When do you know when you’ve pushed yourself to the absolute limit?

Well, I finally found that out last week.

Here’s the long story.

I am currently on a Snowshoe and Winter Walking in Bosnia tour. We arrived on Sunday and I’ve just had two great days of snowshoe adventure. It’s harder than it looks. Having to walk like a Cyberman (Doctor Who reference, for those not in the know) for two whole days isn’t easy on the legs!

Yet today, I’ve just been holed up in Hotel Bjelasnica the entire day. Outside my window is the ski slopes that hosted the men’s downhill events during the 1984 Winter Olympic Games at Sarajevo. I have the hotel room telly tuned to the current Winter games in Pyeong Chang while trying to work on finalising the revisions requested by the editor for the latest story I have been writing for 2 weeks.

I watch these winter sports athletes fight it out for the ultimate glory, using all their physical and mental strength to perfect a spin, a moment of concentration that make or break their performance, to push themselves to the limit just to be that millisecond faster.

It is inspiring, and I thought this is a befitting setting for me to be putting the final touches on this story.

It has been one of my toughest assignments to date. Other than having to chase my sources for information needed for the story, cutting it fine with the deadline, it was a topic requiring much research and historical understanding – which was all fine. I had pitched the story, In knew what was involved.

While I love doing research, it was slowly becoming clear to me that time was against me. I was going to need all my physical and mental strength to get it done before and after work – my day job as a Business Analyst.

The good thing is, I am a stubborn soul and if there was ever anything I could rely on, it’d be my will power.

It didn’t matter how little sleep I was getting, I was going to get my story done

It began last Tuesday night. After a couple of days working at Southampton with the long commute, I was ready to finally get the story out.

However, the story was due Thursday. I needed to get cracking to get it done on time.

And I did. After a couple of sleepless nights and early mornings of time on my laptop (including Valentine’s night), I filed the story on Thursday at lunch.

Yay.

Mentally I breathed a sigh of relief, yet I didn’t discover just how much it took out of me until after a couple of drinks that night.

Did you know alcohol could upsurge tiredness? I didn’t. I do now.

It was about 10 mins after I finished the second pint. Something hit me like a brick. Hard.

I fought it, like I always fought tiredness and for a while, I thought “maybe I am drunk”. Yet, only after 2 pints?

Without giving you the details, I was very fast falling asleep, in public.

“Ok,” I said to myself, “let’s say I am drunk. But how?” (the fact that I was tired, and haven’t eaten didn’t cross my mind)

Thankfully I was among friends, one of whom ensured that I got home ok (if you are reading this, thank you, again). But the entire episode really threw me out. I’ve never been comfortable being the weakest link.

The next morning, having woken up with no hangover and full recollection of the previous day’s events (other than the moments when I was in fact, asleep). I realised it wasn’t drunkenness that hit me.

It was pure exhaustion. Mentally and physically.

Knowing that the story had been filed, my body had decided its had enough and pressed the OFF switch, in the most inconvenient moment.

But that wasn’t the end of it, I was forgetting about the revision process

As I said, I am currently here sitting in a resort room, writing.

Why the hell am I not out there conquering the Bosnian mountains like everyone else?

Well, back to that story I was writing.

Anyway, as I said at the beginning of this post, we arrived in Sarajevo on Sunday afternoon, got picked up at the airport and driven to the guesthouse in the city. Out of habit, I check in on ‘work’. An email was waiting, asking if I could make some revisions to the story.

I revised in the guesthouse while everyone else went sightseeing.

Done.

Monday was great. We hiked with our snowshoes around the Bjelasnica mountain range to our next guesthouse at the end of a string of villages emptied of people during the winter months.

The hike was tough, but the views from the top was breathtaking. So quiet, so serene, so beautiful.

Expectantly in such environment, there was no phone coverage. No wifi.

I am not naturally a tech-seeker, but with uncertainty over my story, I needed to check the editor was ok with the revisions.

Our tour leader arranged to have one of the locals to open up their phone as a hot spot for us to check our emails / WhatsApp family and friends, and that’s when a second email comes through.

“Can you make additional revisions please? Can you get it to us by tomorrow.”

It was an impossible ask. These additional revisions needed a bit more research, which required a stable wifi connection, which I don’t have up in the mountains. We were going to be there for 2 days and filing the story ‘tomorrow’ just wasn’t going to happen.

I wrote back to the editor asking if Thursday would be ok, as I’ll be back in ‘civilisation’ by then.

“Sorry Amy, we really need it tomorrow.”

Thankfully, I had time-zones to play with. I figured if I hiked with the group to the resort in the morning, I’ll have the afternoon to write and be able to submit the story before the end of the day in New York. However, this means, another early start and another late night, with a big hike the day after to complete.

Having learned my lesson the previous week, I did not want to crash again. So I had arranged to go with a car to the resort first while everyone else went on the hike and I have been sitting here since 11am this morning.

That brings me to these Olympians and sports people

I like watching sports, whether it be the Olympics, the super-humans at the Paralympics, the World Championships… the determination and the dedication every athlete have for their sport is inspiring. Our school produced a couple of Olympians for Australia and I’ve seen their pains behind the scenes, the amount of training, dealing with injuries and periods of doubt are all part of the game.

They are the people who continue to push their limits and break them. When they win, we celebrate with them. When they lose, our hearts break with them. The way they pick themselves up after they fall and keeps going inspires me.

I have been asked by many people over and over again – why bother? Why tire myself out just for a story? Why bother trying to keep writing when I earn enough with my day job already?

Because having a passion is never about the money.

Just on the side, I’ve been doing some research on Tim Cahill – a celebrated Australian footballer / soccer player. When asked about his passion in an interview with The Weekly Review back in May 2016, he had said this that I really resonate with:

“It upsets me when I see someone do something just for the sake of doing it; you might as well not bother at all.”

Well, shouldn’t it be true for all of us?

Although, now that I can recognise the symptoms of crashing, I know to keep exhaustion at bay.

Because that infamous Thursday night will never happen again.