cougar part 1: a walk to remember

looking back at the past 9 weeks of my bmt life, i think most of the pain i experienced was mental rather than physical, with most of it coming from simply being stuck in camp, rather than from the activities we had.

i shall share with you the first of my 3 worst experiences in bmt. parts 2 and 3 will come soon.

1. 24km route march
during our normal company marches, the pace is around 35-45mins every 4km (affectionately known as The Cougar Pace), which is much faster than what we're supposed to be walking but most of us were happy with it because we can end earlier, despite being more tired. however, the 24km march was done with several other companies who travel at the normal pace of around 1 hour every 4km.

it wasn't so much about being tired, but rather being bored to tears. we started at around 1530 and ended at 1130, including 1 and a half hours of dinner break. during the 16-20km mark i felt like crying because i was so fucking bored and there was still at least another 3 hours left to go, and the pace we were moving was so incredibly slow. at one point we were stopping every few metres for some unknown reason.

anyway i didn't cry, in case you were wondering. i just continued walking and nearly fell asleep a few times along the way, but still managed to complete it without much difficulty. after the march at least 70% of my calves were covered in rashes from unknown sources, which alarmed some of the people around me because it really looked quite bad but it was gone in a few days.