Last Friday and Saturday was spent walking on the roads of Lonavala…about 56km on Friday and 44 km on Saturday…totaling 100km.

This was part of the Oxfam Trailwalker, 2013 Charity walk.

Some lessons –

On the first day we thought we would average about 5km an hour and thus reach about 65km at 7pm (13 hours).

Well things did not go as planned. The first 10km was very difficult and we went much slower. Far more importantly we stopped every 10km and pampered ourselves with ice, change of clothes, filling up water in our water bags, eating (some necessarily some unnecessarily) ….and this reduced our walking time.

The arrangements made by the organisers were really good as were the doctors, physios, nurses etc. and this made our journey easier. Not that we used their services much – but must have helped those who needed it.

What was amazing was the organisers telling us that we should not eat oily food, but they served us very very oily food – which went straight from their containers to the bins. Sad, but they could have been more considerate.

We were lucky to be carrying our own food and hence it was not too much of a problem for us. I am not using any names of my companions – have not asked them.

On the second day we were scared (based on Friday experience) and thought we would finish by 9pm. We actually finished by 6pm. However on the second day we really enjoyed our trip – clicking snaps, taking dips in the flowing water, ….and generally having a ball.

So summarised learnings:

– Making projections (in this case of speed) without knowing the conditions (in this case the terrain) is STUPID. We did it, and went wrong.

– Making projections on day 2 based on experiences of day 1 was foolish (past performance is not a proof of future performance!)

– You should know why you are going (GOAL)…WE enjoyed our trip (awesome trip, repeat, awesome trip) and that was important. If that was the GOAL, why crib about speed and ranking? Habit, I guess.

Ha another stupid thing of trying to learn from every outing! Tch tch….why should I do it?