Last Saturday morning, I made a point to wake up super early so that I was sleepy enough by midday. I wanted to doze-off the entire afternoon, so that I could endure the 12hr Putrajaya International Walk which I already signed-up for that evening (8pm-8am). I even managed to squeeze in 2 PT sessions that morning with the earliest session at 7am. I was confident enough that these could easily tire me offby midday …..

I was totally wrong …. I COULDN’T SLEEP at all …. in fact, I’m not a day-sleeper, not even with the help of an air-conditioned room & fully drawn curtains …. So, my advice is that don’t try to be one if you’re not one. I started off my 12hrs walk with not only lacking in good rest, but also lacking of about 2hrs from my average sleeping hours.

 

I went to Putrajaya (where the event is held) about 6pm to collect my race goodies and my Championship Chip (to be tied to shoes, used to track the distance covered). Saw some familiar international faces from previous 24hr Int’l Walk that I participated in August last year. As usual, HK sent a group of best of their walkers.

This was the first time that the organiser had this 12hr walk over in Putrajaya, definitely a better venue than my previous 24hr walk at Dataran Merdeka last year (the place is darn boring especialy when you have to walk behind the Court Building).

 

For this walk per se, there was a 1km loop created along the main avenue infront of the magnificent looking Palace of Justice, and ’dam’ look-alike Ministry of Finance. Having a 1km marked loop made it easier for walkers to gauge their distance.

Here are the highlights of the event that just ended yesterday morning:

  • 8pm - started the walk at average speed of 7km per hour (the speed that i’ve been trained for 1 hour?…. hehehe). Somehow, managed to maintain this speed for a good 4-5hours.
  • 1.30am - Blisters were in-control, but decided to change to slippers to avoid more blisters from appearing. 
  • 11pm - stopped for my first meal. Carbo-loaded with white rice, chicken nuggets, mix-veg stirfry, a bowl of hotsoup and papaya slices.
  • Light drizzle around 2am. Put on my yellow raincoat and continued my walk.
  • 3am -  Decided to stop for my second carbo-load meal. Had fried meehoon, hotdogs, a slice of bread , a bowl of green-bean porridge and papaya. Decided to go for short nap on the nearby bench (15mins to be exact). Managed to do my Isyak at ard 3.30am
  • 5.30am -  Light Rain. Not wanting to soak myself wet, I stopped for my last meal. Had chinese fried rice, fried mee-hoon and a bowl of soup. 
  • 6.15am - With 24hours of no-sleep, weariness took over me …. I slept along the building corridor for a good 45 minutes. 
  • 7am - started to walk again. But speed has deteriorated significantly. Most people already turned into zombies (especially those who had blistered cracks :) (from two buns rubbing each other), or blistered groin (balls grazing the upper thigh…super ouch) and  super-blistered soles. Been there, had them all ….. but not tis time around. Thanks to my anti-blister roll-on that I puchased for only SGD10 last year (will do a Product Review on the anti-blister next time). At this point,  I still managed to walk at average speed of 4km/hr.

 

 All in all, I managed to cover a total distance of 48km (yet to be confirmed once the official result is out), more than 70% of the distance that I covered in my 24hrs walk last year (covered 65.73km back then). A great personal achievement indeed.

How different was it this time around ? Well, I got MOVES man….hehheheh. Well, you know how exaggerate the wobbling and swaying of hips that a walker has, I HAVE THOSE TOO (something that I’ve been training for past week). It feels funny at first, but once you got the rhythm, the sway will definitely brushes people off your way……. :) I just hope that i don’t walk like that in public …….. hehehe

Note : Photos are coutesy of
http://picasaweb.google.com/kcsr22 (Special thanks to KC Leong on sharing his photos for all walkers to view and download.)
http://www.ultrawalking.net. (Video by: Santiago Seguí)