One Foot in Front of the Other

At some point on Cape to Cape, I stopped thinking about the whole thing.

Which was probably fortunate.

Seven days is a long time when you're looking at seven days.

Thirty kilometres is a long way when you're thinking about thirty kilometres.

Sand is particularly unpleasant when you're thinking about how much sand you still have to walk through (does anyone enjoy walking through sand?!)

So instead, I kept coming back to one foot in front of the other.

Just the next step.  Then the next one.

There were plenty of reasons to get distracted from that.

My hips hurt. Not from the weight, but from the pack rubbing in places I hadn't anticipated.

My feet hurt.

The sand was savage.

I had blisters that required increasingly elaborate arrangements of tape and padding. Especially after water crossings.

There were stretches where I was near the back of the group, not because I had stopped, but because walking through sand with a pack doesn't lend itself particularly well to pretending you're in a race.

I was also apparently one of the “Speedies”, which was amusing given that there were plenty of moments when my legs had absolutely no interest in living up to the title.

Half way through the last day, after a 7km battle with sand, I was so tired that when we stopped for a toilet break, I was struggling to hold my squat. Eventually I had to lean forward and put my hands on the ground.  Classy, I know.

One of the guides came over and asked if I wanted to take some weight out of my pack.

I said no.

She told me she didn't mind carrying some extra weight for me.

I still said no.

I was determined that I was going to do this carrying the weight I had chosen to carry.

It wasn't that I didn't appreciate the offer. I did.

There was something about having deliberately trained with that weight, having prepared for it and then actually carrying it through the experience that mattered to me.

I had chosen the challenge. I had gotten this far carrying that weight. I was determined to finish carrying it.

And sometimes knowing that I could make something easier is different from deciding that I want to.

Of course, there were times when I did adapt. I knew the weather and technical sections on the last day warranted some weight adjustments, and I did eventually leave some gear behind and reduce the weight of my pack...marginally and begrudgingly

That didn't mean the challenge had failed.

It meant I was responding to the conditions in front of me.

Perseverance isn't necessarily about refusing every offer of help or pushing through at any cost.

Sometimes it is about deciding what matters to you, knowing when to adjust, and continuing towards the thing you came to do.

Across the seven days, I just needed to hoist my bag up, put my hands on my knees and keep walking.

And then I noticed something.

I do this in life too.

I keep busy.

I keep moving.

I don't always stop long enough to notice how much I am hurting, grieving or feeling lonely.

The push forward has been a coping mechanism for me for a long time.

And I don't think the answer is as simple as deciding that pushing forward is unhealthy and stopping is healthy.

Sometimes moving forward is avoidance.

Sometimes moving forward is exactly what gets you through.

Context matters.

On Cape to Cape, there was no great psychological breakthrough involved in putting one foot in front of the other.

Sometimes it was simply what needed to happen. I needed to get to the end.

There was another hill. So I walked up it (granted, puffing and panting).

There was another stretch of sand that I really, really didn't want to walk through. I walked through that too.

And somewhere in amongst all of that, I realised I could notice the discomfort without letting it take over the whole experience. The pain was real. The tiredness was real. The frustration was real.

But so was the ocean. So was the ridiculousness of trying to get changed inside a tent the size of a shoebox.  So were the conversations on the track. The laughter. The fresh T-shirt on resupply day. The days we passed a shop and could get a real coffee. The morning groans which became my  signature wake-up call to my fellow Capers. The sunset. The sound of waves when I finally got into bed. The fact that someone was making me breakfast because I was slow at packing.

All of it existed at the same time.

I didn't have to pretend it wasn't hard in order to enjoy it.

That might be one of the things I liked most about the experience.

I could be uncomfortable and still be having a good time. Which also stands for a lot of the experiences I've had this year, even if the kind of discomfort changes

I could be tired and still be interested.

I could be sore and still be grateful that I had chosen to be there.

Sometimes we imagine that moving forward means leaving discomfort behind.

Maybe sometimes it simply means carrying the discomfort with us without letting it become the only thing we can see.

One foot in front of the other.

Not because the whole path suddenly feels easy, but because I can keep moving without letting the discomfort become the only thing I notice.

This reflection shares a personal experience and general observations about human behaviour. It is not intended as psychological advice.