So I'm back from my run, but once again I got extremely badly lost in the bush, even with my maps, and had completely forgot how blimmin tough that leg of the trail was in Oxfam, so a 12 km run I thought would take an hour and a half, took close to 2 and a few more km's than I thought I was going to have to do. So now I'm completely shagged and can't summons any energy up to play dinosaurs/play cars/do house packing stuff/do holiday packing/do groceries/write - all of which I need to do today still. And it's 4 o'clock.
Most of you probably know I did Oxfam last year with 3 very dear and wonderful friends. I wrote a blog http://www.keeponmovinggirls.blogspot.com/ and we all spent a good chunk of the year training, fundraising and planning our event. For those not in the know, Oxfam is all about walking a very tough, rugged 100kms over a 48 hour period as a team of 4, where everyone walks together and crosses the line together. We finished in 30 hours, having taken a 4 hour pitstop at 60kms, and even considering this break, actually did not too bad in terms of where we finished in the field. We also proudly raised almost $10,000 for Oxfam. Our main achievement was that we finished together, feet and friendships intact. I do miss it though, the comraderie, the being together and walking heaps of kms just chatting or boosting each other on. I don't miss the power thighs we seemed to develop (we think we took the "must eat regularly" advice too seriously) and the hardened calloused feet, I don't miss my training gear of Skins and ugly polar fleece tops and even uglier socks and shoes. But I do miss the bush, which is why I try to keep ducking my head in every now and again. My dearest friend Katie came over from NZ to walk Oxfam with me in our team, and having only tried out the trail once, rallied amazingly and even though she killed her ankles in the process and had no ipod to disappear to when we all did because she'd burned up all her battery sending photos and posts back to NZ for Al, her husband to post on our blog for the thousands of hits we got, she finished strongly and pulled me through when I needed it. So Oxfam is on again this year, walkers are out there, and I'm missing being part of it, and I'm missing being with my friends. I will happily sleep in every Sunday morning through winter and will try my best not to be up at 5am on cold dark Sunday mornings knowing there is a 50km walk ahead of us that day. There's always a silver lining!
Oxfam Trailwalker is held annually in 13 countries around the world
Fastest time to complete the 100km Sydney Trailwalker was 11 hours and 59 minutes
In 2009, 46% of teams finished as a team of 4
The first trailwalker was held in Hong Kong, a notoriously tough course in a tough climate. It began in 1981 as a military exercise for the Elite Queens Gurkha Signals Regiment in Hong Kong and has grown since then.
the girl in pink is kinda cute!
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