more than the minimum requirement of 60km to qualify for the medal. Just to push myself until the clock stops running at 8am.
In this 24 hours, I’ve only had the maximum sleep and rest of 4-5 hours. The rest of the time, I’m out there walking. I’ve seen a young lady and an old Indian man faint in front of me. See others crowding the medical booth with so much blisters on their feet they can’t wear their shoes anymore. The thought of giving up did cross my mind twice. But I pressed on, "not until the last minute" I told myself. I did doubt myself whether I will make it on time.
That’s how I’ve spent my Birthday. Btw, I also had 400+ people sang me a birthday song before we were flagged off. It’s a rewarding experience I can’t really describe in words.

Those are my colleagues, out of 39 staffs, 15 made it for the medal.

For more pictures, visit these 2 blogs:

http://xperienceoflife.blogspot.com/2007/08/sports-24-hour-international-walk.html

and

http://runwitme.blogspot.com/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 14th, 2007 at 6:54 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.