42km charity walk completed in just under 10 hours (I am a slow walker).
I bumped the XP for this walk in my Quest for Adventure. The walk was entirely worth going up a level.
My journey began at roughly 8:15pm on Saturday after a speech from Adam Gilchrist (Australian ex-cricketer and ambassador of the charity this was for) and a Welcome to Country from a lady whose name escapes me but it was a very nice Welcome to Country and I kinda wish I'd memorised her name.
As we left the starting area people stood to the sides and cheered us which was nice. It was a common theme throughout the race actually - strangers walking by would find out what was going on from people ahead of me and as we passed them they would cheer us on.
At first, things were easy. I overtook a lot of people and during the first two pit stops only stopped to grab something to eat before continuing onwards.
The distance between the second and third pit stop was difficult. Apparently it was a longer distance than the first two had between each other and I definitely felt it. Also, a lot of people I had overtaken in the beginning now began to overtake me. What would happen though was we would then get to the next pit stop and because I didn't hang around for long I would get ahead of them resulting in a lot of lovely "oh hello, fancy seeing you again!" moments. Many people checked in with me as they passed me to make sure I was okay (solo walkers seemed rare) which was nice.
When I got towards the finish line I was overwhelmed. I had to keep blinking back tears and I'm afraid some people probably thought I was miserable as they congratulated me when I passed them by but really I was just very proud of myself.
I rarely finish the things I set out to do. It's something I still need to work on. And here I am, with my level of fitness (another thing to work on) completing a 42km marathon walk in just under 10 hours by myself.
If I could do this, if my body could do this, I can do anything.
Also, I found out at the end we get medals for finishing and we all know I like shiny reward items.
