Unknown Pleasures – Part 4

“Fear not the unknown. It is a sea of possibilities.”

– Tom Althouse

We started the last night with a bad omen: a sing-song, and a lot of cheer as the sun finally dipped. This was bad. I was much more worried about what was about to come, when Staff started to be nice.

A few small tasks, then a recon mission were scheduled for the night: get close to an “enemy” and gain some information, without getting caught. Staff were finally working with us, giving tips for the route planning: avoid the mudflats, go through the farmyard. Maybe they were ready to transition from tormentors to helpers? We were exhausted and glad of the help.

We stealthed through the farmyard, in silence, in darkness, trying to avoid getting caught. On high alert, looking for anything unusual.

Passing a caravan, a barn. Then the sky lit up. No warnings. Explosions going off all around us. Screams. “Take Cover!”. More yells. Brain struggling to process what was happening.

More flashbangs. The loud cracks echoing off the steel barn walls.

Bodies jumping into ditches. Bodies jumping on top of each other. Chaos.

We’d been caught. Ambushed. I now understood the reason for the “help”. We’d been lured into a trap.

We were unceremoniously bagged once again. A sock stuffed into my mouth. Dragged away. Abducted.

I could hear the bark of angry dogs. We were entering some form of building, one of the barns I guessed.

Pushed down onto the floor. Put into a stress position. This was the next phase.

Hideous sounds played through speakers at full volume, echoing around the barn, brain in overload. A mix of radio static, screams, breaking glass, dissonant piano, screeching metal. All mashed together, messing with my head. Blindness made it unbelievably intense.

My stomach started to ache from the stress position: kneeling, leaning forward, hands behind our back. Abs in agony. It seemed like an eternity. Muscles gave in, I fell over. A pair of hands quickly grabbed me under the armpits, hauled me up, reset me into the stress position.

Trying to think of other things.

I heard someone tapping out – being led away. Then another.

We ended up here for hours. Time became irrelevant. It could have been days, weeks, or minutes.

A new stress position: standing, leaning at an angle with our forehead pressed against the wall. My whole body weight pressing into my skull. Extremely uncomfortable, head starting to ache.

Exhausted. I managed to fall asleep standing in this position: falling, scraping my face down the wall. Waking up on the floor as another pair of hands moments grabbed me and put me back. All the while, the fucked up audio kept blaring: going round and round and round.

People being taken away for “interrogation”: trying to get someone to snap. To break the group.

Other tactics to mess with our heads. Water being suddenly dribbled down our wrists and hands. The suddenness, and blindness, made it feel like some weird violation.

And to add insult to injury, this was an inside job. We previously had a mole in our ranks, who’d quit on the moorland earlier. He’d been working against us all along, wearing us down from the inside. Lowering morale, feeding back intel. And this was his next contribution.

After an eternity we were let out. Apparently so many people had been falling asleep standing up that they opted to cut this phase short.

And under a full moon we were rushed back to the beach. They had to wake us up.

Crawling back and forth into the sea, over and over. Back into the water again, filling our buckets to the brim. Back to land. The next brutal round of exercises would begin. Grabbing the bucket – weighing a good 15kg – in both hands. “LOWER“: arms straight down, holding the bucket. “RAISE“: Lifting bucket to headheight.

LOWER… RAISE… Shoulders on fire. LOWER. Back hurting. RAISE. Feeling the burn of my forearms. LOWER. Being glad to be outside, this was much better than the barn. RAISE. Feeling my eyes twitch from exhaustion again… RAISE. Thighs and groin chaffed from over 24hrs of sand and salt rubbing. LOWER. Grit and sand between my teeth. RAISE. LOWER. RAISE. LOWER…

More exercises, more drop-outs, then eventually a surprise. An hour was given to us to sleep – I hadn’t slept for almost 48hrs by this point.

But moments earlier, I’d binged on caffeine: my first caffeine in months, a tactic to make it hit even harder during the event. I was wired awake. I tried to heat some instant rice on a hopeless fire made of damp twigs. Lukewarm at best. I ate it anyway, crunched it down. Glad of real food after too many energy gels. I somehow snoozed for about 20 mins, and awoke feeling sick.

Insane stomach cramps. Undercooked rice and energy gels not a good combo. But no time to stop and think. The sun was about to come up. And we had lots more to do before the weekend was over.

Straight into the next challenge: the world’s shortest 10km. Running as a group between two posts, 5m apart: there and back ten metres. A thousand times.

We had one hour. Any laps not in sync with the group, invalidated that lap. Going too fast, people breaking and dropping out. My knee on fire. My gut in agony. I’d be fucked if I endured all of this, for Uncle Ben to force me out. Arguments kicked off. People wanted to speed up. Others needed to slow down. The group broke down. Shouting. I was getting angry. Eventually Staff had to intervene, and help us through.

More grim challenges. My knee now swollen like a melon, bending it agony. Heartburn and stomach cramps. I tried to make myself sick to get the rice out. It didn’t work. But I needn’t have bothered.

The “Rolling Road” was next: rolling up and down sand dunes, being forced to chug water to make our stomachs slosh more. Everyone vomiting from dizziness. Rolling around puddles of sick. Riddles at the end of each lap. Wrong answers from tiredness: the lap then invalid.

There was a strict deadline. I thought of quitting: ending the suffering. All my laps invalid from the riddles, so I’d fail anyway. I was encouraged to stay in. I opted to see this through to the end. If I lost because of their shitty time limits, then so be it: I was going to fight to the very end.

Besides me, a grown man answers the riddle wrong, loses his temper. Claiming he answered differently. A full blown tantrum from a forty year old. Insults, storming off, quitting, on the last challenge. I also get the answer wrong. Back down, back to crawling, back to rolling. I try another riddle after another twenty minutes of rolling and spewing.

Wrong again.

Then the challenge is abruptly stopped. Time up. But contrary to what they’d said, nobody was thrown out. Equally, it wasn’t the last challenge. More group carries, everyone absolutely at the end of their tether. The bleakest day on the beach I’ll ever see. But we were due to finish any moment, 36hrs well and truly elapsed.

A moment of realisation. Everything suddenly hit home. I didn’t care if I actually finished any more. I could tap out any moment and be happy. Happy I’d pushed myself so far. I had done so much beyond what I even comprehended as possible.

The grimmest of days, the grimmest of challenges. I didn’t care for a medal. I didn’t need it. I had found what I was looking for. But the other numbers at this stage were not up for letting any more go. We rallied around each other. Helping each other. Wanting all to finish together. Numbers no more. Now a family. A family where I knew no names. But a family nonetheless.

But all the philosophy would have to be shelved. The last challenge was here. A bucket of rotten milk, fish, raw egg, and other goodies awaited us. The smell was stomach churning. Dip your head in. Open your mouth wide to catch a floating capsule. If it had a green colour inside, then you had one point. Three to finish the Unknown.

And in-between each dunk: go around the Rolling Road again. Vomiting over and over again. Tormenting an already agonising stomach.

Chunky, vile liquid gushed into my mouth as I tried to catch a capsule. The taste of mould. Retching again. The only thing pushing me on at this stage the encouragement from the Numbers, and even from Staff, who had finally opted to help us through this last shitty hurdle.

And each metre crawled, was one metre closer to completion.

The third token: green. I was done. A bombshell. Fighting back tears. Rinsing the vile taste out of my mouth. Trying to wash my face to stop the hideous smell rising up my nostrils.

Absolute elation. I couldn’t believe I’d finished. Too tired to comprehend it. 27 Numbers finished, out of 78 who made it to the startline. 39hrs from start to finish. A journey of a lifetime.

A shower. A medal ceremony. A train home.

The aftermath? Bursitis in both of my knees, walking painful for weeks. Struggling to eat for four days due to the pain in my stomach, despite ransacking my body of the calories it needed over the event.

Most events like this, there’s a point afterwards, where you question if you would do it again. Once the muscles start to recover, about two days in, you jump to sign up again, feeling happy and triumphant.

Not this time. Weeks later, and I still wasn’t sure I wanted to go through anything like it again. I still wasn’t totally okay with what I’d had to do to get that medal. But in reality, it really wasn’t for a medal.

It was for the experience. For the challenge of a lifetime. To reach the breaking point. To push past it. To learn. Working with others against an overwhelming task. By putting yourself into extremely adverse scenarios, you grow.

I eventually realised that I had learned so much from The Unknown, that it was worth the time, the pain and money for this weird education. I realised that if it happened again, I’d be there once more. To toe the line with my family of misfits, The Numbers. No expectations, only possibilities. Moths to a weird flame.

Cover Image: Tony Jarvis

Huge thanks to Tony Jarvis and the other photographers for the event photos. And a huge thanks to those that shall not be named: the organisers and volunteers that made the Unknown happen. If you know, you know.