The vital stats

The lowdown:

The Powertalkers finished the event in 30 hours and 34 minutes. We did not sleep, but we stopped more than we planned. This was about 6 hours more than we planned, mainly because one team member had blisters. In the lead up to the event she did everything right – she went to a sports podiatrist, bought good shoes, bought $35 socks, the works, and yet she still got them. Her amazing will to complete the event is something that I will always remember – the first blisters appeared at the 7km mark, and she walked a further 93km. In addition, her knees stopped working properly at the 92km mark, so for the last section, which consists of very steep hills both up and down, she walked down the hills backwards. Yes, backwards.

We had 4 different support crews meet us:
Suzie's mum and her partner Ray did CP2 during the day at Lysterfield Park
Peter and Daniel did the Friday night shift and treated us like queens.
Cathy and Beth did the overnight shifts. They arrived at 11:30pm and we did not get to them until 4am - when it was about 3 degrees celcius.
Cameron and Casey did the morning overlap shift (arriving at around 7:30am) and then waited all day for us to finish.

We raised over $4,000 because someone from my workplace donated $932 just before the walk, and took us then to our $4,000 goal. We have another $400 or so we haven't banked yet, and are hoping now to get to $5,000 by the end of May.

We had a late start time, which meant that the most difficult sections of the trail were done in the dark. Walking in the dark is actually quite good fun, until about 5am. Then it’s not fun anymore.

When we did our training, I often wondered what it would feel like to walk a section of the trail after say 80km. I can now advise that it hurts. A lot.

Our team finished 412th out of 714 teams.

We finished 72 / 161 of female only teams so in the top half (we were pleased with that).

Of the complete teams of four who finished the event, we were number 272 of 436.

You can see photos from our team here. I love the 7:30am Saturday shots (sorry about the offensive one but it really reflected the mood). We didn’t get any finish line shots taken because we couldn’t think any more.

We burned 7458 calories, and took over 150,000 steps.

Once I can get shoes back on my feet, I will be in training for the half marathon series that starts in around July. You are welcome to join me! (it’s only 22km). For now, I am hobbling around in thongs (flip flops for our US cousins).

That's all for now - I have some software testing to organise.

Love,

Miss Jojo xx