To read part eleven of day eleven, click here.

As soon as everyone was done crossing the creek, we kept going. But the longer we kept going, the harder the going got.

“I need to take a break, Sarah Margaret. As soon as I reach that log I can sit on, I’m going to take a quick break.”

I needed to take a break desperately. The hill was getting steeper and steeper, and I couldn’t keep going. I was going to be lucky to make it to the log that was maybe 50 feet away.

“Red light, everyone.”

Sarah Margaret called the break, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to. After telling her that I needed to take a break, I started breathing really heavily. When I started breathing heavily like that, I wasn’t able to talk or do anything except keep walking to the spot I had picked. The second I reached that spot, I sat down until I could breath again.

I sat down and stared at the ground, taking as many deep breaths as I could. It usually took three to five minutes for me to get my breathing back to normal, so I could keep going.

“I said, RED LIGHT!”

I looked up as Sarah Margaret yelled really loudly, wondering who hadn’t stopped. Half of the crew was still hiking, and they had gotten pretty far ahead.

Someone had to go after them to get them to stop.

“Sorry, Sarah Margaret, we didn’t hear you.”

She wasn’t really buying it, but she didn’t push it.

“Ok. Brett needed to take a break to get her breath back. She should be ready to go soon.”

I stood up, my breathing almost back to normal.

“We can go now, I’ll be fine for a bit. It looks relatively level for the next section of the trail. Green light!”

Click here to read the next part of Day Eleven.

*Everything here is from my own memory and may not be correct. Outward Bound is not responsible for anything I post here. Thanks too NCOBS for letting me use their photos.*