Shit I'm cold, I've got the heater going full bore, but I'm still really cold all over. Yesterday was Inward Bound. I was really nervous all day, because at 10:oo am on Friday, Jesse was replaced by Brian; another American. I didn't really like this, but because someone had pulled out in a higher division I couldn't do anything about it. We got scrutinized at 9:00pm and spend the next three hours being driven around with paper bags over our heads. We got dropped off and took a while to orientate ourselves. It was raining, and this was really annoying. We started off with at least two teams directly behind us. We had maybe gone one quarter of the way when Brian came down with a bad knee and we were slowed to walking pace. We got sidetracked across some wet fields and had to cross several creeks. When we finally got back on the asphalt road, we could see the high valley which we had to cross. The valley was an ascent of at lest 250 meters and was a very hard climb. When we crossed the ridge, we didn't head enough to the west and so we spent at least an hour wandering around in thick forest. We finally found the fire trail, but not knowing where we were meant we turned the wrong direction. We bumped into the Burgmann Division 4 team, and they started running in the opposite direction. So we couldn't catch up with them, and if we had turned in the right direction, we would have won our division. Well anyway, we got to the endpoint (cold and wet) at about 10:30 am and we were very glad to get there even though we were disappointed to have lost by such a slim margin after leading by so much.
I was waiting in my cold gear for about 4 hours until Bridget finally turned up with my clothes. There were a lot of Johns people at the end point, so that was really uplifting. I got a lift home with Jules Wicks, and when we got home at about 6:00 pm, I went straight to bed and only woke up at about 9:00 am. Overall I think we must have run/walked about 45 km thought I will check against the map later. I'm starting to warm up now, but my brain is fuzzy and my hands are still shaking, I think my Na/K balance is way out. I might take a multi-vitamin and try and find some fruit.
Nikki's little party should have been last night, so it should be interesting to know how that went. Szusza was supposed to have rung me but didn't *wah* I think she just gotten fed up with me not going out. Alas the lifestyle difference is just too hard to explain sometimes…
My bag has gone kaput as well, just to much heavy stuff has ruptured the zipper, I will start the search for a new one. I got an email from Nikki from yesterday, it's always nice to hear from her. Seems that she and Szusza found some winter boots in their sizes which was good. Alas I could never find anything in my size which will be difficult if I want to go out during winter. :(