High Noon Sun beats down on you you
carry in the backpack inside everything
that you need for a week by water would
you replenish your checkpoints and
shelter imagine that after hiking for
about 50 miles your back starts hurting
at first it’s not much bird then you
start getting worried because it’s
really starting to get quite painful
fortunately you’re not alone there’s a
checkpoint and you can just about see it
way way way in the distance step by step
you make it to that checkpoint spot a
medic explain your predicament ask for
some painkillers and you are given
precisely one large paracetamol you look
at it and you think how on earth is this
going to help me because you’re not
actually just out there for a hike in
fact you’re taking part in one of the
most infamous races in the world you’re
taken part in the marathon day sob or
the M DDS the race the Discovery Channel
once called the toughest foot race on
earth so you sneak off to some shade to
ponder life and to lick your wounds you
move slightly and you scream it’s a it’s
such a loud scream it’s a scream it’s
punchy like scream it’s like a scream
like no whether it’s absolutely
terrifying and it terrifies everybody
around you because a medic
they sprint towards you there’s such
concern looking on their faces they’re
like can you walk can you walk
that is exactly the question I faced in
this year’s marathon to sob because the
scenario I’ve given you I didn’t make it
up that happened and it happened to me
so could I walk could I keep walking not
just for the rest of that day but for
four more days for a hundred miles
more so the equivalent of about four
marathons Gandhi believed that strength
doesn’t come from physical capacity
it comes from an indomitable will but
how does a person get indomitable well
sometimes I wonder could it be something
to do with our past so let’s have a look
at my past to see if there was anything
I can pull from my past that was going
to help me through the next few days in
the desert I first heard about the
marathon to Sabo MDS in 2002 when I was
living in Melbourne Australia in those
days I was an adventure racer as a
kayaker as an ultra hiker but I was so
busy leading my life that in taking
instead of taking the most basic step of
writing down my goal I parked it at the
back of my brain I promptly forgot about
it I hope none of you would do something
like that it took four more years before
I heard again about the race bad time I
was watching a documentary and as soon
as I saw that documentary I was
captivated by the magnificence over the
desert but I was also frustrated with
myself for I remembered how I had wanted
to do this race and I hadn’t got around
to doing it how could I’ve wasted all
that time
so you’d think now I’d sign up there’s
my second chance nope still didn’t sign
up white because the documentary also
told the story of an Italian Olympic
pentathlete and how it got lost during a
sandstorm in the desert he was lost for
ten days he’s thought refuge in an
abandoned shrine and he was so desperate
to survive that at one point he caught
bats ate them and drank their blood so
surprise surprise after hearing all of
that I was rather terrified I was like
whoa can I cope could I cope with the
heat the terrain could I cope with a
ration supply of water and could I cope
if a ferocious sandstorm would through
the desert that could potentially kill
me I let fear doubt and a lack of
confidence stopped me from entering the
race what I should of course have done
was tackled them one by one so I could
have gone on to live my dream but I
didn’t I let those fears overcome me now
seven years after I heard about the race
so 2009 I heard that there were a couple
of guys come into Melbourne Australia
where I lived at the time to give a talk
about the race they’d had done it before
when they were going to share their
experiences I went along and well that
night it was a revelation I simply
couldn’t believe it quickest I’d been
expecting to see some guys were like
Olympians or world-class explorers or
some like mythical Greek gods but no
they were ordinary Australians a
landscape gardener and a recruitment
consultant and I was like ah hang on
it was my mind that was putting me down
nothing else I’d built this race up to
something that it wasn’t so now my mind
was in place it thing yeah yeah
hallelujah or whatever whatever Jane’s
gonna go off and do the race
slight problem because
see to do this race it wasn’t just my
mind that needed to be ready my body
needed to be ready and in the past it
had been ready but now my body was a
mess because the previous year the
doctors found a lump I was on a high
surveillance program because so many
women in my family had breast cancer
basically all of them and some of them
had died of it so they had me the only
woman in my generation an extremely high
surveillance program and as I said they
picked up a lump and the doctors because
of the family history they weren’t
taking any risks with me they were like
but we don’t think it’s malignant baby
we can’t risk it we have to operate fine
you think three months off you know you
recuperate fine fine I wouldn’t be a
world-class mountain yeah they told me
but everything else would be a slight
problem I develop complications a very
rare complication called pyoderma
gangrenosum how real was this
complication the surgeons told me that I
was the first case ever in Australia to
have this complication after that type
of surgery another surgeon that I know
told me he still hasn’t found a medical
article about exactly what happened to
me my search is thought about writing
one but they couldn’t work out why that
happened so they couldn’t publish the
article what did it actually mean for me
a man from hospital whilst they treated
me and I had these big huge wounds and
one of the winds was so big you but
could basically see my heart beating you
couldn’t actually see the heart but you
could see the beat of the heart and
after that month in hospital I could out
and obviously I was rather frail but
over a three-year period I had 13
general anesthetics and you can imagine
in fact something that go to my local
shops and I’d be so exhausted after
batter trip
that as I shuffled home frail elderly
pensioners whether some of rains would
overtake me at other times I was so
fatigued I couldn’t even make it my
front door so I had to get to the
delivery van to come to me but it wasn’t
all bad news because sometimes I was
fine
generally in the lead up to the next
operation because one would be right
away in the past that have had a
recovery period build up again turn that
builds a period I could go hiking and
cycling with my friends only I needed to
learn even to temper that because one
time after way overdoing it I ended up
in an ambulance getting taken to
hospital and put in a cardiac ward for
observation yeah it was a rough ride but
that’s life so I realized now that what
had happened to me meant that the MDS
was and even a fantasy anymore whilst I
had the physical strength in 2002 and
2006 I could have done the MD has no
problem but later once all that illness
hit me no chance my own procrastination
of 2002 my own fear doubt a lack of
confidence a 2006 had killed my dream so
you might be thinking how on earth did
Jane ever end up in the Sahara because
we know she ended up there she’s told us
I’m lucky because after the last of
those operations I felt so much better
it’s such as if the surgeon managed to
find last atom of poison in my body and
remove it I can’t it wasn’t like that
but I can’t explain it in any other way
that’s how it felt to me and because of
that trip I’d previously taken to her
but illan ambulance and my visit to the
cardiac ward I now knew that I couldn’t
rush things
the only thing I could do if I wanted to
rebuild myself was to take time after
all rome wasn’t built in a day and i
couldn’t rebuild my body in a day either
so instead I developed a step-by-step
approach that step-by-step approach took
years and it got delayed as well because
what did I go and do did my hip in had
to have hip surgery suffered lots of
other injuries and I also went and broke
my ribs when I went mountain biking on
one occasion so it took a while longer
than even I had planned and allowed for
but eventually I was getting there I
wasn’t as good as they used to be but I
was getting there so I realized I can
dream again and I did to dream again and
I dreamt about the MDS and this time I
didn’t allow procrastination fear or
doubt to intervene this time I entered
the race and that sound this year I got
to be in the Sahara taking part in
supposedly the toughest for dressing
laugh though I’m not sure if that still
applies now you’ve heard my story how do
you think I reacted when my back went
into spasms on that fur today well I’ll
tell you
it only took a millisecond for my mind
to remember the journey we’d been on my
mind was furious with my back and my
mind told my back you are not doing this
to me we have fought too hard together
we are going to team up and we are gonna
finish this race so when those medics
frantically sprinted up to me and asked
can you walk I looked them straight in
the eye and I said yes I can walk
so if I went up the steepest climb of
the day step by step ouch bye
ouch and I kept going but the rest of
that day on the next four days
I crossed these sandy plains I climbed
those magnificent mountains and I
traversed stark barren rocky furnaces
but I kept walking and I walked step by
to conclude some people asked me so how
did you manage to do it with a bad back
and I look at them and I say well lots
of paracetamol because medics along the
way gave me a whole load more a codeine
tablet a sympathetic competitor gave me
after I’d gone ouch once too often in
front of her and thirdly the help of all
the medics again because I strapped
under strapped to my back again and
again and again but some people still
don’t believe me they say but General
Howe and I think back she Gandhi said
about how strength doesn’t come from
physical capacity it comes from an
indomitable well and I thought the
people had journeyed on foot in the past
I thought of people fleeing evil or
walking to escape from famine or walking
so that they could try and find a job
during the Great Depression those people
didn’t walk out of choice and those
people would have really suffered on
their journeys I had a choice I could
have bailed at any moment because we
were all fitted with satellite trackers
and I could have pressed the emergency
button on that and if I had somebody
would have come and rescued me and
within days I could have been eating at
a five-star hotel but if I had pressed
that emergency button
that wouldn’t have been a rescue of me
that would have been me surrendering
once again on my dreams and I was not
gonna do that this time
absolutely no way so I kept walking
because dreams are important to us
dreams are critical to us dreams aren’t
small dreams are far bigger than girls
dreams go to our soul so I ask each one
of you when you go to bed tonight before
you fall asleep have to think about your
own dreams and think about what you need
to do to follow through with your dreams
think about the steps that you need to
take and tomorrow start by putting that
first step in place take the first step
on the second step and the third step
take all the steps that you need to take
and step by step go live your dreams thank you