Well I finished, in a total time of 27 hours 40 mins. Which is frankly pretty fine with me.
For those who have not heard, last weekend I took part in the trailwalker which is a 100km (62 mile) walk across the south downs. You do it non stop (hence the 27 hours). I think I actually walked for 23 and bit of that.
Its hellish hard work, mostly after 3-4 stages you are in a fair chunk of pain and are pretty knackered (thee are 10 stages in all). So its mostly stubbornness that makes you finish (clearly i have that in spades).
I did the walk with Rob Downs, Bharat Patel, and Peter Spindly (colleges from work) we finsihed together pretty pleased with ourselves. We completed the last 2 stages in (for us) record time, averaging 3.5 miles an hour. We averaged 2.9 miles an hour over the whole course. The race to the finish at the last stage was mostly because we were so tired it was pretty much the only way to get home!
This is the second time I have done this walk (maybe the last, ask me in a week). It does get easier. This time I was much happier overall, I only really struggled on one stage, which was the last bit of the night stage, and I think that was sleep depravation more than anything else. Having said that I am _NEVER_ good going uphill (as I clearly carry more baggage than others), I did think I would not make devils dyke a few times but make it I did. Last time I took just over 30 hours, mostly because we took too long over rest stops. This time we were pretty ‘strict’ about keeping going.
Benjohn and Ant were our support crew and they were bloody marvelous, they did everything we could have asked and more. They did wonders for picking us up at each stage and prepairing us for the pain to come. Particular thanks for the kinder egg and party poppers – VERY COOL.
We were fortunate to walk with Steve and his group for the first 3/4 of the walk, that made it all the more enjoyable — gratz to steve and his guys for finishing.
Scott's Home Online 