Each day I would remember that I still had to redo the fitness hike. The anxiety was worse at certain times than others. Training camp ended on Friday, but I still didn’t feel like I had finished training camp because I had to redo the hike. If I didn’t finish this hike on time, I could be sent home. I had been planning for this trip for 8 months, and that one thing could keep me from going!
We were allowed to go through our packs to get rid of anything we didn’t want to take on the race which lightened our packs significantly. We also didn’t have to carry our tents. The decrease in weight made such a difference! We finally got to Sunday morning. The whole squad got up to either walk with the 5 of us that had to redo the hike or to cheer for us along the way.
My team leader Adi did the hike with me. I started off running up part of the hill. I thought I could use my energy and strength to start out strong while I still had it. I knew that energy would fade quickly. It would be partially depleted whether I walked up the first hill or ran up it.
On the flat parts I alternated between walking and running. Adi helped push me to run for longer distances than I would have on my own. I got to the halfway point (the bottom of the big hill) around 12 minutes in. That was about my goal since I wanted to give myself extra time to get up the bigger hill. I still had to pause several times while going up the hill, but Adi was there encouraging me the whole way.
Once I got to the top, there was some more flat space where I again alternated between walking and running. At that point I had finished all of the uphill portions of the hike! I had one more downhill slope. I saw the pavilion where I started and had to finish. I ran down that hill, although I had to be careful because some of it was gravel and easy to slip on. I finished in 24 minutes!! That was 6 minutes faster than my previous time.
All 5 off us that had to redo the hike shaved several minutes off of our hike and finished within 30 minutes. It was amazing! I honestly didn’t see how all 5 of us were going to finish on time, but God took care of it. It was like God stretched out the time like I had prayed for. I was going faster than the first time, but it didn’t seem like 6 minutes faster. We had struggled with anxiety for days, and it was for nothing.
Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT) says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
We conquered the hike of dread!
