Practice Session # 9 (The longest yet) - 46.5km on Saturday, 02-Feb-2008

Practice session # 9 (Saturday 02 February 2008) of our Oxfam Trailwalker 100 km walk/run event has been the longest session so far in our training program that started late November 2007. It has been one of our most rewarding and satisfying sessions not simply because it was the longest so far, but because it helped us overcome the lingering feeling of disappointment from the previous one.

Here are some session statistics at a glance:

Session # 9
Start: START (Jells Park Tea House) Start Time: 7:25 am, Saturday, 2-Feb-08
Finish: Check Point 4 (Olinda Reserve) Finish time: 10:25 pm, Saturday, 2-Feb-08
Total distance: 46.5 kilometres Session time: 15 hours
Total rest time: 2.5 hours Total walking time: 12.5 hours
Session average= 3.1 kms/Hour
Temperature and conditions: Dry and warm during the day (about 25 degrees centigrade, although it felt like 30) and cool during the evening (12 degrees centigrade)

Individual section timings (excludes lunch break at Lysterfield lake)

START to CP1 (Churchill National Park) 12.5 kilometres in 2.5 hours
CP1 (Churchill National Park) to CP2 (Lysterfield Lake) 9.0 kilometres in 2.25 hours
CP1 (Lysterfield Lake) to CP3 (Grants Picnic grounds) 13.3 kilometres in 5.25 hours
CP3 (Grants Picnic Grounds) to CP4 (Olinda reserve) 11.7 kilometres in 4 hours

Session # 9 was a very important session for the team. It was important for two reasons; we had to overcome the gremlins of doubt and disappointment that had crept into our team psyche after the difficult night training session on the weekend of 19th January 2008. The trying conditions of pitch darkness and incessant rain had dampened our team and individual spirit and we had cut short that session from a target of 41.2 to 27 kilometres. The second factor of importance was that of distance. The longest distance we had walked so far in our training sessions, in one stretch, was 34.8 kilometres and we needed to know whether we had it in us to endure 46.5 kilometres in this session, especially after the gruelling night session two weeks ago.

These two reasons were playing in our mind when we departed Jells Park at 7:25 am on Saturday morning. Many of us hadn't slept well because we had been to watch the 20/20 cricket match between Australia and India at the MCG. It was a thrashing that Indian supporters would like to forget in a hurry. Thus the groggy team set off from Jells Park minus its usual contingent of 10 members. One of the members had to work, yes on a Saturday, to complete a deliverable due on Monday. Another had rejoined us after a break of almost 4 weeks. The weather was pleasant at this stage and we made it to CP1 (Churchill Park) in a good time of 2.5 hours. We walked briskly despite carrying heavy loads in our back pack (Water and electrolytes).
We were feeling strong and decided to carry on the CP2 (Lysterfield lake) without stopping. We met two other teams on their practice sessions at the top of Hills track. They were from the CASH and M3 teams. It was good to meet others and exchange tips and information. We soon reached Lysterfield lake and it felt good to take a well-earned break here. Rinku, our support crew member, brought us lunch and other supplies here. We are grateful to her for having sacrificed her precious time on a weekend to cart us supplies. Debbie had baked delicious Walnut muffins and I still can't believe that 30 muffins disappeared into our stomachs and backpacks in seconds. In contrast Julie gave me just a tiny piece of the delicious banana cake she wolfed down in a hurry. Maybe for the next practice session we will have banana cake instead of the boring energy gels.

The temperature had been rising all morning and before we had realized it we had overeaten and had drunk too much fluids. So the planned short break at Lysterfield park became a sluggish and sumptuous one and half hour picnic lunch! We had to drag ourselves away and get on to Logan park trail towards Grants Picnic. By now the sun was blazing on us and soon we were sweating away the muffins, rotis and sandwiches. I then imagined that this was what it was like for the muffins in the oven. Maybe I was becoming delirious. Whose idea was this walk?

When we got to Birds land reserve a shady picnic spot, 7.3 kms from Lysterfield lake, the cool sheltered benches there were difficult to resist a brief reprieve from the heat and before we knew it we had spent 30 minutes relaxing there. We also met another team of three girls there on their training walk. The poor walkers hadn't planned their session well and were starving because they hadn't carried food with them. We felt guilty at having wolfed down so much food at Lysterfield. Although we offered them food they refused politely and decided to carry on to Grants picnic. Soon we were huffing and puffing on the steep climb of Broadway street before stopping to regain our breath in the car park of Belgrave swimming pool.

The prospect of a hot cup of tea at the local cafe in Belgrave was too difficult to resist and we lost another 30-40 minutes. We were wondering whether we were on a training session or a picnic jaunt. We had gorged ourselves on muffins at Lysterfield and here we were indulging in Devonshore tea. By this time we had covered 30 kilometres and we knew that Grants Picnic was nearby. We arrived at Grants picnic about one and half hours behind schedule, possibly because of the heat and longer breaks. By this time two members were suffering from knee and back problems and the thought of retirement from this training session at Grants Picnic began to cross their minds and perhaps a few others. We decided to egg them on and it was magnificent to see the entire team motivate each other and decide to carry on towards our goal - Olinda reserve. We knew it was going to be difficult ahead. We also knew that more than half of this 11.7 km section had to be completed in the dark and this would be the most difficult stretch. Memories from the night-training session on this treacherous stretch was still very fresh in all of us.

Soon we were climbing the winding pathway on Clematis track and breaking into a sweat. Although we had been here a few times, this stretch continues to fascinate us with its rich foliage of ferns and other thick native vegetation. It is always 5 degrees cooler in this undergrowth and the sounds of swirling waters of the creek and laughter of the Kookaburras introduced a renewed energy into all of us. We were also on a high to have kept the entire team intact for this long and trying stretch. In my view this is the best part of nature along the entire 100km trail and it is impossible not to appreciate this nature regardless of how tired one is.

It soon became dark as we navigated the really dangerous Sassafras creek track. We always wonder as to what might happen if a bushwalker lost his footing and fell into ridge or the creek. One cannot help avoiding such negative thoughts at night. It didn't help that some of us had forgotten our headlights because we didn't think we would be walking here at night. The long rests at Lysterfield and Belgrave for lunch and tea had caused this situation of having to walk in the dark. We were thankful to get out of Sassafras creek trail into Perrins creek road. That brought us into the much hated Hacketts road. I personally think that this is the most difficult and ugly section of the entire trail. It is an unrelenting steep dirt trail climb that takes 20 minutes and saps all energy left in the body. At this point we had walked for over 42 kilometres and it was pitch dark by this stage.

We made it finally to Olinda reserve! A distance of 46.5 kilometres after walking for 15 hours. It brought a great sense of achievement to all of us. We had conquered one-half of the world's toughest team challenge of 100 kms. It reinforced in us a belief that we could do it if we applied our minds to it.

The team is very proud of Gurpreet Verma and Subbu Pithani who believed in themselves and despite excruciating back and knee pain pushed on and managed to stay on the trail and achieve the session goal. Their courage is commendable. The team camaraderie and closeness provided 50% of the mental energies to the endeavour. We have a great team and we are proud of ourselves. For all 9 of us on this walk, it was the longest we had ever walked in our lives - 46.5 kilometres! Our women walkers Kathy, Julie and Debbie were again magnificent and leading from the front.

The sight of Martin Block and Dennis Biasotto who had volunteered to pick us up, was a great relief to our bruised and battered bodies and minds. We could have hugged them but we stayed a few metres away. We had reached a stage where we could smell our own stink of sweat. Thanks to our tremendous support crew we were dropped home in one piece. Thanks a lot Martin and Dennis.

Poor Gurpreet had another 40 kilometres to drive back home. He is a champion because most others would have long given up on this challenge if they had to drive across town to get to the trail and the drive back after a gruelling walk.

Unfortunately we don't have many photos from this session because the official photographer forgot to carry his equipment. However thanks to Julie we do have a few photos she took from the camera on her mobile phone. Enjoy the images.

Our next big session is scheduled for March 7th. Have a great day and do come back to encourage us. We appreciate your comments on this blog.

Venki Prathivadi for the
Satyam Snails and Satyam Slugs

Practice Session # 8 (The hardest yet)

Practice session # 8 (Saturday/Sunday 19-20 January 2008 night) of our Oxfam Trailwalker 100 km walk/run event has been the hardest session so far in our training program that started late November 2007. It has also been one of our most productive sessions with a significant number of achievements. We will always remember it for these wonderful aspects:

1. Most number of walkers that participated in any training session so far (We were 11 walkers, 4 from Satyam Snails - Venki Prathivadi, Harish Singla, Subbu Pithani, Debbie Block and 5 from Satyam Slugs - Kathy Gatti, Gurpreet Verma, Ananthan Mukundan, Anand Vyas, Julie Biasotto and two guest participants in Tom George and Iftekhar Alam. Vijay Athar couldn't make it to this session. Otherwise we would have been the "Dirty Dozen".
2. Longest distance any of the 11 walkers had ever covered, in one night, in their lifetime - 28.4 kilometres from 8:30 pm to 5.30 am (9 hours of continuous walking in the wild bush, in pitch darkness, at an average speed of 3.15 kms/hour)
3. The gruelling conditions of the session - It rained continuously along the treacherous uphill and downhill section. This experience of extreme weather is really invaluable for our preparation.
4. The wonderful team spirit and sense of purpose - Sustenance of a good team spirit and can-do attitude throughout despite trying conditions has forged a stronger bond amongst all walkers, two of whom had never participated in any earlier sessions.
5. The birth of a healthy baby girl to one of our team members - Congratulations to the Athar family and welcome to "baby girl Athar" to the world and welcome to the "Brave but stupid" world of Satyam Snails and Slugs.
6. India won the 3rd Cricket test match against Australia at Perth. - Probably why we survived the walk this night.

It had to happen. The Melbourne sky decided to rain on our night parade as we had feared. It is commendable that we survived the trying conditions of continuous wet weather, pitch darkness, difficult trail - relentless uphill and downhill, yabbies, confusing tracks and sore legs and backs.

We left Checkpoint 3 (Grants Picnic Grounds) at 8:30 pm on Saturday night in high spirits despite threatening showers. It was dusk and the Indian walkers were all on a high after having celebrated India's historic win against Australia at Perth. I offer commiserations to our Australian walkers. As always, nothing dampens their enthusiasm for adventure and one swallow doesn't make an Indian summer. Soon we were huffing and puffing our way up Clematis Track, having crossed Monbulk Road. It was an eerie experience walking in thick forest in complete darkness. Of course we all had our headlights to see our way around. We walked through Sherbrooke forest as it became darker and the intensity of the showers increased. We came across huge Yabbies scouring the forest floor for bush tucker. They are revolting and quite a sight to behold when our headlights shone on them. Do see the photos in the "Images of the Trail" section to the right of this article.

It was a reasonably easy walk for the first 5 kilometres through Sherbrooke Forest despite the annoying rain. We had overcome the initial 1.5 km climb quite well and several of us recalled how easy this session seemed compared to a previous session on this trail a few weeks ago. We are all certainly enduring better with each training session. We took a detour around Alfred Nicholas gardens (through Nobles Lane) because the park gates were shut, being night time. Slowly the rain and dark had started to wear us down as we neared the 9 km mark near Pirianda Garden. Soon we started the gruelling climb on Hackett track. It is an unforgiving section that simply seems to go on and on and it feels like crawling up a slippery wall in pouring rain and darkness with the occasional street light throwing up diffused light through the fog. Every breath creates an eerie ball of white cloud in the fog. I was reminded of the first chapter of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Then we were on the slow gradual uphill climb on Old road. We passed by a house in the middle of nowhere with its doors wide open at 12:00 am in the cold and wet night with a gentleman still working. We checked with him to see if we were on the right track. He must have thought we were a bunch of nuts.

We came across a restaurant on the Olinda-Monbulk Road and although they were closing for the day they were kind enough to let our lady walkers use their toilets. It must have been a great relief. Imagine how hard it must be for women on a cold and wet night out in the forest. As always the men have no problems about their bio-breaks and have one every 30 minutes wherever they please.

We crossed Checkpoint 4 (Olinda Reserve) about 1:30 am (4 hours after we started). We rested for a few minutes for a quick snack before proceeding on Rock track through Chalet Road. If the previous section troubled us with the uphill climbs, this section tortured us with its continuous rough-terrain downhill peppered with tree roots and fallen tree trunks. Many of us will take an uphill climb any time instead of these knee-tearing downhill tracks. One of our lady walkers suffered here in this section, with excruciating pain in her knee. She is a true champion. Despite knowing before hand what she would go through in this stretch, she didn't chicken out. Most men would pack up here. It is something about the spirit of women and the mental ability to overcome difficulty that we men will find it hard to understand. All the male members of Satyam Snails and Slugs salute our three women walkers. Debbie, Julie and Kathy are incredibly brave and resilient. They are without doubt the most powerful motivators for the entire team to complete this event labelled as the "World's toughest and most challenging". Julie interrupted her family holidays in Apollo Bay to do tonight's training session. She arrived in Melbourne from Apollo Bay where she is vacationing and will go back on Sunday afternoon after having walked all night in the bloody rain without a wink of sleep, to resume her holiday with her family. The dictionary may not tell you this, but Julie is another name for "commitment". If all teams had people like Debbie, Julie and Kathy, there would be no such thing as a "failed task or project".

We trundled on one foot after another, the rain pouring down on us. Our clothes were soaked wet, right through the outer wear, including underwear and socks. It is very painful to walk with wet clothes, shoes and socks. Hands and Feet become wriggly and the mind becomes numb with the monotony and drudgery. Even with the headlights it is not possible to see beyond a couple of metres. We arrived at Checkpoint 5 (Silvan reservoir) and it took us more than an hour to find Olinda creek trail that would take us beyond Silvan to the next Checkpoint. It is really difficult to read maps under our headlights with rain drenching the maps. Soon we were on our way to Checkpoint 6 with the rain increasing and our legs really starting to hurt by then.

Our bodies were aching everywhere and we were desperate for some shelter - somewhere to sit for a while, remove our shoes and socks and put down our heavy backpacks for a few minutes. After walking continuously for 27 kilometres we came across Mt. Evelyn reserve, a football ground with a large shelter and some benches to sit down. It seemed like the lobby of a 5-star hotel to us. We settled in for a rest to take off the wet outer gear and shoes for a few minutes. Soon that brief stop turned into a longer rest and our aching bodies and weakened mind gave way for the night. As dawn broke out (about 5:30 am) we as a team decided to call it a night although we had originally planned to continue past Check Point 6 (Graham Colling Reserve) and finish our session at Check Point 7 (Woori Yallock Primary School). I think our plan was too ambitious and didn't take into account the impact of rain and darkness. We were disappointed with ourselves that we fell significantly short of our planned target of 41.2 kilometres by about 13 kilometres. We finally went on to complete about 28.4 kilometres to the start of Warburton trail before we called it quits. It is indeed a remarkable achievement for a team that trained in the dark and wet weather for the first time. The sections we did were really hard. Our focus was on experiencing walking, in the forest, in dark and we had the bonus of doing that through incessant rain too. We learnt a lesson that darkness and rain impose a 25-30% toll on speed and distance goals. Simply put, walking in the dark is simply not the same as walking during day time despite temperatures being cooler. In fact cold weather creates a different set of problems through muscle cramps and soreness. Also, recovery seems to be slower. It seemed strange that we had done more than 33 kilometres a fortnight ago and felt a lot stronger after that session than we did on this.

We dragged ourselves away from the football reserve, because there was no mobile phone reception around that area and we needed to contact our support crew to pick us up. All of us dragged our feet to the corner of Monbulk and Clegg Roads where we discovered Mt. Evelyn Supermarket. Any store that sells more than newspapers, milk, bread and tobacco in the country is called a supermarket. The owner may have been a little irritated to find us sprawled across his shopfront with our backpacks, shoes and walking poles strewn everywhere, when he came in at 7:30 am to open the store. Perhaps we should ask him to build a changing room for us at the back, don't we Kathy?

Finally, I would like to congratulate Tom George and Ifti Alam for their wonderful spirit, courage and perseverance they demonstrated in tonight's walk. Most people would think that the idea of walking about 10 hours in the dark, in the forest, on a Saturday night when great cricket and Tennis was on - utterly and plain stupid. No, Tom and Ifti are not "most people". They were very warmly welcomed by our team when they expressed a desire to try and experience one of our training sessions. I will always cherish and value a statement Tom made to me during that unearthly hour of 3.30 am on the punishing Olinda Creek Trail. He said that he wanted to experience and feel what we (Snails and Slugs) would go through during our 100 km walk on April 12th and to do that he felt compelled to join us for a session. He said he would call us on the night of the event, from India, to encourage and egg us on, now that he understood the degree of difficulty, both mental and physical. I was moved. I wish we have more supporters like Tom and Ifti. They probably didn't see much of the Australian bush through their eyes, because of the darkness, but I am sure they understood a lot through their mind.

Anybody think we don't fit the "Brave, but stupid" tag?

Based on the lessons we learnt, we might now modify our training plan for the next session on Feb 2, 2008. Instead of attempting another night and day session with a distance objective, we might focus on a longer day session, say a 12-hour continuous walk to see how much distance we might cover.

To conclude this article, we would like to express our sincere thanks to our wonderful volunteers for this session - Kathy's mum and sister, Arun Doraiswamy and Sumana Prathivadi. They dropped and picked us up and brought us home safely. Obviously we were in no shape to drive anywhere after a night out in the forest.

Have a great day!

Venki Prathivadi for Satyam Snails and Satyam Slugs

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

Season's greetings

We wish you and your family a merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Satyam Snails (Venki Prathivadi, Debbie Block, Subbu Pithani, Harish Singla, Vijay Athar)

Satyam Slugs (Kathy Gatti, Anand Vyas, Julie Biasotto, Gurpreet Verma, Ananthan Mukundan)

Next blog update: After training session # 7 on 6-January-2008

Our Training Sessions (December 2007)

Welcome to the experiences of our training sessions (Satyam Snails and Slugs)

When the ten of us from Satyam Snails and Slugs signed up in late November 2007 to do the Oxfam Trailwalker event 2008, we all decided on one thing and that was to train every weekend on the actual trail.

Our training plan details can be found in the blog entry titled "Our Training Plan" dated 3 December 2007.

This section gives a glimpse of what we see and feel during our training session.
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Practice Session 6 (Sections 8 and 9)
CP 7 (Woori Yallock Primary School) to Finish (Wesburn Park)
Date : 23 December 2007 (Sunday) 7:15 am to 13:35 pm (24.0 kilometres)

Weather condition :

Mostly wet and cold, 10-17 degrees centigrade, misty, cold and wet in the morning. The drizzle stopped in the afternoon

Trail condition :

Slippery and difficult, Difficulty rating 6/10

Trail experience :

Long, Straight, Uneventful, Dreary, Unrelenting (Warburton trail) , The last section from Milwarra Primary school to Wesburn Park is quite difficult and demanding, even when attempted as part of just a 2 section workload.

Session story:

After last weekend's long and unrelenting Warburton Trail experience, we were looking forward to a good strong 2-section training session from Woori Yallock Primary School to the finish at Wesburn Park. We had a full strength team with all 10 walkers present at Woori Yallock. We were worried about the weather because it had rained continuously and heavily for over three days here in Melbourne. Fortunately, the rains had eased overnight and we started our session in reasonably good weather (light drizzle). You can see many of us decked in ponchos flimsy raincoats) and plastic sheets. Someday, we will become a little more sophisticated and spend more money acquiring water-proof Gore Tex Jackets and pants. But for now, all we can afford is some plastic sheet to keep the water out.

We made good progress on the section from Woori Yallock to Milwarra Primary School, walking at about 5.6 to 5.8 km/h speed on a constant gradient trail. You can see photos of the terrain and surroundings in the section titled "Our training sessions" to the right of this page.
There were quite a few pit stops by the male members of our team along this 13.5 km stretch (must have been the cold weather) and as usual the women had to suffer in silence till they got to Milwarra which had public toilet facilities. We stopped for about 20 minutes at Check Point 8 and a few walkers bought some doughnuts (instant energy) at the local bakery next to the sawmill.

We then commenced the long hard uphill climb having left the Warburton trail to our left. We could see the strongly flowing Yarra to our left. Obviously the rain had done a lot of good to the parched country side. The trail was very narrow, muddy and slippery - very different to the long, straight and flat Warburton trail. Within minutes many walkers had their walking poles out of their backpacks and were using them effectively to leverage strength and balance from the upper body. The uphill climb continued for about 5-6 kilometres along Mount Little Joe. The winding, thick, wet and slippery trail took us through Dolly Gray Picnic grounds. This is a beautiful place to behold and enjoy and took our minds off the dreaded thought of how our tired legs, body and beaten mind would cope on actual event day. It is one thing to trundle along this difficult path having started off fresh, just 4 hours before at Milwarra Primary and quite another thing to get this far having walked for over 24 hours and covered almost 90 kilometres. Apparently many walkers give up at Milwarra Primary having been broken by the Warburton section. We hope our experience will stand us in good stead.

Soon we experienced a 2 kilometre downhill section that gave us some eagerly accepted respite from the climb. The rest was short-lived as we started the final ascent over steep, rocky and challenging trail. We kept wondering what fate might have in store for us here on actual event day. We hope our practice sessions will build enough endurance in us to withstand this torture after 97 kilometres.

We finally arrived at Wesburn Park Oval having tackled the Conduit track with renewed energy (the end was in sight). It was a great feeling having accomplished our first goal of "The complete 100 km trail familiarization". It had taken us 6 practice sessions over 6 Sundays to get from Start to Finish at an average rate of 16 km/training session. Today, was the longest session we had walked (24 kilometres in 6 hours and 20 minutes) since we started to practice in late November 2007.

I had expended almost 2000 calories in walking the 24 kilometres today and I drank 2 litres of water and 1 litre of electrolytes in the process. I also ate 2 muesli bars, a banana and had 2 energy gels during the walk. A rough calculation tells me that I probably created a deficit of about 500 calories. Hurray, I lost 50 grams!. This goes to show why even after all this walking I still look the same - I tend to eat more and then blame it on increased metabolism or the silly season.

We are having a well deserved rest next Sunday over the Christmas period and we will resume training on 6/1/2008. We intend to cover 3 sections (35 kilometres) in one session starting from Jells Park and finishing up at Grants Picnic. We are aiming to increase our endurance during this phase of training. Our training goal is to be able to cover the 100 kms in 3 training sessions by end of January 2008 and in 2 sessions by end of February and hopefully, eventually in 1 "real" session on April 11th 2008.

We invite you to view the photos from today's session. Unfortunately we didn't carry a video camera today because of the wet weather and therefore we don't have a video to share our experience. Perhaps we will have one in the next session update on 6/1/2008.

Finally, we would like to thank Sumana Prathivadi and Dennis Biasotto for the wonderful support they provided in driving 80 kilomteres to pick us up from Wesburn Park and bring us back to Woori Yallock where we had parked our cars. We are very grateful to our support crew. Without them we wouldn't be able to hold any practice sessions.

Wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy new year from all of us at Satyam Snails and Satyam Slugs.

Have a great day and do write to us on this blog.

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Practice Session 5 (Sections 6 and 7 )

CP 5 (Silvan Reservoir) to CP 7 (Woori Yallock Primary School)
Date : 16 December 2007 (Sunday) 7:00 am to 12:15 pm (21.5 kilometres)

Weather condition : Mostly Sunny, 13-21 degrees centigrade, fresh and invigorating in the morning, changed to warmer and sultry conditions in the afternoon

Trail condition : Good, Difficulty rating 4/10

Trail experience : Long, Straight, Uneventful, Dreary, Unrelenting (Warburton trail)

Session story:

All of us assembled at the Overflow car park in Silvan Reservoir at 7:00 am. We were all relaxed and cheerful having enjoyed the Satyam@Telstra annual Christmas party yesterday at Gumbuya Park. We were looking forward to an easier session after last week's gruelling uphill climb from Grant's picnic grounds and knee crushing downhill trail from Olinda Reserve.

Silvan Reservoir Park is set in the foothills of the Dandenongs. Established in 1931, the park is home to exotic trees including cypress, spruce, liquid amber, poplar and maple, and local fauna such as beaked echidnas, sugar gliders and wombats. We had a relatively easier time finding the trails, compared to last week, and we were soon on our merry way walking the "Olinda Creek Trail". We were soon into the dense forest valley and the sounds of honeyeaters, blue wrens, wattle birds, fantails, willy wag tails, thornbills, grebes and other birds was enchanting and mesmerising.

This trail then led us into "Track 10" and "Aqueduct Borang Avenue" leading us away from the forest into less endearing bush. This change in the landscape also caused a slight change in the mood of the team. We became quieter and a few male members went off into the bush for their "bio-breaks". We felt sorry for our uncomplaining lady walkers. On these walks, our lady team members have to hold on till they find a public toilet in park facilities or a reserve. Unfortunately there aren't many. We do feel for them. As someone said, they are "Brave, but stupid". That is what we will call ourselves next year - if we survive this year - "Brave, but stupid"!

We were soon on the dreaded and weary "Warburton Trail". We had heard from many previous Oxfam walkers to watch out for this section. Apparently, most people drop out at this section, firstly because it goes for over 15 kilometres starting around the 65 km mark of the entire trail and secondly because it is a dull, boring, flat and tiring trail. There is nothing much to see or do here other than just put one foot ahead of the other. There is nothing to hear other than the sound of our hiking shoes crunching the gravel path.

To avoid boredom, we spoke a lot to each other and we even discussed the objectives of why we were doing this event and how we might feel at this stretch on actual event day (April 11, 2008).
Although we were practising this stretch during day time, we will be grinding along at night on this section. Fortunately, there is nothing to see and we won't be able to see much either at night.

Occasionally we came across cyclists on the trail and one or two runners that looked like seasoned marathon runners that wore no flesh on their bones. The cyclists were a nuisance though because we had to break up our strides and group to give them enough way on the trail. Some of them appear crazy because they would zoom past us on a slope at a furious pace.

We decided to continue past Check Point 6 (Graham Colling Reserve) having covered the 8.5 kilometre section in about 2 hours.

The stretch between Check point 6 and Check Point 7 is really boring and uneventful. This is where the Warburton trail begins. It is impossible to get lost on this section because it is just one long straight path. There is a beautiful view of the mountain top merging into thick clouds, but apart from that there really is nothing much here other than some horse shit, cyclists and a few locals walking their dogs. It took us about 3 hours to complete the 13 kilometre stretch and we reached Woori Yallock Primary school at 12:15 pm, hungry, thirsty and tired. We had walked continously for about 5 hours and covered 21.5 kilometres.

We went to the local bakery at the Woori Yallock shopping centre to have a coffee while waiting for our support crew to pick us up and take us back to Silvan reservoir where we had parked our cars.

That's it for today, two more sections covered and crossed off - a total distance of 21.5 kms in 5 hours, almost exactly as per estimate. We have now covered the cumulative distance of 76.0 kilometres of the 100 kms trail in 5 training sessions. Sometimes, we cannot stop wondering as to how the hell will we do the entire stretch in one go on April 11th? Brave, but stupid!

You can see photos from our session to the right of this section. Clicking on a photo will launch them in a seperate window.

Let us remember that the driving force of why we are doing this is to raise money for charity. So please help us raise funds for Oxfam.

Finally, we would like to thank Martin Block and Srikanth Parna for graciously sacrificing their personal time this Sunday afternoon to drive up to Woori Yallock to pick us up after a long hard walk.

Have a great day.
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Our Training Plan

We read somewhere that "Failing to plan is planning to fail". We also learned that many teams and walkers attempt the 100 kilometre trailwalk without much preparation or training. We were told that not many finish the distance (not surprisingly). We don't know what our outcome will be, but we are sure of one thing. We will not let "lack of planning, preparation or training" as causes that let us down.

We have decided to practice on the actual trail every weekend (at least most weekends) with the objective to familiarize ourselves with the actual terrain, conditions and varying weather (heat, cold, wind and rain). Here is our training plan.

As you can see we will train regularly leading up to March 2008 and then start winding down the intensity of our training to conserve our energy for the big day. We plan to train at nights too because we will be walking Check Point 3 (Grants Picnic grounds) to Check Point 7 (Woori Yallock Primary School) during darkness on the actual day. That is a distance of 41.2 kilometres in the dark, possibly rain and cold and up and down back breaking uphill and knee crunching downhill sections.

We also aim to peak in our training sessions, on February 9th 2008, doing 6 sections from Check Point 3 (Grants Picnic grounds) to Finish (Wesburn Park) in one session over an estimated duration of 20 hours. Don't even come near us the following Monday and don't talk about walking or training.

Hopefully we will build familiarity and endurance on these sections - through two training sessions on these areas.

We would love to invite your comments and suggestions on the above training plan.

The 100 Kilometre Trail

The Melbourne Trail

The Oxfam Trailwalker challenge requires teams to complete the 100 Kilometres walk / run event (62.5 miles) from Jells Park in Wheelers Hill (a suburb of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia) to Wesburn Park in the Yarra Valley (Victoria), within a total time 48 hours .

The entire trail is along parkland and bush with very few road crossings. The trail begins with the wide open spaces of Jells Park in Wheelers Hill. Passing south-east through the Corhanwarrabul Wetlands then east through the Churchill and Lysterfield National Parks. The trail heads north through Belgrave and into the beautiful Dandenong Ranges National Park.
From here it travels east along the Warburton Trail before looping south of Warburton to the ups and downs of Mt Little Joe, finishing in the expansive Wesburn Park. There are eight checkpoints between the start and finish located approximately every 11 kilometres along the trail.

Here's an overview of the trail with the check points labelled:

The Oxfam 100 km Trail (Melbourne 2008)

Here's some detailed information for the more technically minded readers and those that want to explore the trail, virtually or really! For our offshore readers, I have included a map of Australia to show where the state of Victoria is (it is in the South-East). The map next to it shows you where Yarra Valley is with reference to Melbourne CBD (also in the South-East of Victoria).

North-West

South-East

Australia and the states

Victoria and Yarra Valley

Information about the trail sections and check points.

1. Start to Check Point 1 - (Jells Park Tea House, Wheelers Hill to Churchill National Park Picnic Grounds) - 12.5 kilometres (Cumulative distance : 12.5 kilometres)


2. Check Point 1 to Check Point 2 (Churchill National Park Picnic Grounds to Lysterfield Lake Picnic Area) - 9 kilometres (Cumulative distance : 21.5 kilometres)


3. Check Point 2 to Check Point 3 (Lysterfield Lake Picnic Area to Grants Picnic Ground) 13.3 kilometres (Cumulative distance : 34.8 kilometres)


4. Check Point 3 to Check Point 4 (Grants Picnic Ground to Olinda Reserve) 11.7 kilometres (Cumulative distance : 46.5 kilometres)


5. Check Point 4 to Check Point 5 (Olinda Reserve to Silvan Reservoir Park) 8 kilometres (Cumulative distance : 54.5 kilometres)


6. Check Point 5 to Check Point 6 (Silvan Reservoir Park to Graham Colling Reservc) 8.5 kilometres (Cumulative distance : 63.0 kilometres)


7. Check Point 6 to Check Point 7 (Graham Colling Reservc to Worri Yallock Primary School) 13.0 kilometres (Cumulative distance : 76.0 kilometres)


8. Check Point 7 to Check Point 8 (Worri Yallock Primary School to Milwarra Primary School) 14.5 kilometres (Cumulative distance : 90.5 kilometres)


9. Check Point 9 to Fnish (Milwarra Primary School to Wesburn Park) 9.5 kilometres (Cumulative distance : 100.0 kilometres)

You can watch a fascinating tour of the entire trail on Google Earth. You will need the Google Earth application to view the tour in three dimensions - Terrain, buildings and all. Please download Google Earth here - It's free. You will also need the tour file, created by Oxfam. That can be downloaded here - Google Earth Tour of Jells Park to Wesburn Park.

Enjoy the virtual tour. That is the closest I can bring you to experiencing the 100 km walk across the bush, without leaving your comfortable seat.

Do visit this site often and check out our posts to the upper-left of this screen.

In conclusion, we leave you wih this wonderful image from Google Earth showing the terrain, check points and other detail. You can view all this in 3-D animation with Google Earth and the file.

Looking forward to your comments on this post.

Have a great day!

Why are we doing this (Objectives)?

Hello readers

As you know, we are planning to walk 100 kilometres (62.5 miles) in one go on April 11th, 2008. Any initiative like this can be fraught with difficulty and dangers, if approached in a casual manner. It requires serious planning, preparation and intensive training. Even more importantly, it requires clear answers to the fundamental question - "Why are we doing this?"
The answers will help us stay on course from now until event day and also, hopefully, get us through the event particularly those difficult sections where the tiredness, irritability, swearing and exhaustion might play tricks on our minds.

Our Objectives for the event (in the order of priority)

1. To honour our fundraising commitment to Oxfam. (Satyam Snails = $5,000 and Satyam Slugs = $3,000)
2. All eight members to complete the 100 km walk, safely and happily (within the available 48 hours)
3. To raise more funds than our committed amounts
4. For at least one member from each of the two teams to complete the 100 km walk (within the available 48 hours)
5. For both teams to complete the 100 km walk within a benchmark time of under 30 hours

At first glance the above objectives might seem pretty ordinary and obvious. Let us analyze them a little more closely:

• Our team members are from different backgrounds, ages and genders [Indians, Australians, South Africans, Italians, young (under 30), middle aged (over 40), male and female]
• Some of us are fitter than others. Some work out in the gym about 5 days in the week doing cardio and resistance (weight) training exercises. Others walk to stay fit.
• Some are motivated by the physical challenge of the event and training sessions. Others are motivated by the charity cause. Others enjoy the teaming aspect
• Some members approach the training properly equipped (hiking or trail running shoes, technical shorts, T-shirts and socks, walking poles) and others manage fairly well with whatever they have (gym runners, cotton Tees and socks and a fallen branch of a tree)

You get the idea. We are a team of people with diverse backgrounds, motives and mindsets. So, how do we jell together?

More importantly how do we ensure that the fitter and younger members don't run away on sections leaving behind the slower members?

How do we ensure that all of us are nice to each other and our support crews ( at least outwardly) when the blisters are killing us on the inside?

How do we resolve a potential situation, say at the 74 km point, when two members in the team are exhausted, depressed and down and want to pull out of the challenge? What do the other two members do? Do they give up for the sake of their team mates or do they help their mates make it to a check point, have them retire and then carry on to finish the challenge?

How will those that unfortunately had to drop out feel? (For the rest of thier lives)

These are only a few questions that may come up. As you can see this is not a simple "walk in the park". There is a lot of individual and team psychology and dynamics at play.

A clearly articulated set of objectives will help us remember the purpose of why we are doing this, clear our minds and carry on with life in the face of adversity.

Hopefully our set of objectives will help us stay on course - during preparation and the event.

Oxfam TRAILWALKER 2008 (Melbourne)

Hello friends, relatives and well-wishers

Welcome to my Blog!

My name is Venki Prathivadi and the purpose of this section on my blog (Web log) is to capture and share our experience relating to the Oxfam Trailwalker 2008, 100 km walk in Melbourne on April 11th 2008.

Oxfam TRAILWALKER is the world's greatest team challenge. And it's also one of the toughest. The challenge is to get our two teams across 100km of Australian bush in less than 48 hours - and, collectively, to raise at least $8,000 to help to overcome poverty and suffering around the world.

Our two teams are called "Satyam Snails" and "Satyam Slugs". We are all IT professionals working in Melbourne, Australia with Satyam Computer Services Limited.

Here are our teams and the trailwalkers:

Satyam Snails

1. Venki Prathivadi
2. Vijay Athar
3. Harish Singla
4. Debra Block
5. Subbu Pithani
   
   

Satyam Slugs

1. Gurpreet Verma
2. Kathy Gatti
3. Anand Vyas
4. Julie Biasotto
5. Ananthan Mukundan
   
   

Our Team Note:

We are ten ordinary, average, middle-aged IT professionals representing Satyam Computer Services Limited. We feel compelled to make a difference to the world in any small way that we can. So we decided to walk and run 100 kms on 11th April 2008, to raise funds for charity. We have never walked more than 20 kms before in our lives, let alone run it. We may not exactly breeze through the 100 kms. We may bleed through our feet, drag ourselves through exhaustion and hopefully limp our way through. But we will do it slow and steady. That is why we are the "Snails". Our pain will seem trivial and temporary when compared to the prolonged trouble and long-term suffering of so many needy, poor or underprivileged people in this world. So please support us if you can through donating money to Oxfam. Although we have signed up to commit $8,000 through this fundraising initiative, we would love to get close to or surpass the highest amount raised by a team at the Oxfam TRAILWALKER event last year ($80,821). Please donate to this worthy cause. In all humility, we thank you sincerely for your donation and support.

Thank you to all our donors. We are very grateful to you for supporting Oxfam, through our teams.

To donate to Oxfam, through our teams, please follow these links:

Satyam Snails

Satyam Slugs

Please do provide your feedback on this blog. We will regularly update this blog with the experience and insight gained from our training sessions.


Forthcoming articles in this blog:

1. The 100 km Trail
2. Our donor list
3. Our training plan
4. Training sessions experience
5. The gear and preparations
6. Our Support crew
7. Lessons learned (Parallels between work teams and this walk team: management, team dynamics and individual psychology)
   

Please do visit this site regularly.

Have a great day




Venki Prathivadi