Twenty Miles

[jayfurr]

I am a tired and sore dude today. But it's a good tired and sore; yesterday I did my first twenty mile Breast Cancer 3-Day training walk.

Carole dropped me off in the little village of Huntington, Vermont at 11 am and headed off to her office in Williston to put in a few hours' work and await my arrival.

I followed a route west and then north along pleasant valley roads and then onto Vermont state route 116 which I stayed on most of the rest of the way, steadily heading north toward Williston. I'd plotted the route out earlier on my Garmin MapSource software and had come up with a starting point and set of turns that would theoretically get me to Carole's office in just about 18 miles of walking. Weirdly, when I consulted my GPS at the end of the walk it showed that I'd gone 20.01 miles. I'm not sure precisely what I did to add two miles to the track but I'm not upset; I assume that the route planned via the software may have involved some rounding on the part of the computer and that the recorded route I actually walked was more accurate.

Along the way I consumed:

one pack Clif Shot Bloks (margarita flavor)
Four tubes GU Energy Gel (Espresso Love flavor)
three liters or so of CAMELBAK Elixir

... and a strawberry yogurt cereal bar, a cup of iced coffee, and two Slim Jims.

So, trust me, I was watching my electrolyte levels and keeping myself hydrated.

It was a pleasantly cool day that got a bit warmer as the day went by and by the end I had unzipped and removed the pants legs from my convertible hiking pants, turning 'em into shorts.

And speaking of clothing, I had dressed sensibly: I had on a Techwick short-sleeved shirt from EMS, Smartwool socks, and, for what it's worth, Techwick underwear. For shoes, I wore a pair of Lands' End hiking shoes.

In response to the question you're probably asking, "Why the pointlessly detailed breakdown of what you wore and what you ate and drank, Jay?", I'll simply state that my 3-Day team captain, sandyinstep, will smack me around if I don't take care of myself.

My route:


Me at the start, right outside Jaques Country Store in Huntington:


One of many pleasant postcard-like views of Vermont I encountered along my way:


The walk was fun... for a while. I had my MP3 player with me and listened to various artists like They Might Be Giants -- anything upbeat and perky. I strode along cheerfully grinning at passing bicyclists and cars. But as I passed the halfway point, I grew a bit tired, despite having stopped in the town of Hinesburg to refill my Camelbak and water bottle, strip off my convertible pants legs, and wash up in their restroom. As I headed north I faced a bit of a climb coming out of Hinesburg and that took a bit of the wind out of my sails.

There were a couple of points where I was getting a bit tired and a bit stiff and thought about calling Carole to say "Come get me; just go south down 116 and you'll see me after about four miles" but I never did surrender to the urge. I felt that all the satisfaction I'd have of doing my first lengthy training walk would be entirely diminished if I had to call for the sag wagon with only 20% of my walk left to go. So I kept on plodding, wishing the course was a little flatter but knowing it couldn't go on gently rising forever. Eventually I did make it to the I-89 bridge and from there it was all familiar territory. Before I knew it I was walking down the road that led to Carole's building's parking lot.

I arrived at her office at 5:30 and since I'd taken breaks totalling about a half hour in all, my moving time was right around 6 hours, making my average speed 3.33 miles per hour. I normally walk faster over short distances but between trying to pace myself at the beginning and then not really having it in me to really go KERZOOM at the end, 3.33 was about all I could muster.

So, yeah, I walked twenty miles. No huge accomplishment, that, although I do think this may have been the longest continuous walk I've ever been on. Which is kind of sad, when you consider co-workers my age or older who go out and run that kind of distance every other day in the summertime to stay in shape for marathons.

I hope I can get in a nice long walk like that each weekend from now until October, and at some point I've got to start doubling up, doing long walks on two consecutive days and then perhaps on Labor Day doing three. I'd really prefer that the actual 3-day walk in October not be the first time I try to do sixty miles over three days.

Comments

[l-l-u-w-d.livejournal.com]

Go you! And, yeah, if you keep at it, and work on extending your distance, you will be able to do the full course by the time it comes around to it. I am confident and have full faith in your ability to do this. :)

[sandyinstep.livejournal.com]

YAY JAY!!!!

Ah, and I was proud of walking a 7 mile course yesterday. Guess I'm just not there yet...

[jayfurr.livejournal.com]

Well, you've got to pace yourself up and all that. Maybe next Saturday you can do ten. Or 11.