Happy to be done and to have done it!

Here we are!

Some graphic post finishing line scenes thanks to Max, Mia's Dad!

Tracy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA52quWRJJI

Lisa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u_FvBBiDGE

Katie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cow7t5rOfmU

Mia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P46InVnerSY

Thank you!

Well what can we say...firstly thanks so much to our guest blogger Alan, Katie's husband, who along with Katie's texts and photos from the trail was able to keep you so brilliantly updated with our walk. And now, apparently, he's been signed up by Katie to do the NZ Oxfam Trailwalker April 2010. I think that happened in the car ride home from the finish!
And thanks to you for watching our blog all these months (and during the event- we had an incredible 504 hits) , for texting us on the trail, for meeting us at our checkpoints, for standing on the road cheering us on and for just being so interested and supportive.

It was an absolutely incredible event, and even though we finished in a good time, one of the most important achievements for us was we finished as a team, and we were a team the whole way through. Sometimes the going was tough, especially for me with some black periods, we'd regroup a bit, change pace a smidge and pull each other through. It was amazing to see the number of teams without team members and hear all the cheering for us as a team "good on you girls, looking strong, still smiling and still together" - we assumed nothing less!
And lastly we just need to mention our absolutely amazing support crews - first and foremost our husbands, John, Ben, Vic and Al - who have supported us through all our months of training, and on the day were either at the other end of a phone for emotional (and nutritional) support and blogging duties, or were on the ground, like John, Vic and Ben, basically being our men-slaves and looking after us so incredibly. Also thanks to our wider support team, like Brian (who stepped up to the plate in 2 checkpoints and offered to do up shoes, put on socks and do grotty stuff that usually husbands would be struggling with) , to Helen for her chicken sandwiches which came at that right moment, to the Kings, who turned up to our last checkpoint even though Andy had only finished the event himself a few hours earlier, to Mia's mum and dad Max and Robe who recorded our event and kept track of stats as well as babysitting, to my many friends who looked after my kids, who sent me texts, who stood at a corner yelling encouragement when we really, really needed it, and to everyone who has followed us over this last 6 months. Way, way to many names to mention - everything you did helped us on this journey
And we simply can't not mention the incredible number of people who have donated to Oxfam in support of the Keep On Moving girls. You walked with us, we talked about you. You helped us. And through Oxfam, you helped those who need help.

And will we do it again - so far, 2 possibles (me and Trace), one probable (Katie) and for Mia -hmmm, who knows yet. One thing I know for certain is that if I'm not competing I will be at the event helping in some way - it's an amazing thing to be part of!
Righto, got all my stuff to sort. I'll do a longer debrief for anyone interested in reading a bit more detail, and Mia's dad Max has done a video of us at the finishing line, so will pop those on over the next few days.
Thanks again - Mia, Katie, Tracy and Lisa - Keep On Moving

The Results

Keep on Moving was the 26th Female team to finish out of 65. They were also in the top half of all teams. They appear to have passed quite a few teams over the last 11 kms. Way to pace yourselves everyone. Nothing better than finishing strong!
There are over 200 teams still out there, with 70 teams yet to reach checkpoint 7 and another 70 between checkpoints 7 and 8.
An awesome effort by Keep on Moving!

Finished!

They've finished. All 4 together. Yay! They say thanks for all the support and texts, and special thanks to the awesome support crews!

4 km to go at 2:25 pm

At Chinaman's beach at 2:25. Not far to go now!

photo from checkpoint 6

Girls feeling a little tired with 28 km to go when photo was taken, but all happy.

photo from checkpoint 5 last night

Through the final checkpoint

Got through the final checkpoint at 12:30. Now into the last 9 kms to the finish line. Lots of sore legs, ankles and feet. Katie struggling with shin pain and is hoping a change of shoes will see her home. Everyone digging deep to the finish. Keep on Moving!

Checkpoint 7 done & dusted

Made up a few places between checkpoints 6 and 7. Just one more checkpoint, then on to the finish line!

Past checkpoint 6

Made it through the night and a few more checkpoints through the night. Had a good rest at checkpoint 5. Now back in daylight and on the way to checkpoint 7. Still in the top half of the female teams. Becoming more of a battle to balance getting enough energy to keep on moving while not doing anything to upset the stomachs.

Through checkpoint 4 in 13 hours 4 minutes

Made great time in the dark to checkpoint 4. Now placed 162nd out of 510 teams overall and 20th of 65 female teams. 9 km to next checkpoint and a well deserved rest.
Lots of other teams starting to lose team members, but not Keep on Moving!

Stretching and chatting

Tracy putting on shoes

Made it to checkpoint 2

Checkpoint has been set up wonderfully by John. 30 kms in and grabbing torches. Next stop around 7 p.m. Lisa is suffering from cramp in the quads but is battling through. Katie

Checkpoint 2

Approaching Checkpoint 2. Lisa's having a few cramp issues but all generally strong. Relieved that the hardest two stages are nearly over and its starting to cool down. Katie

Mia stretching at Checkpoint 1

At checkpoint 1

At checkpoint 1 at 11:30. That's 30 minutes ahead of schedule!

It's a hot day - Lisa and Tracy are having issues with their drinking systems, but are refilling at the checkpoint. The anti-chafe cream is getting used.

All going well. Eating fruit tingles.

Katie

Ready to go!

Eyeing competition at train station

Driving 2 train station everyone feels like they've forgotten something...

Lisa's instruction sheet she gave 2 us all - detailed! Her morning didn't start well as she had a near fatal problem with her camelbak bladder. Making to do with a plastic bag on the outside and john given instructions to buy a new one before he meets us at the 42km Checkpoint. Katie

Packing

We're trying not to let nerves get the better of us and most of us (apart from Katie who is sorted)are in the final throes of packing. Food will be done on Thursday night, so sandwiches are sort of fresh'ish, fruit will be cut, camelbacks filled, and the last bits sorted. We're all feeling good, we're keeping a keen eye on the weather, and we're ready to start walking. Katie flies in tomorrow afternoon from NZ, food and gear bags will be dropped with John who's on the first watch as support crew, carbs will be loaded and legs, ankles and feet will be strapped.
Almost the end of a long journey.
We're also watching with amazement as more donations flow through with a super generous donation from YBR Investments capping off a fabulous total - currently we (sorry, you) have raised about $8,600. Incredible.
I'll get a quick blog fix in tomorrow, and see if we can train up our guest blogger, Al (Katie's husband) to give updates as we walk. Remember too, you can watch us on http://www2.oxfam.org.au/trailwalker/Sydney/team/179 and if you get a chance drop us the odd text, we need as much encouragement as we can get!

More tomorrow

A Nice Idea

After a particularly hard slog one day, Mia, who has a beautiful, positive soul and who subtley suggested I need a whinge-free zone and who cheerily calls out "good morning" to startled people picking up their morning papers when we stroll past them, had a moment of clarity and inspiration when climbing a whinge-inducing hill a week or two ago. And this idea is just brilliant.

It's simple, before the event, we'll print out from the Oxfam site, all those people who have made donations to us, pack it away in our bag, and when the going gets tough, or when we're having a "moment", we'll get out the list, pick out a name, have a chat about him or her and then dedicate the next km to that person. This way, not only have our supporters supported us with fabulous donations to Oxfam, but they will be emotionally supporting us on the day.
In effect, our team will be massive as each of our supporters will be with us on the trail on the day.

And that's got to be one of the most inspirational reasons to get through the bad stuff.

It's not just about us.

The last long walk

With less than 2 weeks to go now, Mia, Tracy and I got together one last time for our last "team" walk (minus our dear NZ based team member, Katie). Being bored, bored, bored with the bush for the moment, Tracy sorted us a nice 30km'sih stroll around the northern beaches of Sydney. With a 28C day forecasted, what perfect way to have a last walk together. Tracy has been doing a lot of running (including a 42km bush marathon)and is thinking of running the Sydney marathon in September, she is uberfit and in fabulous form to do the trailwalker. However, it may have been a shock to her to go back to walking (albeit as-fast-as-we-can walk fast walking form) that Mia and I are mentally in the zone for now. Running will start 1 September, until then, fast, consistent, endurance walking. So we wandered, chatted and generally had a lovely Sunday morning, finishing up with a coffee/juice at Belaroma with Evey and Marius, Tracy's mum. Perfect conclusion to many hard months of training. Still one more tapering 20km walk to do for Mia and I next weekend with Tracy running the Pub to Pub to blow out all the cobwebs she gathered this weekend. Katie is still struggling with her health a bit in NZ but is under her trainers orders now to lay low, get healthy and not worry about any training. She'll be absolutely sweet on the day as long as she (actually all of us) are healthy!
This weekend also saw a more important event for The Keep On Moving team - our Keep On Moving Support Crew, got together with us and hatched a plan. Support crew are officially mobilised and good to go. We just need to pack our bags, keep in touch with them, make it to each checkpoint and not do to much more than that, other than the walking.
Oxfam Briefing this Wednesday night will bring on a swarm of butterflies.
Oh, and yes, that is Mia and Tracy in short sleeves in the photos, no sign of thermals, gotta love Sydney in winter time!

The Last Stage

The last stage of the walk is a sedate little bit of bush/lot of road/smidge of beach walking. Now I'm going to describe this painstakingly as even though it's one of the easiest stretches of the trail, it's the one we will feel every kilometre of. This is the one we are walking with 90km weary legs, shredded feet, sore hips and probably a few tears. Or then again maybe not.

So this weekend, Tracy was running the City to Surf, Mia was doing her own thing, and Katie was still in recovery mode from her maybe-swine flu/bad cold, so I headed off on Sunday morning to walk 25km taking in the last stage and a bit more. This stage starts with an easy couple of km through a flat firetrail before coming out into civilisation at our local soccer club grounds, then ducking back into the bush for the last wee bit of bush walking. The trail then pops out onto the main road where it meanders along suburban streets for a couple of km. It's a bit weird after 90kms of bush trails, boulder climbing, stream crossings, to be wandering along past peoples houses with them doing their normal weekend stuff while we look, well, a bit weird. There's a steep stair climb down to the Spit Bridge (actually I'm dreading those stairs as the stairs are very steep, I'm scared of heights and with sore knees and dodgey everything, it could be challenging. A small hill climb after the bridge takes us onto the gorgeous Chinamens Beach, and then after another small climb we come out onto the very popular Balmoral Beach (when I wandered across on Sunday morning, the beach was full of a wine and food festival, nice). After walking along Balmoral beach we then climb maybe a zillion easy stairs, that I'm sure will feel anything but easy at that stage. A short burst through the bush and then a teeny road climb takes us to Georges Height Oval and our finish. The plan is that 4 of us will make it to this final stage, and once we're at this point we will do everything to get all 4 of us to the end. All sounds easy, right?
Our last big walk this weekend, an easy 30kms on the road somewhere round the northern beaches, with a support team meeting on Saturday to get a bit of a plan together. We have our support crew aka the husbands (except for Al in NZ), we kind of know what we need to pack, it's just a case of bringing it all together and working out timings and strategy as a wider group.
14 days to go.

Food

It's official, we're in the 3 weeks 4 day countdown till our big day. 8.30am, Friday 28th August we head off. So at this time, its all about tapering (ie not walking 50 km+ in one hit), it's about maintaining everything ie health, feet, attitude and also it's about not making any changes to anything. Now's not the time to bring out the new shoes/socks/pedicure - what's going on now, will be what's going on on the 28th. Cardinal #1 Sin of Trailwalker - messing with the formula that's been working. Problem is we're bored to bits with our food. On a personal note, last time I dragged out the old faithful cheese and freaking marmite sandwiches, they hardly got touched. OVER THEM! Same for my pretzels, my fruit biscuits, even my Fruit Tingle sugar hit. Boring! And as for fruitcake, not only are Mia and I over the fruitcake, but we reckon all the sugary/floury/sugary stuff in it can't be good for us, or our figures. On our last walk, we started fantasising about chicken, mayo (and maybe a smidge of avocado) sandwiches and were working out which member of our extended support crew could bring out a nice plate of them on the day. We haven't walked with Tracy for a few weeks and she had made a killer batch of a healthy oaty slice thing, so we'll be lining up for that as well. When Katie and I walked 50km a few weeks ago, on the last 10kms, our fantasies were all about an icecream for her and salt and vinegar chips for me. HOWEVER, on the day we can't try anything new. Seriously. So this weekend, we have a 30'ish walk planned, finishing at the Newport Arms to meet our families (ie our support crew), so this is our last real chance for trying some new stuff out. Anyone feel like a chicken/mayo sandwich at 6am?

A Close Call

This weekend saw us doing our own things. Tracy was running 42kms in the bush for a charity event (which she totally destroyed finishing about the same time Mia and I had walked about 30km which did our heads in, but then that wouldn't have been hard that day). Katie was at home sick in bed battling a possible swine flu/cold combo she picked up after her big Sydney training weekend, and Mia and I were out on the trail doing a maybe 40-50km walk.
We headed out early again, with a 5.40am pickup to make the 6.19am train at Mt Kuring-gai to Cowan where we left the lovely warm train to head into the mist and cold, tackling stages 2/3/4 then back to the car. I couldn't find my gloves so wore socks to keep on hands warm. Nice look. That second stage from Cowan to Bewowra is hard and just goddamn long. We tried to walk at a good clip but the terrain just isn't suited for it. Mia was struggling a bit mentally after 5 days of hard skiing, and I quickly joined her, settling into whinge mode, which we then whinged about me whinging, so jointly decided a whinge free zone was necessary. By now, Mia was even more mentally challenged with boredom from listening to my whinge analysis and happily settled into listening to her ipod (rather than listening to me not whinging). You can see the kind of day we were having. We looked forward to stage 3 from beowora (ok, I KNOW I can't spell that word)to Apple Tree Bay, we'd done it once before and had enjoyed it with happy memories of long flats and a board walk in the middle of a glade like swamp. What we hadn't remembered was we'd done that at the start of a training session, not mid way when we were having enough motivational problems. By now, silence had descended as we trudged through the pretty but undulating and cold valley, finally coming out into the sun for a nice stroll to Apple Tree Bay. From here we headed along stage 4, past the Bobbin Head picnic'ers to the end of the bush before Kuring-gai creative arts school. To do the incredibly steep, gut wrenching hill or not? We decided not. Which ended up being the RIGHT CALL, as we headed back along the track and past the picnic'ers packing up for the day, we realised we were running out of light. And dumb, DUMB women that we are, we hadn't packed a head torch as it didn't occur to us it would take this long to walk 44'ish kms. We had a short amount of time to head up a long climb back through the bush to the train station. The sun had gone down, that purpley light was dimming and there was no end of the bush in sight. We had about 10 minutes before complete darkness. Once again all talking stopped as we focused on getting our sore legs moving at a pace that could get us out in time. The photos above say it all.
Our lessons (and there are many)
1. ALWAYS CARRY A TORCH. ALWAYS
2. No more fruitcake. Or Cheese and vegemite sandwiches. Especially on brown bread.
3. When a team mate has a cold, check up on her (especially when she's been your friend for 35 years), just in case she has the swine flu. We are in a pandemic afterall. Sorry Katie.
4. If we are ever having a barbeque at a picnic site and a pair of cold, tired, motivationally challenged walkers go past where they can easily smell the sausages cooking, we will ALWAYS offer them a sausage from now on.

The Keep On Moving Team Unites!

This was our big weekend when Katie had planned for a trip over from NZ so she could meet the girls before the big event and have a decent old stroll on the track for the first time. Another glorious morning, another early start and we hit the trail at Kuring-gai Creative Arts school again, with the plan of walking to the end, dropping off Mia 20kms in (so she could head for a much anticipated week skiing) and Tracy walking as far as she could before needing to get home to sick Evey and a birthday party. We wore our team shirts, and looked fabulous, well at least for the first couple of kms, and the girls all chatted as we strode along getting to know each other. The track is filling up and we're starting to see some familiar faces out there, the pace was good, we all felt great and Katie amazingly had a great walk, with no feet issues, apart from the sore legs that is just part and parcel of walking a long way. Tracy left us at 41kms, walking the final 10km home while Katie and I braved a crowded Balmoral beach and dragged ourselves to the end. By this 50km stage our legs were hurting, I had a little toe issue and we were ready to stop. A challenging monster flight of stairs to a short stroll through the bush got us to the final checkpoint. What an awesome feeling - so we've all nailed 50kms and we think that's as good as it's going to get in terms of distance before the event.
Sunday saw Katie and I out again doing a loosening up walk from Spit Bridge to Dee Why (16km), it was good to walk on sore legs and suprisingly everything felt great, apart from some blister hotspots. This weekend sees Mia, Trcy and I doing a 20km or so somewhere local on saturday and then sunday's longer training session with Tracy doing a charity 42km bush run, and Mia and I walking the trail for about the same distance. And then the final two weeks before the event being a tapering time with tracy running the City to Surf, also for charity and Mia and I racking up some shorter distances and times on or near the trail. We're excited to have our start time too, a reasonably civilised start of 8.30am Friday 28 August. Nerves are already starting!!!

A Lovely Day for a Walk

Now, you may have read between the lines and realised that there is a "do we walk or do we run/walk" kind of debate going on. We've had walkers we've previously overtaken then overtake us when we've been recovering from a running stint, we've experienced the physical flogging of running say 15kms in this hard terraine and the after effects during the next bout of dawdling walking we've done to help us recover, and we've had people classify us as "runners" which in Oxfam puts you in a whole different madness category. But most telling of all has been our own times when we've been running and that creeping feeling that maybe, just maybe, walking can be as fast, if not faster than running during Oxfam. In fact the reality has always been we'd probably run maybe 30-40kms off and off then walk the rest (or if we'd flogged ourselves, then dawdle the rest). So we'd already been questioning that strategy a little when injury (me) and illness (Trace) struck.
So this glorious, fabulous Sunday was our first serious training session in a couple of weeks. 42+ kms planned over the second, less taxing half of the course. And we planned to walk it to help ease my ankle back in and since Trace's antibiotics had just started to kick in. Now after our first night time session where we headed out with Tracy's husband Vic, who kind of charged off ahead while we meandered along, chatting, we have adopted a new strategy called "Vic Pace" which means for us walking so fast we are kind of breathless and stretching ourselves. So this Sunday was all about walking at "Vic Pace", and getting over the 40km mark (and for Mia the 50km mark). For me, I just wanted to be back out on the track.
And what an amazing day we had. We carved up the day, barely stopping for breaks (when running each checkpoint was a 20 minute relief stop), but when walking, we just patched up feet, discarded layers, texted home, grabbed some food and were off again. And what a difference it made to our times!
CP4 -CP5 9km 1 hour 33 mins (when running, we'd done 1 hour 30 mins)
CP5 - CP6 12km 2 hours (when running 2 hours 15 mins)
CP6 - CP7 10km 2 hours (running: 1 hour 30 mins - but this track is fab for running)
CP7 -CP8 7.5km 1 hour 50 mins (1 hour 15mins when running but on fresher legs than ours on sunday)

So not that much difference in times, although the difference in endurance is huge as we've never done all of these stages together, previously just pouring ourselves exhausted into cars at the 30km mark. This time we kept going, for me walking an additional few km's to home to relieve John who was heading out, for Tracy, walking an additional 10kms, having swapped her camelbak for her babypack and 15kgs of Evey, and for Mia, knocking off that magical mental and physical goal of 50kms.
So on a glorious, sunny Sunday we may just have come up with a new plan!
A night walk planned for Tuesday with Vic and Charlie the dog before two big weekends of walking coming up (and a week's skiing for Mia, she's not going to stop moving for 10 days by the looks of it!)and most important of all, our first 4 person team walk. We're together at last. Bring it on!

Movie Night Fundraiser

Our fundraising has been going along amazingly well thanks to all our super generous friends and families, we feel totally humbled by how you've supported us, thank you so much!!!
So to supplement our fundraising we arranged a Girls Movie Night at Cremorne Orpheum on a cold, rainy Thursday night, and even though our guests were falling thick and fast to sickness, late husbands and Grey's Anatomy-ness or Master Chef-ness, 50 fabulous women joined us for champagne, nibblies, lolly bags and an easy chick flick "My Life In Ruins". This was essentially Mia's "baby" and she did a stunning job with hosting and nibblies. Thanks to those who attended (and those who made very kind online donations from their sickbeds) we raised $660. To make this number more real to you... this will help provide;
1. Materials to build a public well in Sri Lanka, providing fresh water for 20-30 families
2. Training for a volunteer literacy educator to run adult literacy classes in Cambodia
3. Pay for an entire Laotian village to be trained in pig raising
4. Provide training to a group of peer educators who can educate South African school children about HIV/AIDS

Awesome, thank you soooooo much. And of course, being super organised, I took my camera along for those A-List celeb shots to put along with this post, but nup, totally forgot to take photos of beautiful people or beuatiful food, so what you see above are "prop" shots of the info board and the leftover lolly bags taken at home today, just to give you a flavour of the night. Just visualise instead.

Our Support Crew

I think girls out training are maybe a little different from guys - for one thing, a good chunk of our conversation at the start of each training session is about our families, who's been left with a car, who has things they need to get kids to, and largely how quickly we can get back to them. Because, simply, we wouldn't and couldn't be doing this event without the support of our families. Especially the blokes. We are deeply grateful for their encouragement, their enthusiasm, and the fact they are solo parents for at least one day each weekend. In fact a hint for doing a big event like Oxfam is to write your families names on your arm so when the going gets tough, you dedicate a few kms or whatever you need to get through a bad patch to someone in your family..."I'm walking this next 5 kms for...". That will be one of our priorities on the day when we're getting ourselves prepared - get that pen ready!
So, we'd like to take a moment to say a big BIG THANKYOU to:

Vic and Evey
Ben, Jack, Luke and Olivia
Alan, Sam and Joel
John, Will, Rafe and Smith.