30 Miles

So our intrepid team - Zoe, Robyn, Jenn and me - walked 30 miles yesterday, and I must say, it was pretty brutal.

By the time we finished our third 10 mile loop, Jenn's feet hurt so much she was hyperventilating. In fact, that's how it was for her the last two miles, which were all downhill. A lot of people might think that going down is the easy part - as in, "it's all downhill from here!" I'm here to tell you, it just isn't so. Sure, walking uphill requires a bit more cardiovascular effort, but going down hill is just as tough on your quads, and the impact on your joints and feet is compounded substantially. I learned that many years ago when I hiked 9 miles to the bottom of the Grand Canyon carrying a 50+ pound pack (all down all the time), and that torturous experience was brought back to me yesterday evening as I watched Jenn do those last two miles. Her face was a mask of agony and grim determination.

Just after Zoe and Robyn broke off the loop to head home, with about half a mile left, Jenn sat down and could go no further. On top of the physical pain was serious disappointment at not being able to finish the last half mile. Having struggled most of her life with two bad knees that like to dislocate themselves, often without warning, Jenn is no stranger to pain. She's built up a pretty high threshold over the years. So when she told me she couldn't go any further, even though home was just five blocks away, I knew it was bad.

We decided I should go home, get the Jeep and come back for her. Unfortunately, when I got to the Jeep, I discovered that I had left the headlights on that morning. I've done this on many occasions now, because our Jeep, being a rather primitive vehicle, does not have a warning alarm that sounds when you open the door with the lights on. But unlike previous occasions, the battery was really dead this time. And our other car was parked at the five mile mark with our support supplies. Fortunately, after calling around to a few friends, I got in touch with Robyn who was able to come pick us up. She drove us up to get our car and we came home. Jenn immediately hobbled into the bathroom for a long soak in the tub as I limped around the kitchen getting dinner ready. We ate and went to bed, and that's how the day ended.

Earlier that morning, we'd gotten off to a bit of a late start as I underestimated the time it would take to get the food and water and first aid supplies gathered into the car and dropped off at the halfway point. But by about 8:30 or so, we were on our way up the first hill. Our friend Bryce had come along to do a bit of filming, and the weather was perfect. Cool and overcast, it never got about 70 degrees the entire day. When we got to the Cornell Plantations arboretum, we discovered that there was a March of Dimes event going on, and passing vehicles kept asking us where the registration table was.

After our first loop, Bryce went home and we began again, feeling pretty good all around. At fifteen miles, we stopped for a picnic lunch at the car, just inside the arboretum. After a very leisurely meal - hummus, pita, yogurt, Zoe's home-made granola bars, some organic bananas and apple sauce, we laced up our shoes and continued on. The March of Dimes folks had apparently cleared out. It must have been a short march.

I'm happy to say that after our second loop, we still felt well enough that a third loop did not seem completely insane. At 25 miles, we took another long break - 15 or 20 minutes. We were all feeling a lot more pain by then, and I suggested to Jenn that she might be well advised to take the car home and meet us there. But she was too determined to finish the last loop, and you know the ending.

So, looking at the whole day, here are my thoughts.

1) I am incredibly impressed with Jenn for persevering as long as she did. Most people in her shoes would have sat down miles before she did. And while Zoe and Robyn and I were still able to walk at the end, we're all considerably taller than Jenn. Her shorter stride probably requires her to take three steps for every two of mine, and even if she only walked 10% more paces than the rest of us, 10% of 30 miles is an extra three miles in "tall-person-strides."

2) Considering that this was only our second day of serious training, I think 30 miles is an amazing accomplishment. Granted, we had cooler weather this time around, but we were also much better prepared in terms of food, hydration, proper clothing and so on. After 20 miles last week, I felt almost crippled, and I don't think I was alone. This week, we all felt pretty okay after 20 miles. That's progress.

3) I think we are all giving more serious consideration to the idea of making this a walk/bike event, where we bike for a couple hours a day, and then walk the rest of the day. Given that we have 3 months to train, I think it may well be possible for us to walk the whole way. But that would still mean walking 15 hours a day. If we biked for a couple hours, we could probably shorten our travel time each day to 10 hours, which would give us time to take reasonable breaks for lunch, resting, figuring out our route, taking a few pictures and so on. I think we would still find plenty of challenge in the journey with this bike/walk format. Still, nothing is set in stone yet.

4) I think we all realize that we need to do a lot more training during the week, and we all intend to do just that. Even two hours a day squeezed in to our busy schedules would make a big difference.

In closing, I consider yesterday a success. We learned a lot more about what could help or hinder us and I look forward to our next big practice next weekend. Stay tuned!