Firstly, Thank you to everyone who sponsored us. Your generosity helps us to raise over $2500.

I’ll give you a brief run down on what your donation bought from the Fitta Bodies Team.

As a lot of you know, I had a severe case of food poisoning 4 days before the event which saw me taken to hospital by ambulance, so the the week leading up to the event wasn’t optimal for me, as I couldn’t eat anything more than toast and crackers. I did eat some fruit and protein the day before the event though! The night before the event, I weighted 3.4kg’s less than I weighed just before the food poisoning.

We kicked off at 8:30am Friday morning. We were in great spirits…

The terrain is tough, but interesting and beautiful.

At 5pm we reached our support crew for dinner. Spaghetti bolognaise, mmm…did somebody forget to tell the support crew what I had thrown up last week (spaghetti bolognaise).  

Tom and Mary did an awesome job at making sure were were fed and then we were back out on the track by 6pm. This time with headlamps to guide the way. By 6:30pm, my spaghetti is back in my throat. It appears all the vomiting I did has damaged the sphincter at the base of my oesophagus! The night walk is tough, staring at the ground for 12 hours was never going to be easy, but we got through it. We kept each other awake with lots of mind games, generally involving old TV trivia. I spent the early hours of the morning with stomach cramps and reflux. Neither of which I have ever had in my life before. 

At 5am, we met our support crew Danny and Lisa, who had hot soup awaiting. I only wish I could have eaten it. I managed to squeeze in a half bowl and by 6:30am, we were on our way again. This was definitely the toughest check point to leave, especially for me. I was nearly physically done at this point, but my team mates kept me going. Everybody else is tired at this point, but physically ok.

The sunrise helped to lift spirits more than you could imagine. We seemed to have a new found energy.

Porridge at 11am was great fuel to keep us going for the next few hours, thanks Danny and Lisa!

It was around this time that Mark’s hamstring decided to blow. His knee is giving him a lot of grief and our walking pace slows down to accommodate. Thankfully there is a physio at the next checkpoint to help out a little with it. Nurofen is being taken by all of us except Frank now.

Lorena and Shikha had chicken and salad awaiting. Once again, I wish I could have enjoyed it, but my stomach is still turning circles. We push on to the next checkpoint and don our headlamps as the night sets in once again. We are now heading to the final checkpoint before the finish.

We arrive at the checkpoint to find Lorena and Shikha with hot chocolates and sandwiches. Shikha is so kind to give Frank and myself a calf massage and Lorena did the same for Gwen and Mark. True commitment that is! They also have some Zantac for my reflux. Thank goodness for that, after 23 hours of reflux, I finally start to feel better. I wish I had known about it before! Mark also manages to get some more physio treatment at this checkpoint, which seems to be helping a little.

We kick off the home stretch. We have 3km of bush tracks then 9km through the streets of Seaforth and Balmoral. We knock over the bush section easily, as spirits are high at the moment, knowing loved ones and a bed are only hours away. When we hit the streets, disaster struck. Frank’s knee has packed up completely…We walk the next 9km’s at snail pace. Frank is an absolute trooper, I think anybody else would have quit at this point, but he hobbled the final 9km’s using his walking pole for support. It started to spit rain at 6pm and it got somewhat heavier around 10pm, but nothing too bad.

We finally crossed the line around midnight Saturday night.

What an adventure! Please don’t anybody ever ask me to do it again. Ever!