CamelToe, as always, took some awesome pics today.
Fun descent.
Happy snap with Mike Mike.
Chilling at the start chute.
Commentator ,Mike Mike dancing to the music in the morning, getting everyone all pumped!
What a pic!
“I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”
-Edward Everett
We live in a beautiful country, this alone is enough to make us start our day with a smile! If we can add financial freedom to our list, it means we can automatically tick the ”peace of mind” box as well (I sound like Suze Orman!). Saving money is easy, the difficult part comes in when we need to be disciplined and say No.
Herewith a few tips that will help you to stretch your money, which means more moola in your savings account:
1. Organise your day so that you don’t have to drive back and forth to the school, shops, work etc.
2. Pack home-made lunches instead of buying take-aways and snacks.
3. Make your own gifts and birthday (and other) cards.
4. As soon as your salary gets paid in, prioritise: Pay all your debt, save at least 10% and divide the rest into 4 (or 5 when you have a 5-week month), this way you know what you are allowed to spend weekly (you don’t have to spend it all though).
5. Make your own baby food, blend and freeze it in ice cube trays, take out only what you need for the day.
6. If you stop smoking, you might be able to buy a cheap pozzie somewhere in South Africa!
7. Grow your own veggies and / or herbs.
We thought yesterdays last 3 km were mean. Well, we were wrong – that seemed easy in comparison to todays final 30km. The hills were relentless. Although we were only out there for 7 hours it felt much longer, more like 9 hours. I think both of us experienced more of a mental tiredness than physical fatigue. CamelToe ran out of water about 5km from the end and then I ran out at 2km to go so that didn’t help things and it was baking hot. I had sweat running off my arms.. at one point I thought it looked kinda sexy but then I felt my nostrils caked with sand so that put an end to that…
Way too much sharing, sorry.
So although we curse about the unrelenting hill climbs, CamelToe and I remind ourselves every now and then that the Epic is actually not hard in the real sense of the word. We did sign up for it after all and when you think of people, like those who we saw today working in the blistering sun repairing railway lines, you realise what hard is. Living below the poverty line is hard, being homeless is hard, losing a child is hard, the Epic is merely physically challenging at times.
Getting sentimental… moving on.
5 Days down, 2 to go!
Time to get some sleep.. zzzz
How pretty is this photo?!
Another beautiful morning.
Getting warmed up for the mountains ahead.
Cyclists snaking up the mountain. Eish!