“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
I recently participated in the Wollongong Half Marathon and, in what I thought was a particularly clever piece of planning, decided to head down from Sydney the day before and stay overnight in Wollongong. Rather than waking up at 4:30am, driving down in the dark and arriving half-awake at the start line, I would enjoy a relaxed evening, get a solid night’s sleep and arrive fresh, fuelled and ready to race.
It was a great idea.
Unfortunately, it was terribly executed and coupled with unforeseen dramas, it ended up being an experience from hell.
I jumped onto Airbnb and found what appeared to be the perfect solution. The location was fantastic, the reviews looked reasonable, it was available at short notice and, perhaps most importantly, it was cheap. Only after booking did I realise it was a shared room in a shared house. For a brief moment I thought back to my younger years when sleeping in hostels seemed perfectly normal and convinced myself it would be fine. Looking back, that was my first mistake and, as events would later prove, probably the point at which the entire disaster could still have been been avoided.
After a carefully selected dinner and what I believed to be a sensible race-day fuelling strategy, I returned to the accommodation around 9:30pm and prepared for an early night. Earlier in the day I had checked into a room containing several bunk beds and, being the first to arrive, had the luxury of choosing whichever one I liked. Naturally, I selected the lower bunk nearest the bathroom. It seemed darker, quieter and tucked away from the rest of the room.
This was my second mistake.
By the time I returned, two other runners had arrived and were settling in. As it turned out, they were also in town for the race, so all of us shared the same objective to get a good night’s sleep for race day.
At 10:00pm, with the lights still on and everyone organising their gear, I had already put on my eye mask and began the routine of trying to go to sleep. That’s when I noticed a strange sound.
At first it was barely noticeable. Then it became impossible to ignore.
The toilet beside my bunk was faulty and appeared to be endlessly refilling itself. Every seventeen seconds it would hiss, gurgle, refill and stop, only to repeat the process again moments later. Every seventeen seconds, once I noticed it, the OCD part of my brain insisted on counting it. However hard I tried, the toilet clock kept on going, all night long.
At 10:15pm the final guest in our room arrived and proceeded to ask everyone where he should store his 2.5m longboard, it was me who suggested the only location being in the bathroom.
NOW, this guy was 6ft plus and solid, and the only bed left is the bunk above me. I was looking at the 120kg bloke and imagining myself being crushed alive as the bunk collapsed when he climbed in. I was only saved for the moment because instead he asked who’s up for going for beers, to which we all say no as we’ve got a race tomorrow, and he heads off to find a pub himself.
I had forgotten about the toilet and instead was distracted studying the structural integrity of the steel frame above me and mentally calculating the consequences of a catastrophic bunk-bed failure.
By 10:30pm the lights were finally switched off and everyone appeared committed to the sleep. Unfortunately, it was then that I became aware of a dog barking somewhere nearby. It was annoying but manageable, so I attempted to ignore it and focus on getting some rest.
At 11:00pm I was starting to get hot. The mattress, pillow and doona appeared to be made entirely of synthetic materials specifically engineered to trap heat. I eventually covered the pillow with my jumper so that at least one layer of cotton existed between my face and the polyester attempting to suffocate me.
At approximately 11:15pm, Beer Barrel returned.
The nickname may sound harsh, but it became increasingly appropriate as the evening progressed.
With considerable caution, he climbed the ladder and eased himself onto the bunk above me. The steel frame groaned under the load but held firm. I released a breath I didn’t realise I’d been holding.
“Please let me sleep now”
At around 11:30pm I drifted off and began dreaming. For context, my dreams are extraordinarily vivid. Full colour, sound, touch and smell. Full sensory immersion.
In this particular dream I was walking around the house and decided to go to the bathroom to wash my hands. When in the bathroom, I was washing my hands and I smelt something foul, I looked down and to my horror there was $h%* all over the floor, it was everywhere and I was treading in it. Ahhhhh I woke up suddenly from the dream and could smell it, it was real. Beer Barrel was above me unleashing what can only be described as biological warfare.
11:45pm. Beer Barrel finally decided to visit the bathroom and the noises that followed remain difficult to describe.
Imagine, if you will, an F-16 fighter jet engaging afterburners inside a small tiled room. I’m convinced the walls actually shook. If the Second Coming were to be announced by trumpet blast, I imagined it being this loud.
Midnight came and I was anxious calculating the remaining hours available for sleep and becoming increasingly concerned. The dog was still barking. The toilet was still refilling every seventeen seconds. Beer Barrel alternated between scratching himself, snoring and producing a strange breathing sound that reminded me of truck air brakes being released.
I told myself “it’s OK” I can do this, everything is just background noise I can sleep.
At 12:15am a thunderous crash echoed through the house, had someone just fallen out of a bunk bed? Then the stomping came, someone was walking heavily followed by a door being banged open, more stomping and then the loudest knocking on a door imaginable at that quite time.
“SHUT UP!”
“SHUT THOSE $^&%*# DOGS UP!”
Suddenly everything became clear.
The dogs weren’t next door. They were in another room above us. And not just one dog but several dogs.
The unfortunate bloke doing the shouting was clearly experiencing the same sleep deprivation I was and had finally reached his breaking point. His intervention had exactly the opposite effect intended. The dogs went ape and escalated their barking to a ballistic levels reserved for DEFCON 1.
For the next ten minutes the building descended into chaos. Eventually he gave up with no answer and returned to his room. The dogs continued their yapping.
For the next two and a half hours I existed in what can best be described as a sleep-deprived twilight zone. Dogs barked. Toilets refilled. Beer Barrel continued his campaign against atmospheric stability. The bunk vibrated intermittently from activities I preferred not to investigate.
At around 3:00am the dogs finally fell silent and, somehow, I drifted off to sleep.
At 4:48am somebody got up to use the bathroom.
At 5:15am somebody else got up.
At 5:45am the runners began preparing for the day.
By 6:00am I accepted reality, climbed out of bed and started my race morning routine.
I was exhausted.
When the race started at 7:00am, I knew within 1 km that I was in for a battle. My legs felt like I was dragging lead weights. My energy was zero. Months of training, planning and preparation suddenly seemed irrelevant.
The result was a time that many people would consider respectable, but for me, it was deeply disappointing.
Not because of the result itself, but because I knew what I was capable of under normal circumstances.
As I reflected on the experience afterwards, three lessons stood out.
1, The first was the importance of surrounding yourself with people who challenge your thinking.
When I discussed my accommodation plan with others, most people agreed it sounded sensible. The only person to question my decision in a meaningful way was my eldest daughter. In hindsight, she wasn’t challenging the plan itself, she was challenging an assumption I hadn’t properly tested.
One of her gifts is the ability to look at an idea objectively and immediately identify what could go wrong. She asks uncomfortable questions. She challenges assumptions. She sees risks others overlook.
I listened to her, but then ignored her, I had convinced myself this was a better plan. AND that turned out to be dead wrong.
As leaders, directors and executives, we desperately need people who are willing to challenge our thinking. An echo chamber may feel comfortable, but it is often the most dangerous environment in which to make decisions.
2. The second lesson was that untested plans are simply assumptions waiting to fail.
On paper, my overnight accommodation strategy looked like a sensible risk mitigation exercise. In reality, it introduced an entirely different set of risks that I had neither considered nor tested.
This is precisely why I advocate for simulation exercises. Plans rarely fail because they look bad on paper. They fail because reality introduces variables we never considered. The more we can safely stress-test our assumptions before reality does it for us, the better prepared we become.
3. The final lesson was perhaps the most important.
When plans fail, you need something deeper than the plan itself.
At some point, every strategy encounters unexpected obstacles. Assumptions break. Conditions change. Reality refuses to cooperate.
What keeps you moving then?
For me it was discipline, persistence, running technique, race-day fuelling and a refusal to quit. None of those things fixed the problem, but together they allowed me to keep moving forward.
The same applies to organisations.
When disruption strikes, culture matters. Principles matter. Leadership matters. The organisations that recover are rarely those with perfect plans. They are the ones with people who continue moving forward when the plan no longer applies.
Ironically, what I remember most about the Wollongong Half Marathon isn’t the race itself.
It’s Beer Barrel.
And the barking dogs.
And the toilet that refilled every seventeen seconds.
But most importantly, it’s the reminder that some of life’s most valuable lessons arrive disguised as disasters.
(Human-written first, AI-edited second)
