Andthen, helets goand starts bouncing his way down the wall.
He stops after a few bounces and looks up at me. ‘Freya?’
‘I can’t do that,’ I state. I mean, helet go. I’m just not doing that. It’s too high. Far, far too high.
Fortunately, there are sticky-out bits to hold on to on both sides of the wall, so I can climb down the other side using those. I set off.
‘Freya? I think abseiling would be a lot faster.’ Jake’s bouncing his way down again and is nearly at the bottom.
‘Don’t care.’ I’m too warm to talk much. Climbing is hot work. ‘Too high.’
A lot of the others bounce their way past me on their way down. I keep on climbing. Eventually, I get to a point – around the height of Jake’s head, so maybe six feet up – where I feel confident to abseil, so I let go, bounce once and am on the ground.
‘Yesssss,’ I yell. That wassocool. Maybe Iwilltake up climbing. ‘Maybe I could abseil from higher up next time.’
‘You definitely could,’ Jake assures me, and I find myself beaming at him.
I do feel hugely triumphant and full of excellent endorphins, but only one person gets off the wall after me and he’s tall and lean and sprints off towards the next obstacle (I have no idea how he fell behind me in the first place), so this is realistically the end of the race for me in terms of not coming last.
I do semi-run to the next obstacle (a parallel bar thing, which is an absolute fiasco when I do it) and then I don’t bother running after that, because there’s blatantly no chance of us not losing, and I really don’t mind walking through mud – the squelchiness of it is quite pleasant when you aren’t worrying about getting your clothes and face muddy (I’m already fully mudded up) – and I might as well enjoy myself as much as I can.
I lumber on to the end, and I do enjoy the last obstacle, a raft thing across a stream (I just sit on it feeling muddy and slightly trembly from all the overexertion) while Jake puts his very well(but not too well) developed biceps to good use paddling us and I admire his strength and the whole muscly thing, and the wider view, because now that I can see something other than mud, I realise that it’s very pretty here.
And then we walk through the finish line holding hands, because that’s what all the other pairs did and it does actually seem natural to do it, and the others all cheer us. (Unless they’re mad and would in fact like to do an ice bath they’re probably also cheering becausetheyhaven’t lost.)
As we stand there I suddenly become very aware that I’m still holding Jake’s hand, and I think he realises the same thing at exactly the same moment because we both all at once justdropthe other’s hand, very much as though we have hot potatoes on the end of our arms. We stand and don’t speak for a few moments, and then we both congratulate the other, at once.
There’s not too much time to stand around though (well, not for us, anyway, because we came in so far behind the other pairs) before Sonja – who seems to be absolutely everywhere this weekend – tells us that we need to go and have showers asap so we’re ready for our ice baths.Which the other pairs are going to watch. Like, actual torture.
‘Bloody hell,’ I say to Jake as we make our way back to our rooms. He isn’t the person in life I would choose to discussanyof my thoughts with ever, but I obviously have no-one else to talk to right now. ‘Sonja has literally taken every single dislike I mentioned and turned them all into a list of activities for this weekend and she’s even managed to add in things I hate that I didn’t mention. Like she has a superpower that involves guessing the most evil thing she can do to me. Ihatecold showers.’
‘It’s an icebath,’ Jake says. ‘You know that, right? Not just cold and not a shower. Icy. Bath.’
‘What?’
‘An ice-cold bath. All of you goes into it. At once. Not like a shower. It’s good for you. Health-giving. Invigorating.’
‘Have you done one?’
‘Yep. Several. Quite enjoy them.’ Of course he bloody does.
‘Fucking hell.’
It’s more insanely unpleasant than I was imagining, I realise when we assemble for our ice baths. There are two ice-water-filled bath-like containers in the middle of a room and space round the sides for the other pairsanda fucking TV camera. As in, if we do this with anything other than very good grace our misery will be broadcast to the nation.Mymisery I should say; Jake is not miserable.
We’re both wearing T-shirts, shorts and unattractive toe-boot things that they provided us with.
Jake asked me on our way over whether I’d like to go first or second. I opted for first, reasoning that however bad it is, the anticipation will only add to the badness, and I’m not even being selfish given that Jake said he’slikedit when he’s done it before (five or six times, he can’t remember how many; I am certain that I will be doing it once and once only).
And this is it. I’m about to go in.
We had a long spiel beforehand that I really struggled to concentrate on (I am not good with boring instructions) butnowI’m focused, mainly on not reactingwhateverhappens.
I don’t react when I get in. I was worried that I’d scream, but I’m too stunned. It’s so unbelievably cold. Shockingly so.
Okay. I’m in. I have to stay in for three minutes and then I’m done. It’s invigorating, I tell myself, it’s good for me, it’samazing, it’s wonderful (erno it is not), and this torturewillbe over soon, and I amnotgoing to react.
And it’s over.
