Walking and Running for 24 Hours – A Pain that's Worth it

I’ve never been so exhausted. It’s a Sunday afternoon and I’ve just collapsed into bed. Roughly 28 hours earlier I began the most physically strenuous task I’ve ever done. On a cold and foggy Saturday morning, I walked onto the athletics track at the Australian Institute of Sport. It was 9:30 and I was about to start the Cancer Council’s Relay For Life. The Relay For Life is a charity event where at least one member of a team must carry their team’s baton and walk or run around the athletics track for 24 hours.
I participated in the North Canberra Relay For Life, which is one of more than 200 Relays in Australia. A doctor in the USA named Gordy Klatt founded the Relay For Life in 1985. He walked around a track for 24 hours to raise money and awareness for cancer. The next year he did the same but friends, family and strangers joined him. Each year the event has grown internationally.
I had bright ambitions heading into it. I honestly didn’t think it’d be that hard to do but I was very wrong. I drew the short straw in the team and walked the first shift. On each lap I noticed the different batons for each team in the Relay. One team used an AFL ball, to commemorate the life of a six-year-old AFL player. It turns out the ball was his. Another team’s baton was a pixelated Minecraft sword because they were walking for a teenager who loves the video game.

I also noticed that throughout the event, people of all shapes and sizes were doing it. There were the marathoners that kept running around the track – even at 2am – and there were overweight individuals who pushed themselves to complete the extra lap. Friends walked side by side, children walked with their grandparents and parents pushed strollers.
As the event progressed the pain in my legs increased. In the early hours of the morning my feet throbbed with every step I took. After my 70^th lap or so I began to think of giving up. It was 3:30am, I was one of 50 on the track and morale was at the lowest it’s been. The last thing I wanted to do was keep circling the track for another seven hours. But despite the track numbers diminishing as quickly as my mood, the volunteers continued helping. The elderly ladies kept making bacon and egg rolls and the guy in his coffee van kept pouring the thing that everyone needed most.
At 4:00am I finally got some sleep. It was only for a couple of hours but it was sleep nonetheless. My goal for that morning was to reach 100 laps and I was 15 short. Laps 86 and onwards were pure agony. My Nike Lunarglides were torn up, there were bags under my eyes and I smelt just like everyone else on the track, bad.
With half an hour to spare I crossed the line for the 100^th time. Immediately I started cramping and all I wanted to do was collapse in bed, and that’s where I am now. The Relay For Life was one of the most intense and painful things I’ve done but I’d do it again because it’s for a good cause.
By Tom Corrigan