A 6 hour ordeal page

[magnus84]

I decided to walk for 6 hours today with no specific destination. I wrote about it here: http://chidiagrippa.wordpress.com/20...6-hour-ordeal/

I feel a little weak considering the effect it had on me and knowing that there are people in the world today for whom this is normal. I feel good about it though and my next challenge will be 8 hours. In fact, I intend to keep upping it till I reach my limit. But I don't know when I will do the next round. I'm a little scared. LOL.

[Diana Renata]

Oh yeah, it's a bit rough if it's your first time that long on foot. My first long trek was during our big snow storm back in February. It came out to about 9 hours covering just about 9 miles that day. My legs killed me for a week. Now it's not so bad, walking 10-14 miles around town. Hopefully I can pull 18 to my parents house. Somebody will be driving me home, however.

[magnus84]

hmm... It just deleted my reply. In summary, you have motivated me to do 8 hours on Friday August 27th and then decide how and when to up it from there.

[chronyx]

Wow, that was an intense read!

[avocado]

Very interesting tale, thanks for posting. Makes me want to try it. But I have to work up to those things veerrrrry slowly.

[Bane]

Cool story. Of course now I'll have to do it too, just so I know that I can.

I think it's time for a persistence hunt tomorrow morning.

I won't be walking where there are rattlers though, so I'm going to rock the iPod.

[Lodini]

Holy crap! I did 4.5 miles today for an hour and a half... and I feel like death. I am extremely impressed with your feat! (no pun intended)

I'm pretty hungry too... not as hungry as you but I can definitely see why you reacted the way you did!

[Bane]

I went on the longest walk I've done in years, but didn't have a 6 hour window of free time... settled for just over 3 hours. It was actually an awesome way to spend a weekend morning. Usually I'm up before the rest of the house and I surf the net or read, have a cup of coffee, and relax. It was a great change of pace.

I don't know how far I went, but I'll probably throw my route into the Google pedometer thing and check later. I know when I told my wife where I walked to she gave me the "are you retarded?" look.

I did about 1/4 of it barefoot and the other 3/4 in my Five Fingers. One funny thing was walking barefoot through a park and walking by an older lady walking a small dog, who gave me a puzzled look - then later on (about 4km away) walking into a Starbucks for an espresso and seeing her in there, too. She definitely raised an eyebrow and looked at my feet. The Vibrams were back on by that point. Heh.

I'm surprised by how good I feel after that. Maybe a lot of it is mental. An hour and a half used to make me tired, but I also used to think that was a long walk. This time I was thinking that I was only doing "half" the walk , 3hrs instead of 6, so I guess in the back of my mind I figured it should be easy.

I also managed to keep the post-persistence hunt meal in check. 4 eggs and 10 pieces of bacon. No carbs really, but friggin' delicious and satisfying nonetheless.

Thanks for posting this. I'd have been on the internet all morning (or sleeping in) if you hadn't shared this.

[Velocity]

I remember once a couple years ago... I decided to just get outside and start walking south along US1 just to see how far I felt like going before turning back. My memory is fuzzy, but I think I ended up in the neighborhood of 2-3 hours. Closer to three. I wasn't particularly out of it upon returning, but then again it wasn't a six-hour excursion. Great write-up too.

[magnus84]

Thanks everyone. I have to admit, right after the walk I didn't feel any of that mental stimulation and enlightenment I hear talk about. But now removed from it, I have been far more relaxed and thoughtful. Just been in a generally pleasant mood. Because of the blisters on my feet, which do not feel pleasant by any measure, I will be couching the 8 hour idea for a while. Maybe a month.

What I'm thinking of doing is capping every month with one of these super long walks as a form of mental training. I'm also certain that the blister situation is because of the type of road I walked so I will also be plotting acceptable "paths" to ease that. Other than that, the specific "path" will be random again. I will also keep the no music or phone rule just for the sake of it.

Also, after much thought, I realize the diet mistakes I made. The challenge was random and without preparation. I was already nutritionally negative when I set off. If I had maintained my regular diet and had eaten within 12 hours before, I would have been fine. But I started at 3am and my last meal had been the lunch the day before. Furthermore, if I had had something primal waiting I would have been set. But I jumped at the easiest things.

So I have decided that this will be a new thing for me. Once a month I shall walk for at least 6 hours.

I'm going to confess something crazy... I'm even thinking, depending on how I feel after I have a few more of these under my belt, that I might do a once or twice a year 12 hour walk...

As tough as the 6 was, I can't shake the thought that... how much harder could it be to double that? How much more is it possible to "hurt?" (Hahahahaha, my friend says that by that logic, why not try for 24 hours...) I do know that if I ever get the cojones to do a 12 hour walk, it will be in either late Autumn or Winter. This is just way too hot for this madness, even at night.