One of the reasons I am most excited about this blog series is that I am given an opportunity to tell my stories. While there are countless ones to be told, today’s stories will focus on the age old saying: “be prepared.” Unfortunately it is only after many instances of being unprepared that I’ve come to realize the saying might just have some merit.
Triathletes in general relish adventure. We are thrill seekers. We love the feeling of adrenalin coursing through our veins. While I am no different, I decided to take things to another level. It involved playing a sort of Russian roulette. The game was this: “wouldn’t it be fun to go cycling with no spares?”
Punctures are a minor, yet inevitable annoyance in cycling. That is unless you don’t have spares, in which case they can be a major annoyance. While merrily cycling along one fateful day I recall the distinctive hiss and associated drop in tyre pressure. My heart sank. The game was up. This was slightly problematic. I got on the phone to my managers (aka mom and dad) who berated me for my stupidity and told me to sort myself out. Things were now slightly more problematic. After running through all my options, I was left with no choice besides walking back home. 5 kilometers of deep introspection and questioning my life decisions lay ahead.
With shoes in hand, and pushing my bike I started the long trudge home. It was the middle of the day, but I was hopeful someone would offer this sad looking young lad a lift. With each car that drove past, my hope of a lift decreased. That is until one bakkie stopped. This was it! I was about to be rescued from my pit of despair. The window wound down and “can you point me to the post office” poured out. I took a while to regain my composure and then described the way to the local post office. An hour and a half later I had finally managed to drag myself back home. Lesson learnt!
There is nothing better than having a friend who is just as crazy as you. I am fortunate to have one of those friends – his name is Tim. Since we had arrived in Cape Town to attend university, we had been planning an epic mission: run from UCT to Kirstenbosch and up Skeleton Gorge (roughly 8 kilometers with 700 meters climb). We would spend the night on top of Table Mountain, enjoy the sunrise and be down for breakfast the next morning. After many days spent discussing the adventure we decided to go for it. My dad had been visiting, so we were only able to start at 9pm. It had been raining all day, and was rather cold. Undeterred we headed out with headlamps, and small backpacks containing only the essentials. We made it to the top of Skeleton Gorge around 10:30pm and started organizing our sleeping spot. We built a wind break from rocks, and then settled down for some well-deserved rest.
It was immediately apparent that there would be no such “rest” happening that evening. We had chosen to sleep on sand, which while comfortable, sucks away all your body heat, particularly if it has been raining all day and the sand is freezing cold. I’m not sure how many of you have had the “privilege” of sleeping in a bivvy bag, so picture this: it is the thickness of about 3 black bags, and slightly longer than you are. It provides about as much warmth as you would expect – not much! In order to conserve weight for our run, the two of us had neglected to bring sleeping bags, and all we had were long pants and jerseys. It was so cold we each spent the night hugging our knees and shivering from the cold at the bottom of our respective bivvy bags, questioning our sanity. We were both too stubborn to say anything about heading home early, and chose instead to wait it out until sunrise.
I have never been so happy to see a sunrise in all my life. As soon as it got vaguely light, we went chasing the warm rays, happy for the chance to defrost. With no further ado, we headed back home for a quick shower and then went straight to bed. Lesson learnt!
I’m not sure I adequately described the ordeal, so I asked Tim for his thoughts on that fateful evening: “driven by stubbornness, our supposed hard-coreness and the hope of a good sunrise, we sat there hugging our knees and freezing out asses off for the better part of 6 hours, while our nice warm beds lay empty just 5kms away.”
I should tell you to always be prepared. To triple check that you have the correct equipment to cater for every eventuality. But that isn’t the point. It is something each one of us has to figure out for ourselves. And if we were always prepared, there wouldn’t be nearly as many stories to tell.
Happy training,
Mike
Mike Ross 