When the Race Became More Than a Race
For the past two years, I had wanted to take on the Mont-Aux Sources Ultra Trail.
It had been sitting on my bucket list, waiting for me.
But each year, something stood in the way.
The first year, I was incorrectly diagnosed.
The second year, I finally received the correct diagnosis, but I had only returned to the gym three weeks before Mont-Aux Sources. There simply wasn’t enough time to prepare my body for a 50-kilometre ultra trail.
Then came 2026.
This was going to be my year.
I was determined. I was going to train properly, get my body ready and finally tick the Mont-Aux Sources Ultra Trail off my bucket list.
At least, that was the plan.
—
The Morning I Couldn’t Move
Two weeks after getting the all-clear from my neurologist, I woke up one morning and couldn’t move my legs.
Nothing.
I couldn’t feel anything from the waist down.
For a moment, I was terrified. I remember hoping that somehow this was just a horrible dream and that, if I waited long enough, I would wake up properly.
Forty minutes later, the reality hit me.
This wasn’t a dream.
Something had changed.
My condition had worsened.
Later that day, I called my neurologist and explained what had happened. Until then, I had been dealing with the functional tremor that had been haunting me, while also carrying the frustration of knowing how much time I had lost because of my first, incorrect diagnosis.
Then came the words that would change my understanding of what was happening to my body:
FND \u2014 Functional Neurological Disorder.
I had never heard of it.
So I did what anyone would do when suddenly confronted with something they don’t understand.
I started researching.
And as I read, I began recognising myself in the symptoms.
So, What Is FND?
Functional Neurological Disorder affects the way the brain and nervous system function and communicate. It can cause very real physical symptoms, even when conventional scans or tests don’t show structural damage to the nervous system.
It can affect movement, sensation, speech and cognition. Symptoms can include tremors, jerking movements, weakness or paralysis, numbness, difficulty walking, fatigue, brain fog, problems concentrating and difficulty finding words. Symptoms can fluctuate, change over time and vary greatly from one person to another.
One way doctors explain it is to think about the nervous system like a computer.
The hardware may be intact, but the communication \u2014 the way the brain processes and sends signals to the body \u2014 isn’t working properly.
And that doesn’t make the symptoms imaginary.
They are real.
That was one of the hardest things for me to understand.
My body wasn’t necessarily broken.
But something wasn’t working the way it was supposed to.
FND is diagnosed clinically by a neurologist or other appropriately trained healthcare professional, based on the person’s symptoms and neurological examination, sometimes alongside investigations to rule out other conditions. Treatment can involve a multidisciplinary approach, including specialised physical rehabilitation and other therapies depending on the symptoms.
And suddenly, so many things started making sense.
I wasn’t imagining the tremors.
I wasn’t imagining the weakness.
I wasn’t imagining the numbness.
I wasn’t imagining the brain fog.
And I certainly wasn’t imagining the paralysis.
I was living it.
—
Living in Fear
Every day became a question mark.
Both arms trembled.
The brain fog was almost constant.
Sometimes I struggled to speak or find the words I wanted.
And there was always one question sitting at the back of my mind:
When will it happen again?
Would I wake up tomorrow and be unable to move?
If it happened, would it last a few minutes?
A few hours?
Or months?
I didn’t know.
That uncertainty was terrifying.
I had to change the way I trained. I couldn’t simply push my body harder and hope for the best.
I eased back.
I changed from working with a personal trainer to working with a biokineticist, hoping that a different approach would help me understand my body and rebuild my strength safely.
But there was something else on the calendar.
Something I had been looking forward to for months.
My first HYROX.
And despite everything that was happening, I wasn’t ready to give up on it.
—
The Setback Before HYROX
Two weeks before HYROX, I went out for a 10-kilometre trail race.
I finished the race.
But afterwards, my body gave me a warning I couldn’t ignore.
My legs gave in.
From the waist down, I lost feeling.
This time, it lasted almost five hours.
Five hours of waiting for sensation to return.
Eventually, slowly, the feeling started coming back.
I tried to walk.
But my legs felt incredibly heavy \u2014 almost as if someone was physically holding them down.
The distance from my car to my front door was only about 20 metres.
It took me approximately 30 minutes to get there.
And I cried the entire way.
I had never experienced anything like it.
As I struggled towards the front door, one thought kept running through my head:
It’s never been this bad before.
HYROX was only two weeks away.
And suddenly, I didn’t know whether I would even be able to stand on that start line.
—
30 May 2026 \u2014 HYROX
Race morning arrived.
And there was one thing I had been dreading.
Waking up paralysed.
Thankfully, it didn’t happen.
I could move.
I could walk.
I could race.
But there was still a voice in the back of my mind.
What if it happens before the race?
Or worse…
What if it happens during the race?
I pushed that thought aside.
The race was on.
I ran.
I pushed.
I lifted.
I carried.
I kept moving.
And, thankfully, I had no major problems with tremors or paralysis during the event.
There was, however, one small problem.
I needed the toilet.
And as the saying goes:
Never trust a fart.
Unfortunately, this one actually was a fart.
But the emergency toilet stop still cost me approximately 10 minutes.
Despite that, I crossed the finish line having completed my first solo HYROX in 1 hour and 45 minutes.
I was proud.
So was my family, who had come to support me.
But more than anything, I was grateful.
Grateful that I had been given the opportunity to compete.
Grateful that my body had carried me through.
And grateful that, for those 1 hour and 45 minutes, the tremors and paralysis had stayed away.
I had done it.
—
The Thank You
When I got home, I didn’t celebrate the way someone might expect.
I went to pray.
I sat in front of my Buddha statue.
I lit a candle.
I closed my eyes.
And I simply said:
Thank you.
Thank you for giving me the strength to compete.
Thank you for giving me the strength to push through.
Thank you for allowing me to finish.
I thought about everything that had happened.
The wrong diagnosis.
The correct diagnosis.
The fear.
The tremors.
The paralysis.
The uncertainty.
And somehow, despite all of it, I had still crossed that finish line.
That moment changed something inside me.
I realised I couldn’t control everything that happened to my body.
But I could control how I responded to it.
I could choose gratitude.
I could choose positivity.
I could choose to make the best of what I had.
And most importantly, I could choose not to lose focus.
From that moment forward, my priorities began to change.
I started focusing more seriously on my health and fitness.
I changed my diet.
I had already been more than a year without smoking or drinking.
I started appreciating the little things more.
My family.
My husband.
My daughter.
My health.
My ability to run.
My ability to train.
My ability to wake up each morning and simply have another day.
I stopped taking those things for granted.
Because I had learned something that HYROX had nothing to do with.
Sometimes, finishing isn’t about how fast you go.
Sometimes, finishing means simply refusing to stop.
And Mont-Aux Sources was still waiting for me.
The bucket-list race wasn’t gone.
It was just going to take a little longer to reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When the Race Became More Than a Race For the past two years, I had wanted to take on the Mont-Aux Sources Ultra Trail. It had been sitting on my bucket list, waiting for me. But each year, something stood in the way. The first year, I was incorrectly diagnosed. The second year, I finally […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[208],"tags":[17,194,212,209,11,211,210],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mont-aux-sources-ultra-trail-story","tag-fitness","tag-fnd","tag-hyrox","tag-mont-auxsources","tag-trailrunning","tag-tremors","tag-ultratrail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":984,"url":"https:\/\/debruyn-walters.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/30\/the-trail-runner-part-iii-beyond-the-finish-line\/","url_meta":{"origin":1008,"position":0},"title":"The Trail Runner: Part III \u2013 Beyond the Finish Line","author":"admin","date":"30 July 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"From Struggle to Service Every step I\u2019ve taken \u2014 through tremors, through fatigue, through triumph \u2014 has led me here. 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