Raid The NOrth eXTReme.

… stressed out thoughts, 8 days to go.
500km, 6 dAYs.. EPic SIngletrack mountain biking, trekking and canoe paddling… am i nervous?…uh… call me crazy but.. heck yEAH! im nervous, scared, excited. WE're racing in a Team of four, three gals and one guy, that means we stay together, race together, support one another and we all have to cross that finish line together. You may think that we know each other well but its quite the opposite, i'll be spending more time with my teamates this next week then i ever have… and that makes me nervous. i don't know what sets them off or cheers them up, im unaware how to help motivate them or how each reacts under stress. Do you think that matters? .. i do. WE're all sort of going in with the mentality of each of us on our own, fighting this mental battle alone in our heads, instead of the all-for-one and one-for-all attitude. Do i think this will disadvantage us?.. not nesccesarily but possibly. I believe if we're all strongly, individually motivated and solid on our reasons for competing and finishing, we'll be able to help each other pull through everything and anything. WE all have our strengths on the team and we'll all need to be compassionate to our weaknesses, which could be the problem since we all have very strong and stubborn personalities.

Then there's the issue of gear. To start, we're all racing with different bikes (3 on full suspension and me on a race xc hardtail), which means different functions, strength in type of terrain, components (not to mention, very different riding abilities). We have different packs, lighting systems, hydration, clothing. The advantage is that we all have what we believe works best for us individually, disadvantage is that we all have slightly different loads and capabilities so we'll need to find middle ground and its true what they say about.. 'you're only as fast as your slowest', can we all be understanding and compassionate to the slowest.? Will we have and show the patience?.

Then there's our fuel, being planned in pairs rather then a team of four… this could work.. but will it? Each eating different things, each consuming different amounts of fuel, different ratios of carbs, proteins and vitamins. Each recovering at different rates. It's all really very amateurally organized, we cant predict our results because its all variables, nothing is really controlled or constant… and again i say… heCK YEAH! i mean thats ADVENTURE RACING, right? WE want an adventure, an experience … an EPic journey, hahaa aha and thats exactly what we'll get.

… stress working itself out, 4 days to go.
I'll be honest, i won't lie, I AM HUMAN. After a week long battle of mini emotional stress breakdowns, i lost it completely, ready to completely thrown myself off a bridge to avoid dealing with any more stress. I had overbooked myself. Between RTNE, other races, coordinating festivals, work, family, finances and personal life… i was done, there (and somewhat still is) was no room left in me. All my compartments were filled and spilling into one another, i had it, i wanted to close my eyes and wait for it to all be over. It wasn't good to feel this way, it wasn't ideal or healthy, i needed help to work my thoughts out. I needed someone to help me put everything into perspective. So i did what is incredibly difficult for me and reached out, asked for help.
(asking for help scares me, it makes me feel weakened, it makes me feel worthless, incapable… which is sooOO off. ASking for help is the bravest act i could ever do, don't get me wrong, i ask for help all the time in the everyday life, when it concerns work, family or others but the deep rooted stuff, the help that exposes cracks in my character im incapable of freely sharing, i don't like showing weakness, i fear weakness as if my survival depended on it.)
.. so i did what i dreaded and reached out, and i received some of the best help and advice i could have asked for. No longer today do i feel frozen waiting to explode, waiting for the world to rotate without me.

i had an epiphany… An expedition Style Race has been a long time dream of mine… A HUGE DREAM. One day, i was going to race one of these CRAzy things. So why am i stressing out about every little detail, trying to control all these uncontrollable variables. I have ME, my fighting SPirit, my HEart, my GRIT.. everything else is trivial, details to be organized but not to suck me dry of energy, i needed to widen my perspective. So in four days time my dream is coming true, how WICKed is that? I'll be racing a cRAzy expedition, 500km race, completely self-navigated, a trudge of survival. AM I ready? who knows, but what i do know is that i get to share this Dream directly with three other incredible individual. Each having at one point been in the same nervous Newbie shoes as me, each understanding and supportive of my drive and my contributions. I am so eXCITed to set off on this journey…
….. a beginning to no end of a lifetime of dANGErous oppORTunities.