Personal Narrative Essay: A Walk In The Park

WALK IN THE PARK - Liam Gist

5:30 in the morning, my alarm went off, usually I would complain but today was different I get out of bed, had a bath and double checked the bags I had packed the night before. Spare socks, check. Bandaids, check. Torch, check. Going down the list making sure everything was there. When it came time to leave, a swarm of angry butterflies found a home in my stomach tormenting me with every movement. But it was too late to pull out now, I had to keep going, they were relying on me. There we were, standing in a freshly mown field full of people, all with their own reasons for doing this. As I stood there they hit me again, the angry butterflies intensified by the magnitude of what I was about to take on. I thought to

Six months of nonstop hiking, after all the ups and downs we’ve been through... Literally. Today is the day and I am as prepared as I will ever be. It’s just like a walk in the park, but only it’s 50 kilometres of crap weather and hellish hills. A 50 kilometre trek across unknown areas on an unknown path, if it could even be called a path, as it was marked by nothing but a measly piece of ribbon every few hundred metres. The anxiety was killing me, my nerves were through the roof. I could see it in the rest of the boy’s eyes too, but something inside of me knew we were going to make it, we just had to keep moving.

As the time neared closer and closer to 11, the butterflies seemed to calm and transform into confidence. The count down began, hundreds of people yelling at the top of their lungs, THREE TWO ONE, followed by an unusual amount of yelling and screaming. We were off running like mad men, the first part of the