100k sponsored walk

[Cantdoright1]

I would like to do a sponsored walk in June 2019 for a charity close to my heart. It's one of the ultra challenges and is 100k over 2 days along the Jurassic coast.

I have reasonable fitness and can do a 10 mile walk reasonably but there would be alot of work to get fit for this challenge. However I have just read the write-up on the challenge and it says you have a maximum of 36 hours to complete the 100k. So that's 2.2mph walking for the whole time. I would obviously have to go faster to have a food and toilet break and a small nap. I've done other short challenges at 3mph and that felt like a hustle. So how do people do it? Are they running? In the pictures it looks like everyone is enjoying the scenery and having a nice walk but id have to be flat out from start to finish and barely stop. Are these challenges for top althletes or am I missing something?

I really wanted a challenge to aim for in 2019 but I have a 5 and a 2 year old so my training time is limited.

I did one in 2015 in 24h 10m
with a reasonable level of fitness and 3 long 20-22mile practice walks 8, 5 and 3 weeks before.

It was the most amazing thing ever to complete, honestly go for it, you absolutely won’t regret it.

If time is limited, why are you looking at such a long distance??

Can you ride / run something much, much shorter instead??

There's plenty of training guides online for 100k walks. You will need to build up your stamina gradually over a period of weeks - your joints etc need to get used to the distance. It's 62 miles so over 36 hours it's 1.7mph - which is pretty slow.

It's possible to do within 24 hours, no nap and eating on the way. You'll need to carry your water and have a helper at the check points to refresh your things and hold stuff while you go to the loos.

After the first 40km you will not want to stop for more than a few minutes. Your legs will seize up and it will really hurt to get moving again, it's far better to keep moving around so you don't get that stiffness.

Toe socks will reduce blisters between toes (I never got any), and take some compeed plasters with you. I got an amazing but painless blister and my my little toe nails painlessly fell off.

If you're reasonably fit you'll be fine. I had 6 weeks training as I was pulled in to replace someone else. We did Saturday walks of 10, 20, 30 and 40km and rested the weekend beforehand.

Tbh if you are time limited for training I’d do the 50k. The race offers UTMB points so it’s supposed to be tough and it’s got 2,650m D+ so while it’s not utterly brutal there’s stil lots of climbing. You need to train over hills for several hours at a time to prepare. Anyone doing a course like that in less than 20 hours is running some of it. From where you are now in terms of fitness to a continuous 100k through the night on that course would be an ask IMO. Another option is do the overnight option so you can rest in the middle.

Thanks everyone. I guess I assumed you had to have some sleep in these 100k walks as some offer overnight camping. I hadn't thought about just keeping walking.

I've looked at the half options at 50k but they are all one day. I thought the option would be 50k in 2 days like the 100k.

I have found a few training walks so maybe I'll do a couple of 20 mile training walks and see how I feel. I enjoy walking and have looked at other swimming and cycling challenges but the walking ones appeal the most.

I did 100k walk. I’m not that fit tbh but I did do some long walks in preparation , building them up till I could walk a long way and also worked out how to avoid blisters, everyone has different things that work for them in this regard! Think the longest break we had was 40 mins for tea we walked through the night.

I know four women in late 30s who have done v long sponsored walks but not that long. All had severe joint pain during / after, and two were injured in ways that made exercising difficult for many months after.

They were all in reasonable shape beforehand, eg exercising 3x week, but work and have DC, with men who work too, so finding adequate training time was a problem. Except for one who had a lot of free childcare from family.

I think you need to decide whether to do it in one go or decide to take a break first, I found walking the next day after 50k quite painful, yet at the end of it I could have carried on walking.
Next you do need to do a lot of endurance training, it's one thing to walk for 4 hours or so and then stop, quite another to keep on going for 8 hours (50k). That includes learning when and how to feed yourself. I quite quickly learnt that stopping to eat for more than 5 mins or so was not right for me.
You need to find a pace that's suits your gait, and stick to it by monitoring your progress every hour or so to ensure you are keeping to it.
Buy a decent pair of walking shoes/boots now, and stick with them. They should be good for 6 months of hard walking so by the time the event comes round they will be well worn in.
Once you can do 75% of the distance, adrenaline will get you over the line, but that would include doing 2 x 40 km walks back to back if you intend to split it over two days.
I found may arms and shoulders would freeze up after a few hours of walking, to the point that doing up laces etc became quite hard. I would windmill my arms around for a minute every hour or so, just to keep them flexible, don't do this next to someone who's trying to take a drink.
If you intend to walk with a companion, make sure you're paces match, there's nothing worse than hurrying along, maybe feeling like you are dawdling?

We did 100km over 26 hours a couple of years ago - the elevation over the course was less than I would think you'd get on the Jurassic Coast (some of the toughest walking I've done in this country was there!).
It's really hard but it is as much if not more of a mental challenge as a physical one. Follow the training plans to the letter and train as a team - for us that really helped as we knew who was slower uphill, who would take a while to get started after a rest, who got grumpy at 4am...
It's the hardest and best thing I've ever done and I'm still really proud of what we did. Wouldn't do it again, though...

I'm really tempted by one of these, just to see what it's like. I've got a HM 3 months beforehand so I thought I could train for that and then go into distance walking training. Does that sound like a good plan?

Just remembered, I did find walking poles helpful for the hills as the one I did was over the south downs.

If you are looking a specific charity then why not see if they have spaces ? That way they’d probably be able to support you with training plans and perhaps support on route ?

"I would windmill my arms around for a minute every hour or so, just to keep them flexible, don't do this next to someone who's trying to take a drink"

FWIW: I agree strongly that this is fundamentally a mental challenge. If reading about the difficulties fires you with thoughts of how you can deal with all their, then it will somehow all turn out fine p.

Walking poles a must!

Downton crabby. Your times mean you must have walked an average of 2.5mph for the 24 hours but presumably had short food and toilet breaks to make up for. I've done a 10 mile Charity walk at 3mph and the thought of trying to keep that going for 24 hrs or more is concerning. I did the London to Brighton bike ride with no training before kids but im not so confident now. These big walks also want so much sponsorship and I won't ask for sponsorship unless im sure I'll get round.

I guess the posters are right that say it's a mind over matter thing. Im not sure my mind is in the game at the moment. I've found a 20 mile walk in May I think I'll do then go from there.

Happy new year everyone.

You've mixed up your miles and km I think.

100km is 60 something miles so only about 1.5 mph to complete in 36 hours.

I did the 50km Thames Path in just over 11 hours

Thanks bacon..a previous poster said they did 100k in 24 hours so I was working out their speed.

I would love to do a 100k but have decided it's just too expensive so I've joined the long distance walking association and im going to choose one of their longer walks as my target.

Thanks everyone.