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.

New Undies

This weekend was a mixed one for us, for Katie, a planned 6 hour rogaine (kind of an orienteering event with lots of bush running) didn't happen because she had a cold she couldn't shake, I was out and frustrated with my recovering ankle, and Tracy and Mia did an easy 17kms on the last leg of the track, with Tracy coughing the whole way with a bug she's still recovering from. So 3 out of 4 of us had some sort of injury or illness. We're at the business end of the proceedings now with only 3 or 4 more weeks of tough training then tapering, so to be not in top form now is worrying although not unexpected. We're in winter, we're training and life carries on as normal with bugs and stuff around at the moment. But it's crazy how much this event gets inside your head (well at least mine). To not be out on the track knowing that everyone else is has made me panicy but motivated and determined. I feel that my fitness may have dipped and my head is chocker full of mental games resulting from being off training or having a bad training day. I just need a good session to get back on physical and mental track. We are also hyper aware of our bodies, especially our feet and protecting these at all costs. I know that if I feel any potential blister niggle with an everyday shoe, they're off, and "safe" shoes goes on. Even bizarre niggles can make you worried - one 30km+ day I got really bad chafing from my running top. I sweat at the mere thought of doing exercise so for me everything needs to be breathable, even my undies - can you just imagine for a moment what undie chafing might feel like? So unbelievably I'm going to spend $30 on a pair of breathable and extremely ugly undies. Get the picture, for the next 6 weeks this is all about building up our physical endurance - there's a lot of good mental stamina that comes with having completed a 40km day, as well as maintaining staus quo for our bodies.
So this weekend we're off again, 40+km is planned, which is the start of our final big training nudge and in preparation for next weekend when we have Katie coming over from NZ for a long walking weekend - the first time our team will have been together and trained together (as well as Katies first taste of aussie bush).
And we also we're really looking forward to our movie fundraiser this Thursday night with a fabulous group of fabulous women coming along to support us.

A Stink Day

Ok, firstly I'm writing this post so I'm going to put it in perspective. Today unfortunately was all about me for all the wrong reasons. Trace was sick at home with the flu and wisely in bed at 5.30am when Mia and I met up, we were driving to Mount Kuaring-gai Station then catching a train to Brooklyn where we would do the first 3 stages (approx 42'ish kms). All went well, apart from the fact the loos were inconveniently locked at the train station, Mia put up a good fight but it was touch and go until we got to the station at Brooklyn where the loos were opened (and in hot demand by other trail walkers!). It was interesting catching the train as passengers were either trail walkers doing the same as us, or young things heading home after a night out. Before I start, I gotta say, Mia had a blinder, she was strong, fast and in the best form she's had yet, and better yet, her foot were totally manageable and a non-issue (which was a good thing as we had plenty to worry about later). So the first stage is a game of two halves, a big, long climb to start with, then easy fire trails until a steep down hill and back into boulders, streams and normal trail stuff. Goddamn though I couldn't get my breath. I'm on antibiotics for a sinus infection, but still, blimmin frustrating for both Mia and I, so we spent a bit of time walking (at Vic pace) and a bit running, Mia tried to rally me with games and chit chat, but I was in the feeling-sorry-for-myself zone. Not much was working apart from sulking and walk/running. Amazingly once we surfaced back into the sun at our first checkpoint, we'd shaved a good 40mins off the first time we did this leg which proves two things, (1) walking fast is effective (2) chit chatting while out there isn't! back into stage 2, 15km up and down kms to Bewowra. We put our ipods on and ran a good chunk of this with some experimental fast hair raising running down the hills. Once again I couldn't quite get my breath on the uphills but was feeling ok with our rythmn. We made it out in a similiar, slightly faster time than the last time we did this, which was good as we didn't run it all. By now, we'd been on our feet for about 5 1/2 hours, so headed off on our last 12kms, feeling good, and with plans to walk/run a bit more of this as it's a lovely valley with just a big climb at the end. The reality of this event though is that almost every step you take carries a risk, and my time came about 4km's into this stage when I misjudged a step, heard a crack in my ankle and hit the ground. After the crying and swearing had stopped, Mia and I had an "oh shit" moment. We were basically out in the middle of nowhere with an injury. Images of helicopters, stretchers came to mind, which seemed far too dramatic, so with some makeshift crutches, Mia and I hobbled 2kms to a pickup point off the trail, where John and the boys picked us up. Mia was amazing, basically carrying me and my bag, and putting up with me all day, as she said "It just wasn't your day today". Of course by now, panic had set in that this was the end of my Oxfam journey, so I headed to A&E for a marathon 6 hour waiting session. When I finally had my xrays and saw a doctor, the verdict was all good, bad bruising, possible ruptured ligaments, crutches, but those magic words "there's no reason why you can't do Oxfam in 8 weeks IF YOU LOOK AFTER YOUR FOOT", which for once is what I am doing. As for my husband, he's crashed off his mountain bike the day before and hurt his wrist, he thought, "well while I'm at hospital I might as well get checked out too", the news wasn't so great for him with a broken wrist, and a cast for 6 weeks. So with one on crutches and one in a cast we headed home to pay our babysitter. The end of a crap day for me.
Did I mention Mia was in amazing form????

Brooklyn to Cowan, 14kms, 2 hours 40, Cowan to Bewowra (15kms) 3 hours, Bewowra to Crosslands (about 6km)(emergency exit), a very slow hour 30 mins

Night Walking

We lept at the chance of a short walk around manly Dam on Tuesday night with Tracy's husband Vic and Charlie the dog. For us this was all about getting a feel for walking a track at night, using our lights and for Mia and I trying out our poles. Aside from the fact this track is relatively easy and therefore not a great practice run for nighttime bush bashing/boulder hopping that we do at times on the actual tracks, we did make some valuable learnings:
Lesson 1: Poles are great, love that pole
Lesson 2: Dogs eyes glow in the dark
Lesson 3: When we walk, our pace is too relaxed, we need to walk fast like Vic
Lesson 4: We now walk at "Vic Pace" not "girls chatting pace"
Lesson 5: We need to turn our lights off for night photos

This weekend, a biggie, Stages 1/2/3 about 40'ish kms, testing feet, knees, food and attitude. Starting to think about not sleeping and walking through the night, Katie's keen and everyone with experience says don't stop or if you do make it a long sleep otherwise there's no point. Even the old ladies we saw out on the trail said this. We think they're all saying this for a reason, so will chat some more this weekend about it. Will need heads to be in a different place if we do this.