Maple Ridge

Chapter 40

Fiona Anderson

"Come on Fiona, just a hundred meters more!" Martin calls out to me, and I push myself, reaching my limits as I put one foot forward after another. Trying to go as fast as I can, and finally cross the finish line, a smile coming on to my face.

I stop right beside Martin, breathing deeply as I stand with my hands on my knees.

"Good job Anderson, you got five whole seconds less than last week, you are improving really quickly!" Martin says proudly, patting my back.

Just as I say thank you, Ara crosses the finish line, and Martin sighs, "Still seven seconds behind Fiona, you need to put more effort Ara," he says, but offers Ara a bottle of water anyway.

After we have rested for a few minutes, Martin gets up and comes to stand in front of us.

"Come on, it's time for the obstacle course," he says, and I groan. The obstacle course is one of the hardest things I have had to do here, except shooting of course, which we started just last week. But, honestly, shooting is something that I really want to master, and that's why I have also been practicing out of training hours.

Our training hours have slowly been increasing to the point we are now training for six hours every day.

We both quickly get all our stuff and head to the obstacle course.

As soon as we reach there, I see Julian standing there too, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned back against the wall. He was also in training gear and I could see the sweat on his forehead, as he gave us a charming smile.

We both smiled back as Martin called me over to attempt the course first.

I walk up to the start line, cracking my knuckles, my mind just on the thought that I will have to train an hour extra if I don't complete this in under five minutes today.

I take a deep breath and analyzing the whole course in my mind, I take the first step, hearing the sound of the timer go off.

(a picture of the obstacle course is added above for some reference even though it isn't the exact same)

I take off on a run, and putting all my weight on my toes, I pull myself up the high wall in front of me, getting the top edge in the first time, I pull myself up on the small landing with some difficulty, and slide down the other side, jogging ahead, I climb up a net quickly, this being my strong point, I make it to other side swiftly. Climbing up another net wall easily I land on the soft clay ground, now a little out of breath, but I don't stop or slow down before I run up to the next obstacle where I jump over a high bar, then stepping up onto thin rods for the zig-zag balance course, balancing my weight as well as I can, but suddenly my foot slips and I fall to the ground, cursing. But I waste no time before getting up and doing it over again, this time getting through.

I quickly run up a flight of stairs and down them after that, I inhale deeply, getting as much air inside me as I can.

Next, I have to cross a stretch pulling all my weight with my arms, hanging onto ropes. It takes me some time to get across this stage, but I pull through, almost falling off once.

I land on the ground with a grunt, rubbing my palms on my leggings I walk up to the sand pit, dropping onto my knees and elbows and crawl across a sand patch, after that I run around rods places in a zig-zag pattern, I make my way through the following obstacles. I jump above high hurdles one after the other, tripping twice.

I once again drop to my knees and elbows, this time having to crawl under the net and make my way through that, then having to encounter the toughest and last part of the obstacle course.