28 June Team training #2

“This has to be the most preparation that I’ve ever done for a trip!” – Elaine

Training heated up with Lillian heading out to Bukit Timah Hill in the morning and the rest of us meeting at the Pinnacle in the evening to do staircases. On a Monday! Yes, that's dedication.

This was Cheryl’s first time at a staircase training session. Min told her that it would feel like hot yoga except that this was hotter and we were losing our fashion inhibitions - hiking boots, trekking poles and back packs.

After 20 storeys, the enemy isn't your aching legs, it's your own mind telling you to stop this insane activity.

At the 30 something storey, the peak of hardship and sweating, just where I feel like this is really really awful, Cheryl was keeping strangely quiet so I looked down and asked her if she was ok?

She looked up, cracking out a smile and her zen monk like reply both startling and delightful was:

Nothing, just thinking happy thoughts.

I don't know what those happy thoughts were. Maybe they were the chocolate tim tams in her bag, oyster omelette or ice kachang, but she had revealed her secret weapon, the mark of a true trouper. And this is why I am learning so much just climbing staircase from my other kick ass team mates who can, in the hardest of places, keep it going by thinking those happy thoughts.