Trailwalker - how much do you need to train

Hi all


What sort of distances do people walk for lead up to Trailwalker? Do you think a formal programme of training that begins 3-4 months is enough?

That all depends on what your aim is ....just finish it or within a set time frame, and how fast that time frame is, plus what your base fitness (and other team mates fitness is to start off with). Should be okay if the aim is to complete it without going for super fast times.


When I did the trailwalker a number of years ago of our team of 4 only 2 of us completed the other 2 dropped out, one after stage 5 and the other after stage 8. Essentially the 2 of us who completed trained regularly together for several months together, one "long" walk a week, and one evening shorter walk, plus then did our own separate alternative fitness training. I think the longest we ever walked in one go on the lead up to the event was around 45Km. We were "leisure" walkers and completed in 30hours, and could probably have knocked a couple of hours off our time if we hadn't been held back by our other team mates who had not completed sufficient training. In theory if you want your time logged you need to get min of 3 team mates to the end, after our 1st team mate dropped out, we nursed the other one along for as long as we could, and then the checkpoint regulators assessed the time of day and our general level before allowing the remaining 2 of us to continue on together. So it is not just about your training schedule but your team mates as well.


Most people I know who are signed up for this years trailwalker started their training a little while back.


Good luck if you decide to go for it, at the end of the day what will get you through to the end is your mental strength, assuming you don't get any other major problem crop up (which can generally be avoided by training and right shoes and equipment)

Thank you. We are aiming to do it in 20-25 hours (with my secret ambition of doing it in sub 20!) PS don't tell my team mates that ;-) The 45km hike sounds reasonable and I was thinking of perhaps doing up to 70 as the longest.


We plan simularly to meet up twice a week (once on weekend once on weeknight) to do training and have signed up for the 40km (www.moontrekker.com) which takes place about a month before. The aim is to have this as practices run.


I think with the distance walks, so long as you don't injure yourself, it is mainly 'head power'. Still not sure what the best thing to eat. Some say pasta, others fruit bars etc. Is it that important so long as you eat?

Eat bananas.

Main thing is to go into the walk non injured and having built up a reasonable amount of stamina - hill walks such as the Park view acrosss violent hill and the twins to stanley and back are good night time easy access ones.


Food - experiment when you do your training walks to see what works best in regards to creating need for toilet trips / upset your stomache. Our best food delivery were bacon sarnies at the end of stage 8.


In truth though I don't remember eating much, it's a bit like with marathon running etc you need a little energy to keep you going but generally your too tired to eat after a while.


Good luck both with completing and meeting your time aim