The Meat man wrote: ↑Sat Sep 25, 2021 12:55 pm
I guess I'll find out this coming Friday. Me and a friend want to see how far we can walk in one day. Our goal is 50 miles, but we are hopeful that we can overshoot that. It will most likely be a 24-hour challenge.
Well, last week it worked out after all. Wow. I knew it would be hard but I didn't suspect it would be THAT hard. We made it, but...ouch.
We started out at 6 am sharp. The air was crisp and cool and it was still dark. We maintained a brisk pace, the smooth gravel crunching under our shoes, talking as we walked. It was fun.
We got to the first town about 4.5 hours in. By this time we'd walked about 16+ miles, and our feet and legs were in a lot of pain. We stopped and took off our shoes and rested for 15-20 minutes. That felt good but made it harder to get back up and keep going.
After that it was sort of a pain endurance march. I didn't begin to get blisters until about 25 miles in, but we had a lot of muscle pain. Then I ran out of water, and it was awhile before we found somewhere I could refill.
About 29 miles or so in, we stopped and talked to a trio of bikers going the same route we were, but in the opposite direction. They were really nice, offered us food and water and later, after we'd parted, one of them biked back to us and offered some blister first aid if we needed any (which I did.) That was very considerate of them, especially to have biked a mile or so out of their way to help.
After that there wasn't much to do except keep putting one foot in front of the other. I started getting blisters on both feet; nothing really to do about them but keep walking. Eventually it got dark and we kept going. After dark, we saw lots of coons and deer, and a possum.
Finally, at midnight, we hobbled in to our destination trailhead, 18 hours after we'd started. Thankfully our ride got there about the same time, so we hopped in and drove home.
I thought the pain was bad during the walk, but it was nothing compared to when I got home! I could barely make it to the door, and it was after 2 am before I was able to fall asleep. Blisters, bad chafing, and muscle stiffness. It took a few days to get over the worst of it.
All told, we walked 50.9 miles in exactly 18 hours (including about 1.5 to 2 hours' worth of breaks.)
We learned a lot: pack more water, less food, more blister and first aid supplies, maybe chafing powder, wear better shoes, and probably most important, physically prepare. Lol. We hadn't done any sort of preparation training or anything, we just jumped into it cold.
I'm glad we did it. It was fun at first but became a real physical and mental challenge early on. All in all, I think I can say it was without a doubt the hardest thing I've ever done, both physically and mentally.