Slogger

Arrive at your starting point late evening. Have a good evening meal and sleep until 4am. Don't worry about breakfast and eat snacks as you are walking. Stop after about 70 miles and bivouac alongside water. Dehydrated evening meal. Sleep.

Star 6am. Cereal breakfast. Snack whilst walking. Stop after 70 miles by water. Dehydrated evening meal. Sleep.

Start 7am Breakfast. Snack whilst walking. Stop at the end. Should, like many others have done, manage it is 65 hours.

That's basically what I always do, but not so many miles and don't usually carry cooking gear, relying on pubs (doesn't always work) instead. I am on the move without breakfast or a hot drink, making breakfast bars do. I carry lots of cereal bars and the like anyway and I suppose carrying minimum dehydrated food would save some time waiting for a pub meal and may be worth the little extra weight.
Now there's an idea, I could go for one hour for each year, thats 66 in April!
Dave.

When I was in the Boys Brigade I was told that I should be able to walk the same miles as my age everyday. No one however, told me how long this idea is valid for, age-wise!

I think that I started to fail this theory when I was one year old and at age 64 I am still failing!

I remember I used to have an AAA book that gave time comparisons for different distances run. This compared the same efforts over various distances and could help you have an idea, going off, say your 10K time, whether for the same adjusted effort, you were near say, your target Marathon time.
It also gave age related times/effort/performance tables.
This compared performance measured against the world record, with age grading due to physiological changes.
Ive seen something similar recently. Basically, using my own next birthday at 66 years compared with someone half my age at 33 years (someone in their prime)for a race walking event over 30 miles.
Both giving almost 100% effort over the distance, meaning that the 33 year old equalled the world record, my age graded time for the same was 23% longer, than his. In other words if someone my age had finished the event just 22% slower than the 33 year old, that would be a better performance.
My Marathon PB is 2hrs 34min 55sec at age 45, this is equivolent to 2hrs 26min 49sec for the five prime age years of 30 to 35, and at 66 years is equivolent to 3hrs 8min 55secs, or 40 minutes more than at prime age, and 34 minutes more than my PB at 45 years.
The difference of around 25% is very similar to the age related percentage difference of the race walkers.
Dave.

I'm with you Harland. I was certainly not in my prime at 33. On fact I don't think that I was ever in ........

(I was born cold, wet and naked ..... from then life went downhill)

Let's just have a closer look at the schedule suggested by our sgt James - after all it would be good to get some sound advice from those more experienced...

Arrive at your starting point late evening. Have a good evening meal and sleep until 4am.
(Sounds good - feasible, though I think you'd better start at 4 am - after all, you're only walking... so sleep until say 3.30am...)

Don't worry about breakfast and eat snacks as you are walking.
(no problem - as long as you have plenty to nibble on... you'll need to drink plenty too, but not too much 'cos you won't have time to stop to relieve yourself)

Stop after about 70 miles and bivouac alongside water. Dehydrated evening meal.
(er...hang on, it won't be evening - even maintaining 3mph (20mins per mile) which will be very difficult to do just by walking alone it will be 3.30am)

Sleep. (if you can - you have just 90mins)

Start 6am. Cereal breakfast. (hang on - cereal breakfast, hmm? better be up by 5.30am - so you'll only have 1hr in that bag...)


Snack whilst walking. (sounds good - but you'll have needed to have carried those 'snacks' all day yesterday...)

Stop after 70 miles by water.
(okay, but don't forget you'll probably have been walking a tad slower today by trying to get by on snacks... but, hey, nobody said this would be easy...)

Dehydrated evening meal. (again you'd probably have got more benefit actually having it the evening before)

Sleep. (you'll probably want to spend a bit of time sorting your feet as well...)

Start 7am Breakfast.(unless you included some running, or found some other way of 'catching up', yesterday there's unlikely to be time for the above or breakfast...)


Snack whilst walking. (you are going to feel bonked today with such a limited intake. You'll be feeling leaden fuelled largely by body fat and more likely to go wrong - you probably won't be able to face the 'snacks' you've carried for over a hundred miles and could well struggle to get anything down)

Stop at the end. (good suggestion...)

The schedule just doesn't ring true and has all the elements of the 'armchair planner'. Just my opinion, but if the guy had avoided the word 'walk' it may be more believable. One would say 'cover ground quickly' and the like other than 'walk'.
Guys that have done such challenges would refer also to underfoot conditions which would make a massive difference to overall pace.
It doesn't take much to eat into that magical 3mph! And yet here these guys are moving more realistically at around a good ultra pace of around 15m/m or 4mph. There's no doubt about it, whoever posted this has no real experience of such crossings.
Back on the ignore list for me...

This is not intended to cause controversy as as I have no experience of speed walking/running. But, what puzzles me, is that I actually met a group doing this. Why would they try and "con" me?

I also met the current poster (it was me that asked him to come on the forum and post details of his walk). I cannot understand why, when he told me about his walk, that he knew all about the other groups that had done it.

I can categorically state that I am not making this up! Am I just gullible?

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm sure it can, but it is my opinion that this poster has no personal experience of such a crossing. I think the post speaks for itself - it just doesn't add up... 'evening meal' after 70 miles of 'walking'. This guy is another grimsdale/LL/bongo character in my book.