100km Wild Endurance Trail Walk

After just a few, short, sleepy days at home post our France trip (jetlag - ugh!), I headed off to Katoomba last Friday (4 May) with Capital I (support crew) to do the 100km Wild Endurance Team Trail Walk event.

The 100km Wild Endurance is a team event and there are strict rules about the team staying together at all times. Not only do all team members have to come in to and out of all the checkpoints together, but at no point in time is there allowed to be any more than 100m between team members. The rules are also very strict with respect to the compulsory gear that each individual must carry and then there's another list of compulsory gear which the team as a whole must carry. So, all teams end up travelling at the slowest team member's pace, and all team members are weighed down by a fair amount of (essential?) gear.

There can be between 4 and 7 people on a team. We had 5 on ours - 3 girls, 2 guys. Of our 5 team members, 2 were definite non-runners and so for us the event was always going to be a trail walk and not a trail run (not even a trail run/walk!). Even though I knew that from the time we entered the event, on many occasions throughout the event, the runner in me couldn't help but find that frustrating. It was mostly frustrating when we hit the wide, undulating fire trail with magnificent scenery - ie, perfect running country. It was also frustrating when fatigue set in for our slowest walker and he got even slower (it seemed to take an eternity to get from one km mark to the next). Putting aside my running mentality though, and the impatient detours it periodically took my mind on, this was a fabulous event and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a great test of endurance in a fantastic place with a fun team. And all of this was complemented and enhanced even further by a first class support crew - Capital I and Captain James (from the Wed West run group).

A few interesting observations about the 100km Wild Endurance .....

(1) The 100km Wild Endurance team trail walk course is pretty much the same as the North Face 100km ultramarathon course and I had often wondered how the course compared to the Cradle Mountain ultramarathon course which I struggled across a couple of years ago in what was my most humbling race experience ever. My take on the two courses is that Cradle Mountain is harder. Cradle Mountain has much more up and down, is much rockier throughout, and has vast numbers of large, high tree roots to clamber over. Having said that, the North Face 100km would not be a walk in the park, and while I would have liked to have run the run-able bits during the 100km Wild Endurance, it has not made me want to go back and run the course in the form of the North Face 100km.

(2) Although 100km of walking across tough terrain and being sleep deprived is good strength and endurance training, I pulled up remarkably well from this event. I had no blisters and very little muscle soreness, just stiff feet and ankles and a general feeling of fatigue.

(3) Good equipment is everything! My Ay Up headlamps and my Black Diamond walking poles were my absolute best friends during this event :)

Needless to say this week has been another week of trying to catch up on sleep and get back into a normal work/runing/life pattern. I'm hoping the pattern becomes better established this coming week and everything becomes more routine again.