Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
appearances and detours to places such as New Orleans. It's not that
such appointments haven't helped to raise good money for the Red
Cross, but we've made it tough for ourselves.
Bernie confided to me that he's over the adventure side of our
event now and sees it as a bloody hard task that he must accomplish.
The novelty of travelling through different countries has worn thin for
him, as it has for me, especially since all of our focus is on running,
and kilometres achieved, which leaves little time to delight in our
surroundings.
Sometimes, I underestimate the great work that my crew does.
Like Bernie, Katie has been so strong for me. They have a lot to do:
planning the route so I don't have to run a single kilometre further
than necessary, dealing with the police, the army and the Red Cross,
driving in blizzards and torrential rain, cooking, raising donations and
sponsorship, responding to emails and Facebook messages, juggling
the budget, dealing with the 1001 problems that arise from being in
strange lands. And, yes, putting up with me.
I've never denied that I'm difficult, and Bernie took the opportu-
nity today to remind me that we're a team. 'We all have a job to do,' he
said. 'Yours is to run. That's all you have to do. None of us can do that,
and you can't handle our responsibilities. Forget about everything else
but running those kilometres every day. Don't encroach on our terri-
tory, or the camera guys'. All it takes is for you to lose concentration
and it could be disaster. Death is not out of the question.
'You're bloody difficult. You often run off ahead of us because you
get frustrated when we take time setting up for the day. And if there are
two roads to be taken, you'll always take the wrong one; then we have
to scramble to find you, and you give us both barrels as if it's our fault.
'We know you have your moods; you sometimes even feed on
your despair and anger as motivation to run and forget about your
pain, and that's okay. We love you and are with you 100 per cent. We
know that ten minutes after you've acted like a goose and we've walked
away and left you with your thoughts, you'll be all smiles again. We
don't take it personally.'
He's a special brother, and I'm lucky to have him. He is also a fine
motivator. I was in an event in Australia some years ago, and I was
running towards Cooma in the middle of winter. Bern was backing up
in a vehicle. It was freezing, and I was buggered and fell. He stopped
