No pain, rogaine

We did something new on the weekend — rogaining. An hour north of Melbourne, our team of five friends competed with a hundred other teams to find as many checkpoints in the forest as we could within six hours. No smartphones or GPS allowed, just a compass and map.

It’s a good thing I’m on Week 6 of 9 the Couch to 5k running program. It means I can comfortably run for 20 minutes. My heart didn’t let me down as we tramped through prickly bush, climbed Steep Track and power walked towards our targets.

On the way to our third checkpoint, I tripped and crashed.

‘Are you okay?’ my team mates asked.

Surprised, I couldn’t answer.

It was exactly like the two seconds immediately after a toddler falls over, when you can see him working out if he is going to cry.

‘Joan, are you okay?’ they asked again

Mm. Still no pain.

‘Uh yes,’ I finally said. ‘Okay.’

As they helped me up, I said, ‘I haven’t fallen since I was a kid. It doesn’t hurt like I remember.’

My friends patched me up with antiseptic and giant bandages, then we were on our way.

The second checkpoint we found.
We found it! This was our second checkpoint. Another team found it the same time.
Registering at the second checkpoint
Damjan and Michael wore our team’s nav lights on their wrists. These had to be registered at each checkpoint we found. Sometimes when we spotted a checkpoint down in a gully or across a creek, we sent them onwards and waited for them to return. Ha ha ha.

 

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