Fundraising for Sydney 2012 Oxfam Trailwalker 100km

[johnw]

Hi Everyone,

On the weekend of 24-26 August 2012, myself and three team mates will be bushwalking 100km to raise money and awareness for Oxfam Australia. The event is Oxfam Trailwalker Sydney. It begins at Parsley Bay on the Hawkesbury River, travels through Sydney’s beautiful and rugged northern bushland, including along parts of the Great North Walk, through Berowra Valley Regional Park, Ku-ring-gai Chase NP and Garigal NP before finishing at Georges Heights on Sydney Harbour. Back in 2010 I posted this trip report and photos which features part of this year's Trailwalker course.

Teams of four enter this event and have 48 hours to walk or run the 100km trail, although our team is hoping to finish in 28 hours. We plan to walk through the night (no sleep) until the end. The event raises vital funds for Oxfam Australia. Oxfam is an independent, secular, non-government organisation working in more than 28 countries including Indigenous Australia.

My team "Lost In Pace" is hoping to raise well over $3,000 to help some of the world’s poorest people. Our fundraising enables Oxfam to continue its work delivering projects that support orphans and people affected by HIV and AIDS in Southern Africa, that educate people in Laos on efficient farming techniques and that improve Indigenous health and wellbeing in regional Australia.

My Oxfam Trailwalker team, Ray, Dave, Pete and I will be going the distance and hope that you can support us in this massive challenge. Please consider how you may be able to get behind us, either by sponsoring us directly or referring us to others.

If you would like to sponsor us please follow the link below:

Team No. 389 Lost In Pace

You can also track our progress throughout the event by following the same link. We are scheduled to start at 9:00am on Friday 24th August.

The work that Oxfam does is vital to so many people worldwide and 100km is a long way to walk! But putting ourselves through months of intense training to walk 100km is worth it for the impact our fundraising has on others through Oxfam Australia’s programs.

We ask you to please give generously if you are able, and consider how your donation can make a real difference. Every donation is very welcome.

Thank you!


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[johnw]

4 days to go, training is almost done. Hope I'm ready for this.

[walkinTas]

Excellent effort John. Hope it goes well for you. I hope someone has cleaned the tracks up after the big winds.

[johnw]

Excellent effort John. Hope it goes well for you. I hope someone has cleaned the tracks up after the big winds.

Thanks very much wT. We are up to the granular logistics planning stage and I've about 80% packed for the event.
The sections I scouted during training were generally good but that was mainly pre-winds. I think the organisers are working with NPWS and the GNW Co-ordinator to clean up any significant obstacles beforehand. Fingers crossed that is the case, and the weather remains kind, no injuries, blisters, leeches, exhaustion etc (don't expect much do I!).

[johnw]

Well, the good news is that I finished the 100km yesterday at 1618 in a time of 31 hours 18 minutes. Unfortunately I was the sole surviving member of our team. The other guys all retired at checkpoint 4, the 58.5km mark. They had been doing it tough on that section for various reasons including feel ill and fatigued. We were all pretty fatigued by that point, and at around 2am in quite chilling and uninviting conditions it was a big challenge for me to decide to push on alone. It would have been easy to follow suit and retire, but my teammates convinced me to continue (they had all completed the event previously). Albeit I had to travel with other teams between checkpoints as part of the event safety rules. I'm very pleased that I made it to the end, but quite sore now and nursing a few small blisters, as well as chafing in places that I didn't know existed.

It is surprising at how difficult some of these bush tracks can become when you are exhausted, even those close to urban areas, particularly in the dark under only headtorch light and/or after rain and wind has made them muddy/slippery and created numerous obstacles. If it's any indication, when I reached checkpoint 7 the blackboard stats indicated that 500 walkers had retired.

Our results are on the team tracker link below:
http://trailwalker.oxfam.org.au/sydney/ ... m_id=12740

The winners completed the course in 12 hours 18 minutes.

The event has so far raised approx. $2.495 million for Oxfam and the target is $3.2 million. Donations can continue to be made after the event.
If anyone would like to support our fundraising effort via our our team page below your donation would be very welcome:

Team No. 389 Lost In Pace

[walkinTas]

Great job john, and well done.

[johnw]

Great job john, and well done.

Thanks wT, almost recovered now. I might write up a trip report eventually. It was an interesting if physically challenging walk, albeit 100km is a bit longer that my typical day trip!

[odnuas]

John,

I just wanted to write and commend you on pressing on without the rest of your team - a massive achievement to finish the event. I've done the Sydney and Melbourne Trailwalkers and the Sydney course was definitely more challenging in terms of terrain (my team finished the Melbourne event 6 hours quicker than Sydney). We found the Sydney course much more challenging at night as well. We are doing the Brisbane event next year which is reportedly the most difficult.

Well done!

David

[johnw]

John,

I just wanted to write and commend you on pressing on without the rest of your team - a massive achievement to finish the event. I've done the Sydney and Melbourne Trailwalkers and the Sydney course was definitely more challenging in terms of terrain (my team finished the Melbourne event 6 hours quicker than Sydney). We found the Sydney course much more challenging at night as well. We are doing the Brisbane event next year which is reportedly the most difficult.

Well done!

David

Thanks very much David for your comments. Admittedly I was considering throwing in the towel when my teammates retired simultaneously. It was pretty soul destroying, and something you don't need at a physically and psychologically draining point in the event. I agonised over the decision to continue but I'm really glad I did in hindsight. Had I quit I think I'd still be kicking myself and wondering whether I would have made it. Now I know and have no regrets . Well done for your own efforts and good luck with Brisbane next year. Let us know how you go with it.