One week later. .. Hi All....Sorry about the silence, I was relocating from Harare to the beach at Umhlanga - by car and plane NOT by bicycle...!!! So. One week later and life still nowhere near normal. I wake up in the night thinking oh gosh I didnt get my cycling kit ready or hmm my stretcher is so comfortable tonight or why hasnt the moon risen yet it must still be early. .... Meantime the kit has been given away,the stretcher is my queen size bed and the moon has indeed risen but I am inside 4 walls and cant see it... I read with some amazement today my journal from Day 1 and felt so sorry for the woman who wrote it because she thought that was hard and had no idea whatsoever of all that lay in wait for her on her mission of faith. Its an interesting fact that before today I had not read a single one of my daily blogs. This is so unlike me. When I write a letter I have to re-read and edit it over and over before I am satisfied. But during Zimboundary I didnt have either the time or energy to do this. The blog was written by thumb in the back of the car or bank of a river at lunch or on my stretcher at night when I was too tired to care if it made sense, often I had only minutes to finish it over tea before we were off again and I was worried about losing signal so just hit send and then started again.. I am so excited to start reading this journal and particularly to re-read your comments and replies as related to the blog or picture rather than an email notification of something I couldnt see but appreciated all the same. I thought this would be a good time to start at the beginning - or before it, to begin to put into perspective the story of this adventure, where it came from and hopefully at the same time we can trace where it is going. So. Let me begin! I have mentioned many times that this was Ashleys idea. I didnt know he had been dreaming it up for 5 years and the first I heard about it was a phone call from him in January this year wanting to buy a new bike. I am the Giant bicycles agent in Zim and knew Ash from the couple of Blue Cross events he had done. Ash will tell you he is (was!) not a cyclist but that was never true and I remembered him for having done some really good performances on little and the wrong training. So in terms of a bike I wanted to put him onto the Giant race mountain bike until he told me that the bike was for a 3500km journey. Intrigued I met him for coffee where he told me his plan. ...It went like this: I am going to ride around the borders of Zimbabwe and Im starting in July. Can you sell me a bike and can you give me a training program? The only doubt I ever heard Ash mention from that conversation until last week when we finished was this one question at that first meeting. Linda I havent cycled for 3 years - do you think I will be ready? Is it enough time? This is a completely loaded question, for many people it would not be enough time but with Ash it was easy. When you take the combination of a good athlete with a cycling history and add to that the ambition of achieving a life-long goal then you have a winning combination so I assured him that it was plenty of time and that was, as far as Im aware, the one and only time he ever questioned his ability to achieve the dream. At this point I asked who was going with him and he said he would take applications and run interviews for that position but that he wanted a team of 3 cyclists. I remember a wistful envy. I had never once thought about riding the borders of the country, it was too far, but I have done many many endurance races of 5-10 days and was envious of a ride that wasnt held against a clock and a thousand other people. Nonetheless we got down to the business of ordering a bike and I gave him his first month training plan to ease him back into the saddle. At this point I took the Zimbabwe National MTB team to Cape Town for the Africa Champs and while there picked up Ashleys bike and brought it back on the aeroplane. By the end of February at one of the weekly coaching assessments I asked Ash how the recruitment process was going. He told me he had a few applicants but nothing confirmed and by now I was jealous enough to ask two questions: 1. To be considered for the ride and 2. Was there any fund raising purpose behind it My motivations were simple enough. I have been lazy in the last few years on my bike and I miss it, I miss being super fit. A challenge as grand as riding around the country would stir anyones adventurous spirit and I love both Zimbabwe and the bush but I did need the final check of a worthy cause. I must say Ashley didnt exactly jump for joy at my application but neither did he say no and being the eternal optimist I took that as a good sign. He also said that it would be a shame to not use the ride to raise money for something. Ash never actually told me I had got the job but on a group ride a week later he asked if we could meet to discuss the Zim ride (rather than to discuss his training or his bike) and when he told the group what he was doing he also said that I might be joining him (and a couple of others). Our friends did look at us a bit strangely. On that ride in late February we were both the slowest and terribly unfit and I know for sure that the general consensus was theyre going to do WHAT?? At the meeting I suggested to Ash that as we were riding through 7 of our National Parks we should raise money/awareness for wildlife and conservation and Ash confirmed he had been thinking the same thing which led us to quickly settle on anti-poaching. That was my last box that I needed ticking in order to commit to the ride. I am a single mum and while my ex is a wonderful hands-on dad we and our 3 children have hectic lifestyles which are almost impossible to manage by one person, especially as they would not be living in their main residence (with me). So this would take a huge amount of sacrifice from my kids who ended up packing all their things and moving house completely for the 6 weeks - no easy feat with a heavy exam and sports schedule and one being in full training for the Triathlon World Champs. All of my children are conservation aware and crazy about animals as well as used to their mum going off on some mission or the other either cycling oriented or anti-poaching oriented. I often pop off to help my best friend, Tonya Meikle, with fund raising functions for the Vic Falls Anti-Poaching Unit and Wild Horizons Wildlife Trust both in Vic Falls. Enter stage right Tonya Meikle. ... As soon as Ash and I had decided on anti-poaching I suggested VFAPU as one of the beneficiaries due to my personal affiliation with this highly motivated, transparent and successful operation and Ash readily agreed at which point I contacted Tonya as the liason to the VFAPU director, Charles Brightman. From those very early days Tonya was a big part of the journey. She was positive and enthusiastic from the start and as one of her 3 daughters is at boarding school close to Harare she made sure that every time she was in town we would all meet to discuss progress. It was at one of these early meetings that the 3 of us brainstormed the title to be used and after an hour of suggestions and elimination settled on one. The name Zimboundary was born and Tonya went back to Vic Falls with it to work on the poster. This then is how my involvement began....also with a dream but one which cannot be realised in a set time frame or single journey. Nonetheless I truly believe that Zimboundary is the launch pad for anti-poaching awareness in Zimbabwe and the fact this event finished one week ago doesnt mean that it is finished finished...in fact its only just begun. somehow I will write a book, not only about these adventures but about the spirit that drove it and will continue to drive initiatives like these worldwide. Maybe I will write enough books to buy my own helicopter and, like the amazing John Morgan, bring help to the anti-poaching units in the more valuable form of action support, finance or funding, but for now this is what I can do. i can keep you engaged with our story and I will. Last week when we finished, our page likes were on 1796....today we have 1813, the money is trickling in along with fuel coupons, sleeping bags and boots, we have a fund raising after party planned for November and who knows that this party may also be the launch of Zimboundary 2015 or another equally exciting mission. For now I have decided to do a series of sub-titles such as NUTRITION ; OUR BIKES ; THE VEHICLE ; OUR BODIES etc and if there is a subject you would like me to talk on please let me know. Right now Craig is asking to go to the beach and you know what.....that is exactly what I am going to do...! Until tomorrow...Linda
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 10:14:27 +0000
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