I decided to walk a marathon distance again. The last time I did this was in 2013:
https://steveandjudystravels.com/marathon/
For the past several weeks I’ve been doing my normal walks during the week and a longer walk each Saturday for conditioning. My longest walk so far has been 12 ½ miles, over a time of 4 ½ hours. Last Saturday was scheduled for a 15 mile walk. While I was out though, I got to thinking; half a day or more at a time is a lot to devote to slightly longer walks each week, creeping toward the ultimate goal. Maybe completing a marathon at a walking pace might be more about determination than physical conditioning. The conditions were perfect. The weather wasn’t predicted to get too hot. With these thoughts in mind, I just went ahead and walked the entire marathon distance; 26.2 miles. 10 hours and 1 minute. 26 miles; the distance from Long Beach, California to Catalina Island. The distance from our house in Louisville, Colorado to our office in Denver; my daily commute for many years.
My last marathon walk; it wasn’t fun all the way. The first 20 miles were a lark, but I was shocked when I hit the wall at 20 miles. The last 6.2 miles were agonizing. This time I put more thought into hydration and nutrition. Hydration is the easy part; all it takes is water. I scheduled a trip back past the car to replenish supplies every 8 miles or so. Two new water bottles each time did the trick. Nourishment is a little more difficult for me. I often do a food-fade after lunch, so normally anything energetic has to be done in the morning. I can’t limit an entire marathon to a single morning though, it’s an all-day affair, so I needed a food solution. Last time I took a ham sandwich along, ate half of it about lunchtime and the other half later in the day. Maybe less than optimal nutrition was what made me hit a wall. I already know that energy bars are not good for me either; they sap my energy; I crash after. There is something just right about an oat and honey granola bar though. It must be just the right balance of protein, fat, and carbs for me. So to keep my blood sugar stable for an entire day, I carried a handful of granola bars to munch throughout. That strategy worked perfectly. No wall. The entire walk was fatiguing, but it was fun the whole time.
I did the entire distance within Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. There is a 7-mile scenic loop. I walked that a couple times, along with every other trail in the park a time or two, tracking my progress with GPS so I’d know when I got to the exact distance. The last time I walked this distance I was still in my sixties. Now I’ve walked a marathon distance while in my mid 70s! I should probably do this every decade… I’d better hurry up and turn 80.