HOTS update… hour 204
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ordinary is as ordinary does
really late update
it has been a busy day!
the rain finally stopped,
and the sand that is so treacherous when waterlogged
drains quite well.
it is (in relative terms) reasonable to drive in and out.
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we now have 38 runners in
with 17 having dropped.
55 of the 82 are safely home
and 28 are still somewhere out there on the road.
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the theme of the last annual races is
"ordinary people doing extraordinary things"
but what is the definition of ordinary, really.
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these are people who appear to be ordinary.
with jobs and families.
by all appearances they are no different than anyone else.
but there is something driving them that most people would not understand.
something that feels most alive when pushed to the limits.
something that thrives on the doubt and uncertainty
of extreme challenge.
something that does not fear to go where others would not.
indeed, something that craves to go where others would not.
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they have been coming in for days now.
8 days ago they were dumped on the side of the road
with nothing but a map and what they could carry,
the weather has been horrendous.
they have had nothing to rely on but their legs and their wits to get them home.
they have been hungry and thirsty and tired
they have slept wherever they could find a place out of the rain.
they have lived like stray dogs.
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and yet they arrive at the rock with beaming faces
and huge smiles.
for 8 days they have been pressed to the limits of human endurance
and never have they felt more alive.
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28 of them are still out there..
in a few hours they will enter the 9th day since they left the world of the ordinary.
you would think they would envy those who sleep in warm beds tonight.
but it is the ones in warm beds who are sad that it is over.
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in the next 40 hours or so it will be over for all of them.
many of them are locked in a desperate struggle to stay ahead of the cutoff.
surviving hour by hour.
some will make it and some will not.
but whether they succeed or fail
they were willing to step off that bus.
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and that , my friends, is extraordinary.
Categories: HOTS