Breathing hard and sweating like I was in a sauna with all my clothes on I wondered when this was going to stop. I kept coughing and it was doing my head in, never mind pissing everyone else off. A cold winters day in Wales with 50 odd others being thrashed relentlessly was my kind of weekend. Not today however as things were about to change.
I have always enjoyed taking part in sports, I played Hockey at school and for the West of Scotland. I would play every Saturday throughout Winter, in the cold, in the rain, you name it I have played in it. Living and growing up in Scotland, you learn to embrace the elements like a budding apprentice on a Wim Hof Ice man course. If you waited for the weather to be right, you would end up waiting a long time, and we don’t do waiting around here.
As a keen outdoors-man and lover of all thing’s mountain related I decided to have a go at an event in Wales ran by former Special Forces and knew that it would be hard, but figured I had the mental toughness and fortitude to see me through. Little did I know that the outcome may have ended differently and was also my personal wake up call and introduction to the word and feeling of “Humility” In fact, I’d go as far as to say I felt like a failure. Not because of why you think, but I’ll explain why I thought I was a failure further on. Bearing in mind I did this over 6 years ago, I still remember all the details like it was yesterday.
Kit list received, location details received which were not to be shared with anyone, and so I decided to go about organising my kit, and anything I didn’t have, I would borrow or buy depending on what I needed. Compass! I need a compass and map. Check, and packed. Let’s Go!
I was working on the Friday when we set off, so we got there a little late, checked in with the D.S (Directing Staff) who didn’t give a shit about who we were at this point, took our name and guided us over to a large open space where we could pitch our tents. Dark and cold, it let me taste what the weather was going to be like.
I have always enjoyed the prospect of the unknown, the un-written page, what lies in the cave, pick your analogy here guys, I have always had a bit of a smile on my face when committing to the unknown. It’s one way of being able to test yourself, how you adapt on the fly to changing conditions and sometimes you will be OK, other times you’ll perhaps fall, either way there’s a lesson in it and I’m all for sharing experiences.
As you might expect, the fear of the unknown, a cold tent, wind and rain battering off the thin sheet that separated me from the outside meant for a restless sleep. Later I found out others had ear plugs and eye masks meaning for some sensory impairment and if you can’t see or hear it, it doesn’t exist right?
7:00am, wide awake and thought I better get myself moving, grab some breakfast and make sure I’m not late to the party. Picked up my gear and headed for the briefing tent with the other unlucky souls and listened in to what the D.S. (Directing staff) were telling us. I was thinking this was great, I get to push my limits, meet new people and see where I stand at the end of this.
The day was broken out into practical skills, map reading, navigation, first aid and the likes. We were to walk NOWHERE. Need to go back to the tent, RUN, need to go to the toilet, RUN, time for lunch and dinner, RUN. If you were found walking, then you immediately regretted it. You were given more phys. So, as you would expect I ran everywhere. We undertook a timed navigation exercise, meaning you were naturally to be accurate in your direction, while covering the distance as quick as possible.
It was cold, it was wet and despite being with other people, I felt quite alone. It was a weird feeling, and certainly not one I am used to feeling. I was there with my brother, and in the same tent as my brother, but my internal monologue was questioning myself and my abilities. Now, I’m OK with questioning myself, as I believe you should self-assess on an ongoing basis and learn from it, but there were other reasons that still to this day I can’t put my finger on.
For the whole weekend I didn’t feel like I was firing on all cylinders, I was feeling chills, weak and my breathing was giving me grief when going at full pelt. Whatever, I shrugged it off as I had other things to contend with in the form of covering ground and hitting those checkpoints. If any of you have done something similar or been in a competitive environment, you’ll know what it’s like to “size each other up” see who the real competition is, who looks strong, who looks fast, find a chink in the armour and exploit it. Sounds very dramatic and unnecessary, but it’s a healthy way to see where you lie in the pack. Was my preparation good enough? did I work on the right things? Did I eat and recover the right way? We shall see.
After running around looking for checkpoints we had a bit of respite. Bite to eat, check the body and feet. Sort any admin that needed sorting, get wet clothes off if need be and keep moving. Trouble is, my movement was feeling labored. Shortness of breath, and not really like I was in the game that everyone else was playing. Naturally the ego wasn’t for showing any signs of this and therefore pushed it to the side with bravado and a side dish of laughter. C’mon Graeme, WTF is the matter with you pal ? Sort it out and keep moving.
“TWO MINUTES!!” came the instruction from the D.S. We were to grab our makeshift rifles, don our weighted rucksacks and hit up a timed race. Things I knew; it was going to suck, who to keep up with or get shoulder to shoulder with. Things I didn’t know; how long we were going to be running for, what’s the terrain like? what are we doing at the other side?
It’s worth mentioning here that in my dazed and confused state, I had put on my fleece as I was feeling cold, then put my backpack on. It’s also worth mentioning that my mate Steve Curnyn (BBC Special forces Ultimate Hell Week finalist) was on this course and took one look at me, shook his head in school boy error disapproval and told me to get my fleece off as I’ll end up cooking in it.
Of course! How stupid of me. Always start cold and then warm up. Trouble was I was freezing and soaked through already, I needed a spot of heat to kick things off right. Backpack off, fleece stowed away, backpack on again. “You better get it together Graeme” I thought to myself as I gritted my teeth getting angry at the fact I’m making minor errors that can have high consequences.
“30 SECONDS”
“Right let’s go”
Off we went in unison, make shift rifles, a sea of backpacks bopping around and the heavy boots smacking the tarmac. A short while into the run I warmed up, I felt better, however I had a slight pain in my right side. It felt heavier than my left. Now I know that sounds utterly ridiculous but to me, my body felt out of whack. The micro goals in this kind of scenario, is to always chase or catch the man in front. I was breathing out my arse but moving up the pack steadily, sometimes with a little push and once past, slow the pace to recover, but just enough to stay in front. Speed up, then maintain, speed up, maintain. Now, the speed of movement was triggered by my brain, my brain knew what needed to be done, but in its infinite wisdom, it was my body that was telling me to slow down. As we get to a bend near the highest point, we are instructed to stop. A massive wave of relief came over me as I saw the small group ahead of me and I pushed to join the front before we have to set off again. That will give me a fighting chance to catch my breath and move off with the front group to the next location. Breathe Graeme, Breathe! Catch a breath and have a cough or two.
STANDBY……………….GO!
Off we go again, shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard and the pace was pretty fast, zone 5 running with weight that is for sure. In the top group, Steve, myself, Dan Reynolds (another mate from series 1 of SAS Who Dares Wins) and I remember thinking, here I am with these legends, toe to toe in the thick of it, ticking my own ego boxes thinking I’m cutting the mustard with these guys and holding my own. Then it came. Have you ever been riding your bike flat out, and the chain snaps? Well that’s what this felt like, all the hard work you put into getting to that speed in the first place and the chain lets you down. Well I was I a similar predicament, my brain was telling me to speed up, maintain pressure and my body was the chain about to snap.
I’m done with this pace, despite wanting to, my body doesn’t want me to, and I can’t catch my breath. Steve sees this and tells me to grab onto his backpack. Remember in the Indiana Jones style movies where they cross a bridge, one of them is already on the other side and you are trying your best to edge across before the rope snaps? This is exactly how that felt and by grabbing onto that backpack, that was my savior, my lifeline, my rope.
Then it happened.............“Don’t let go of me” those were the last words Steven said to me and I let go.
All the work, the determination, the effort, started leaving me as I slowly started to fall down the pack. Even as I was losing positions my ego was still trying to convince myself that I could claw it back, I remember thinking to myself, “How the hell is this happening, there’s no way I’m the weakest link here”. Sweating and angry I was in the back group, somewhere I never anticipated being and one I hadn’t even contemplated throughout this whole weekend. However, being in that back group could well have been my saving grace as I was about to find out why I ended up there.
“Are you OK son? What’s the matter with ye?” came the question from the D.S. Turns out the steely eyes of the D.S. had seen me drop all the way to the back group and much like me, wanted to know why. “No idea, I can’t catch a breath and I have a dull pain where my kidneys are”
“STOP, STOP!”
“Take your pack off, sit down and wait for the medic to arrive” It feels like forever until the medic arrives all the while I can see my friends and brother disappear into the distance.
“What’s wrong?” Asks the medic, “I can’t catch my breath and I have a dull pain in my right side and it feels heavy” Now at this point, I’m neither up nor down in terms of feeling sore, there was no severe pain, no real warning and for the most part I still felt reasonably well. I stood in a star position with my backpack off already and as the medic listened to my breathing, he took his stethoscope to the top of my back, “breathe in”……”and out” moves stethoscope down, “breathe in…..breathe out” “Listen to this and tell me what you think?” He said to his oppo. All the while I’m thinking, c'mon boys, just gimme some aspirin or something and ill be on my way.
“Your lungs are filling with water son, you’re done” Now I know I heard that, but I turned round and asked him to tell me again so I could see what he was telling me. “Why? What do you mean my lungs are filling with water”? “They are filling with water I can hear it and the crackling in your breathing is telling me that” The medic gave me an analogy that was the simplest thing to understand. He mentioned if you can imagine boiling an egg, and usually when boiling the egg you have little air bubbles on the bottom of the pan and when it comes to temperature, these bubbles boil off and the air rises to the surface and disappears. Instead of my body doing this naturally, the bubbles were becoming water droplets and dropping into my lungs. The heavy sensation that I had spoke of was the water making my body feel “heavier” on one side.
My brain then began going into understanding mode and asked if this was serious. The raise of the eyebrows more or less confirmed to me at this point that 1, my question was rather silly, and 2, yes it was serious. As the medic expanded on it he said “the chances are it would develop into pulmonary edema, your kidneys will stop functioning, and you will die of heart failure” The most common symptom of pulmonary edema is shortness of breath, or breathlessness. This may be a gradual onset if the process slowly develops, or it can have a sudden onset. Other symptoms may include fatigue, rapid breathing, dizziness or weakness.
Well I tick all those boxes over the course of the weekend right ? In their words, my war was over.
It’s weird writing this for a couple of reasons. The first reason is, it goes against everything my ego has taught me over the course of the years of training, putting my neck on the line for competitions, having fun, doing things outside of my comfort zones and gritting my teeth. It made me believe that by showing any kind of weakness, that was what I was.
The second reason, is that it brings back all the emotions I felt after the event, which again is related to my ego. You see, if you “the reader” thought half way through this I should just stop, stop putting myself through this and come again another day, you would be 100% correct that is what I should have done. I should have listened to my body, listened to the fact that it was giving me signals I had never had before, and hit the red stop button we all have and can press at any time. However, I didn’t, I didn’t listen to sense, or my body, or the fact that I moved from the front and went all the way to the back. I didn’t listen to any of these things and it could have cost me my life.
This is really why I find it pretty emotional to write about. It’s not because I didn’t finish what I started, it isn’t because I made myself feel stupid or daft. It’s in hindsight of the fact that I could have fell and died on a bloody hill, just to prove a point. I would have left behind my wife and son, fatherless for no other reason than I was too stupid to admit I had failed. There was a chink in the armour and instead of paying attention to that, I was paying attention to myself and the big man upstairs was ready to make me see the error of my ways. This is where the humility set in. The selfishness, the shame, the bastard, the ego.
Ever since that weekend, I have tried to listen more, care more, help more, why? Likely because I learned a very valuable lesson that day. To be humbler, drop the ego, try your best and if your best isn’t good enough then learn from it but don’t pretend it didn’t happen.
The ego that kept me going for so long was utterly bruised and broken. I took a solid 6 months off doing anything competitive, no races, no events, nothing. However, that same ego told me to get off my arse and pick my sword back up. The stubbornness wouldn’t allow me to sit and feel sorry for myself. I trained better, listened to my body more and set a course of variety to my life.
Since this event I have won events, lead a team to victory being hunted for 24hrs by hunter packs and dogs. But above all else, I enjoy the humble life. To be grateful for a second chance, to keep my family and to try and be the father that my father is to me.
I guess we all have the angel and demon on our shoulders and the trick is to feed both of them so that neither of them goes hungry. When they get hungry, they make you do things you shouldn’t do, but if that happens, sometimes there’s no amount of feeding to make it right.
I have always enjoyed the unknown. What is out there? what can I do? I will continue this path, test myself and help others along the way.
But remember the demon on your shoulder much like mine will keep telling you to:
Have a go, have another go, and another……don’t stop.
G x