Ok… here it is

Its been a few weeks coming, not out of deep thought or anything, just distractions, laziness and a reluctance to write it.

The last chapter ended like this…

“And so it was over. But not all the feelings that needed to be addressed and spoken about.

That my friends will be talked about in the next and last installment. Part 9 the final chapter. The chapter that doesn’t have any more race happenings or details to share. But more the part that dives into the top 2 inches and shed some light on what went down several days earlier when we walked away from the race and short-coursed ourselves.”

Yes we walked away from a big race. The decision to short course ourselves was a team decision, however the reality was it was one person who didn’t feel like they could continue and because of that the rest of the team had to follow suit.

And that person was…ME! Yes Paul Timothy Humphreys. Yes folks that person who felt as though they couldn’t continued was yours truly. You might read and think so what big deal move on Paul. And thats true and so I will, end of blog…

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But I do have to process this and have done a lot of that since mid March.

For me to quit a race is very uncommon. I have certainly not ended races before for lots of reasons… injury, missed time cut-off’s, weather, other team mates…. but for me…never. I felt like I was more prepared for this race than I have ever been. Even had time to treat, doctor -up and harden up my feet in anticipation of the race. Had done long sessions, had done long sessions in some god-awful weather (even got blown off my bike one night at 2am). And then BOOM “Hey team, I don’t think I can continue!”

I’m still not there as far as completely processing it, probably never will be. And one might say. Move on, you had some failure its happens to us all. And I know that and know it well. But for me to quit and walk away or take the easy way home as it might be in this race is not me.

I definitely know about failure but I know failure of this kind is unusual to me and that’s why I want to and need to explore it more.

This is also hard for me to write about this in a public platform. And not because I am afraid of “what people might say” or destroy/ lessen any perceptions people might have. I couldn’t care less. But more so how did I get to that place in the race where I wanted to quit and walk away when it’s not in my nature to do so. This was Fiordland for goodness sakes, one of the last truly wild places left in the world.

My personality, spirituality, faith is very much made up by my experiences in the outdoors. And the harder the better. Therefore GodZone sounds like a perfect scenario right? Right but….

Therefore that is why this has been hard fo me to process not to mention a feeling letting 3 other people down.

That will take time and without rattling off the cheesy cliches of “everything happens for the reason” or “you’ll get it next time”. I do not and will not hang on to those. I am a realist and life isn’t always the way you want it. And its often the times that life goes not the way you want it that end up being more meaningful.

So the journey continues. That said GodZone 2019, Chapter 8 has just been announced and its here in Canterbury… GULP.  I was considering volunteering next year and giving back to the race but now…

Yup thats it, all the processing I want to do for now. I’m nothing special just passionately curious.

And so end with the 2 quotes on my bio page at the top. These are more true right now than ever.

“I have no special talents I’m only passionately curious.” Albert Einstein.

“True adventure doesn’t begin until things start to go wrong.” Yvon Chouinard.