Hard work for bitter disappointment

In April I discovered that  soul destroying feeling of training hard for something and then failing to achieve it.

A couple of years back whilst enjoying a few drinks with work colleagues after the annual relay run around Lake Taupo, I suggested the 100km Oxfam Trailwalker as a possible challenge for the future. With a few drinks inside us, there was some doubt expressed that I would ever walk 100km, something that I took as a personal affront, and a bet was born. After much persuasion I managed to get together three other colleagues to form a team, and with the support of some others who were keen to help out, we began the task of fundraising and training for the 2014 event.

TRAINING

Walking 100km is a pretty big ask for anyone. Doing it as a team adds a whole other dynamic. The obvious positive is that you have the support and encouragement of teammates who share a common goal and vested interest to help motivate each other to keep going. The big unknown though was how our own individual strengths and weaknesses would be discovered and managed.

Individually we all had our own training schedules to  build base fitness. But we also planned two weekend sessions together to test ourselves as a team. Importantly these also gave our support crew, the opportunity to practice how they would handle the logistics of the transitions. And I do need to stress that the support crew are as integral a part of the team as any of the walkers are.

The first training weekend in February involved a two stage, 72km route. Starting after work on a Friday evening we walked the Rimutaka Rail Trail and then down the western side of Lake Wairarapa to one of the team's weekend house, arriving just before 1am. Spirits were pretty high and we smashed out the Rail Trail section at a fast but comfortable pace before popping on the iPods for the monotonous second half along Western Lake Road with only our headlamps lighting the way.

After a few hours sleep, we awoke to the sound of heavy rain. It had subsided a bit by the time we had a hearty breakfast and hit the road for leg 2 - a 34 km walk down to Ocean Beach and then along the coast back to the end of the Wainuiomata coast road. Spirits weren't quite as high. The rain was off and on for the whole day and a cold southerly made for testing conditions. One of the team was struggling with blisters and I was putting on a chipper front and staying silent about the nasty chaffing that I had from hours of walking in damp clothes.

Another character building feature of the day was the track signage. At one point we passed a sign indicating 10km to the Wainuiomata coast car park and I got in that frame of mind of counting down the kilometres as I felt my Garmin GPS watch vibrate as each one passed. Silly move... I was battling the weather, in pain from the chafing and thoroughly over it. Three, two and then one kilometres to go and my mood lifted a bit but then as kilometre zero approached there was no sign of the promised carpark that would signal food, warmth and shelter from the weather. The zero point in my mind passed, and then we got to plus one kilometre, plus two, plus three.... My spirit had gone completely. The 10km sign was a blatant lie. But I battled on and eventually the cars at the end of the track came into sight some 14.4km after the lying sign.

Despite the war wounds that we each took away from the weekend, it was an encouraging confirmation of our shared abilities and ability to work well together as a team. For the second team training we committed to a single day endurance effort. We set ourselves a course from Peka Peka Beach to Paekakariki and return. The terrain of this course was pretty easy but it promised a solid 12 hour plus day of walking.

Luckily the weather for this one was a lot nicer than the Wairarapa outing. A beautiful day in fact. We set out at 7am and made it back to the cars just before 8pm... 12hrs 50min and 67km later. I was a lot more diligent about chafing this time around, applying Lanacane at every stop to avoid any problems. Thought I might have got away completely injury free until I first noticed that feeling of a blister less than 3km from the finish.

 

So that was the big training efforts. We felt ready to tackle 100km in two weeks time. Until then there was only fitness to maintain and fundraising to do. I got roped into this a bit more than the others. One idea was to shave off my beard for charity, but a counter offer saw my hair go and the beard stay in a lunchtime bbq / all comers have a chop of my hair for a donation. It was a bit of fun that saw over $500 donated. All up we managed to fundraise about $4,800 for Oxfam as part of our participation in the Trailwalker event.

EVENT DAY

The concept of Oxfam Trailwalker is pretty simple. Teams of four walk together over eight legs, covering 100km in under 36 hours. The average team takes a shade over 25hrs, and we set a conservative target of 24hrs to aim for. Start time in Kinloch was 6am. This meant that the first hour or so was in the dark, but also maximised the daylight hours which we felt was more advantageous than the later 7am start.

The whole atmosphere of the event is fantastic. Other teams and the hundreds of volunteers along the route all offer encouragment. Our support crew did a fantastic job of preparing food and drinks, sorting gear and nagging supportively to ensure that we all ate, drank, stretched, changed socks and then got moving again in a timely manner at each transition.

The course was great as well. Stretches of native bush at from the start became open farmland, a big climb, quiet rural roads and then long stretches through pine forests, skirting some of Taupo's thermal areas. Other than a brief bad patch about 40km in when the effects of the hot afternoon sun rattled me for a couple of kilometres, I felt pretty good. We all did and we we steadily ticked off the kilometres with the halfway banners at 50km passing in the late afternoon. Suddenly for me, things changed for the worse.

I had woken up on the Thursday before the event with a stuffed nose and all the symptoms of an impending cold. They didn't worsen though and didn't really bother me at all for over 50km and 9 hours of walking. Then it all changed. A headache and dizziness appeared out of nowhere. In the space of five or ten minutes I went from comfortably chugging along to it being a battle just to put one foot in front of the other. I felt on the verge of passing out and actually thought that it was a distinct possibility that I would. After confiding to my teammates that things weren't good they stayed positive and encouraged me to push on but their eyes couldn't disguise their concern for my well being. As we reached the next transition at Taupo's domain I knew that my Oxfam Trailwalker was over. Despite the encouragement of the others to continue I knew that it was unlikely I would make it much further and we were on track for a really good time and I did not want to slow the team down.

I had come into this knowing I had the fitness to complete 100km and it was heart breaking to be defeated by a sinus infection after 54km. As my teammates all prepped at the transition to head out on the next leg I don't think that my sunglasses masked the tears of disappointment that had overwhelmed me. So whilst I saw out the remainder of Trailwalker in a sleeping bag in the back of the van, the rest of the team trekked on into the night and finished in the wee small hours coming in a fantastic 39th out of 265 teams.

I left Taupo with some unfinished business. I will be back though.

The sinus infection turned out to be pretty nasty. A couple of times I thought I had shaken it but then after each of this year's Xterra runs I relapsed pretty badly. Finally after two months, some strong antibiotics and an enforced lay-off I think I made it back to a healthy state.