Monday, 20 November 2023

The Point to Pinnacle: The Finish

 

I cross the finish line and say to the lady: I don’t know if my net time is good enough.

The lady gives me a medal and says: I am giving you a medal. Well done.

Her attitude was fantastic. Big thank you to her.

I then walk past stacks of bottled water and look for my gear bag.

A few buses wait. A man says they are all full of people; wait for the next bus.

I wear a jumper and sit on a rock. I congratulate a few people and we talk about the race.

When I ask: If you are doing to next year, they all groan and look at the sky. Nobody says can’t wait for next year.

A young guy near me says: My legs say no.

My reply is: Next week your legs will recover and your colleagues at work will say well done and you may start to think maybe…

One guy says: Not as fast as I wanted. I look around at all the exhausted legs and think. I think everybody up here would say: Not as fast as I wanted.  Everybody I see has sore legs, is wearing a medal and has learnt something about themselves.

We are all exhausted. Sitting or standing is an ordeal.

A group of schoolkids is very happy.  One of them asks me to take their photo which I am very happy to do. Their school excursion was a walk-up Mt Wellington.

Sitting on the rocks it is very windy. We ignore the view. We wait and after about half an hour a bus appears. 

We board the bus and it sways and slips down the mountain. I’ve eaten nothing but my stomach abhors the trip down. The trip down seems to last forever. Worse than the trip up. I vomit into my mouth, keep my mouth closed, swallow my feedback and feel better.

No comments:

Post a Comment