This post is related to the project: Make a long trip by feet as fast as possible in an urban environment
As I have chosen to travel 80 km per day in the Urban trip project, it means a pace of about 8:00 min/km, to have the distance being travelled in about 10 hours. There’s a reason I have chosen 10 hours for the trip per day. Let me explain.
Time usage
From the 24 hours, 10 hours goes to the travelling and 8 hours for sleep, leaving 6 hours. During the trip, there will be backtracking, surprises, slower segments, visits to the shop, eating, etc., which will take some time. Still, 6 hours should be plenty for all of that, as I’m trying to leave some time for my legs to recover every day.
Legs are pushed to the limit
Continuous stress, day after day, without enough time for legs to rest and heal is the problem in this project. Travelling 80 km/day means that the feet will need lots of time to recover, which they will be not getting. To even have a chance, I have to get as much time for my feet to rest as possible. And the only way for that in this case is to ramp up speed. Other things I can and will do, is try to minimize the weight, easing the stress for the legs, training, proper nutrition and stretching for boosting recovery.
In the first time I tried to walk long distance in an urban environment, in the summer of 2020, I did walk 50 km in the first day. In the second day, after about 30 km, I had to give up, as my feet were hurting in a way which decided me to stop, fortunately. That was the right decision, as I got repetitive strain injury on my feet. Luckily, it seems that now, after about 6 months, my feet have nearly fully recovered.
Ultramarathon?
Today, as I tried to move at a pace of 8:00 min/km, I realized that the speed is actually jogging, not walking. And as the length is more than marathon distance, I’m actually training for an ultramarathon. This was not my purpose originally though. I thought that it would be an interesting test to walk long distances in urban environment, as running is more demanding and needs more practice. Now, I’m trying to run 3 ultramarathons back-to-back, which does sound impossible for me. I’m not a seasoned runner, I can run, but it’s not something that I think that I’m fantastic at. I’d say that I’m probably average runner, like most of us. But as the idea of the website is to challenge myself to do things which I consider impossible, I think that I’m on a right track. I’ll continue training and let’s see what happens.
Quick note from the jog today to end this post: This project starts to feel more serious now. It’s fun to plan to walk long distances and start to train for it, but when I hit the road, the glamour is not there anymore. I did realize that this is first of many long trips which I need to do to train myself, and it will become more difficult when the distance of the training increases. It’s interesting to see what happens.