Practice Session # 7 (Are we there yet?)

Hello and Welcome to the first post of 2008!

After a 2-week break for Christmas and New year and the fading memories of pain from our previous 2-section training session, our feet were itching for another demanding session. No wonder some people call us "Brave but stupid". I understand what they mean, now, after coming back from today's gruelling session.

We started our more intensive training phase today, Sunday, 06-January-2008 at 7:30 am, from the START point at Jells Park in Wheelers Hill, Victoria. We were one member short from our usual contingent of 10. The lucky one, we are told is having a fun time with her family holidays up on the Murray at Echuca. Enjoy your holidays, for the big one is coming up in a couple of weeks time and a fresh, relaxed mind is what will be needed to motivate other tired legs.

The weather was pleasant in the morning and we covered the 12.5 kms section from Jells Park to Churchill National Park at a reasonable pace and within 2.5 hours. Our backpacks were pulling us down because we were each carrying about 3 litres of water in our hydration pack and another 2 litres of electrolytes in bottles, apart from snacks and walking poles. I guess we were carrying a load of 5-7 kgs on us and that can get pretty weary when you walk 12.5 kms at a brisk pace. Our average walking speed was 5.7 kms on this section.We stopped for about 10 minutes at Check Point 1 - Churchill National Park for a quick bite before embarking on the more challenging section to Lysterfield lake.

By the time we left Churchill park, the weather started to heat up and we were all soon sweating it out on the steep climb with the heavy backpacks. You can see how steep some of these climbs can be in the photo. Surprisingly we didn't see any Kangaroos in Kangaroo land. Maybe it was too hot for them. All we saw was Kangaroo poo on the trail.

A typical uphill track (Churchill National Park to Lysterfield Lake)

As usual three members of our team had already had 4 bio-breaks (trackside convinience pitstops) in 3 hours. We keep wondering what is it that makes them pee so much. Some of us worry whether there is a problem with their bladders or ours, because we don't need to go so often. I guess that will remain one of the mysteries of this initiative. If they weren't the younger and faster bunch amongst us, we would have imposed some sort of limitations and fines on pee-breaks. I guess the dry, draught-stricken environment can do with some help along the way by walkers. I have always wondered what Formula 1 drivers or Marathon runners or cyclists on Tour De France do when they get the urge. Before you think I am obsessed with the act of peeing - a natural human process, let me move on.

We were soon puffing and panting and cursing because the temperature was climbing up beyond 26 degrees. That can be quite warm in the Australian bush. We arrived at Lysterfield lake at about 12.30 after walking continously for another 2.5 hours. We had walked a total of 21.5 kms in 5 hours. Our average speed had dropped to less than 4.3 kms/hour due to the heat and exhaustion. We were also hungry and the sight of all those families cooking feasts on the barbeque at Lysterfield Lake Park was driving us nuts. We stopped for 15 minutes to have a quick lunch, change of socks and refills for our hydration packs before moving on. You can see the anguish of one teammember when he discovered that his carefully packed lunch was still fresh in the fridge at home. We know what he is going to have for dinner tonight.

Soon we were on the track to Check Point 3, Grants Picnic ground. We walked wearily on the 3-km long Logan Park Track to reach the road crossing at Wellington Road. This is a very dangerous road crossing because it is impossible to see cars come up a slope in the road on to the flat and they do come up at a high speed at the crossing. One of our walkers almost got hit by a car travelling at 90 kms/hour while crossing the road because he failed to see it coming and he was concentrating on vehicles coming from the other side. You can imagine from the photo below as to what might happen if this walker suddenly decided to cross the road after the car on his left had passed him. He would step into the path of a car, on his right, travelling at high speed that wouldn't be visible because of a slope in the road about 100 metres away on his right side. This is what happened with one walker when he suddenly decided to cross the road, while all others were waiting. Although most of us were aware of the danger we hadn't spoken out loud about it at that instant. It was only when we saw him starting to cross the road and saw a car coming out of the hill at breakneck speed did we realize the dnager to our horror. Our screams and his sixth sense must have willed this walker to dash across the road to safety. It was a frightening and unnerving experience that left a few of us shaken for a while after that. Fortunately nothing untoward had happened other than the sudden increase of our blood pressure and heartbeats to extreme levels. It was a shocking reminder to all of us to be extra careful when we come off the relatively safe bush trails on to urban road crossings that carry speeding vehicles. Also, in situations like this, our bodies don't react as fast, as it does at normal times and in city roads, when we see a car coming down the street and we can run across quickly if need be. Our legs would be heavy and stiff and we would not be able to dash across the road. This experience has taught us a really important survival lesson and none of us who experienced this near miss will ever forget this lesson in our lives. Forrest Gump, go buy a lottery ticket today, for you are incredibly lucky to have survived. Today's session might have become plain stupid instead of brave, but stupid.

There are some very steep sections that we had to overcome before getting to Belgrave and Puffing Billy station. By this time one of our lady walkers started to experience pain in her knee and so we all slowed down a bit. To her credit she kept going despite the pain, after drowning a couple of Panadols. After more huffing and puffing we reached Grants Picnic at 4:30 pm, about 9 hours after we had started. It seemed incredible that we had walked or had been on our feet continously for 9 hours and covered a total of 34.8 kms in the process. Most of us had never walked for this long or this far in one session. Indeed we felt proud of ourselves. We knew it was a small achievement compared to the real 100 km walk we need to do on April 11th. However, for today, it was enough and it was worthwhile. This is how we have planned to build endurance - 3 sections at a time, which is what we did today and increasing it to 4-sections (approx. 46.5 kms) on the next practice session at night.

So here we are, aching feet and happy minds, back in the confines of our cosy homes. We should never forget that there are millions of people in this world with no homes to go back to, no children that can massage their tired feet that have gone miles looking for food, no back packs and walking poles to hang up. This is why we are doing this - to raise funds for charity to help such people. So please contribute generously. We will train hard and hopefully become stronger to finish the 100 kms on April 11th 2008.

We would like to thank our splendid support crew for today - Sumana Prathivadi and Bala Kalimuthu who graciously sacrificed their personal time on a Sunday afternoon to pick us up at Grant's Picnic Area to bring us back to our cars parked at Jells Park.

Please see more photos of our session in the "Our training sessions" area to the right of this page.

Have a great week ahead. Our next session is on 19th January 08. See you then.

Venki Prathivadi, for
Satyam Snails and Satyam Slugs