Finished the OXFAM Trailwalker

Then it was off through the forest again to Mt Evelyn and then onto the first part of the Warburton Trail. We were in the wee hours of the morning now, leaving Silvan at 2:45. The first part of the Warby Trail was a slog and seemed to take a long time before we turned off and headed up into the Graham Colling Reserve. The teams were quite spread out by this time, with Brett, Fi and Matt coming in at about 5:30. It was just under 4C and there was a cold dew in the air. The support crew put down matresses and draped blankets and sleeping bags over us, most getting a power nap in. Brett made the hard decision to call it quits. His knees were stuffed and we didn’t want him to do permanent damage. Fi had also done damage to her knees after her blistered feet changed her stride. After some convincing she agreed to call it a day. We could all see the pain in her face.

Some time after 7:00 am we began the slog along the rest of the Warby Trail. Tony, Simonetta and Julie had headed off ahead of us whilst we sorted out combining the two other teams (480 & 525). This leg was one of the longest of the walk; 13klms of slightly undulating old railway trail. The sun slowly rose infront of us and we could start to warm up. I was feeling pretty tired and run-down; I wasn’t eating as much as I should but I was struggling with the nausea (apparently the muscles take all the blood leaving your digestive system without enough to properly digest food).

At some point I started feeling a lot of pain in the ball of my left foot, something I’d not had at all during the training walks (we were about 65klms into the walk by now). I really struggled for the last five klms of this leg and was seriously considering quitting. Evan dragged me to the finish of the leg and we both went to podiatry together. The podiatrist said I had some small blisters but I also had done something to the joints where the toe bones join to the ball of the foot; this was causing me to walk funny, straining my shin and restricting the movement of my foot. She put some padding on and I returned to the campsite. Jane gave me a great, but incredibly painful, massage. My calves and thighs were pretty tight. I got pretty emotional and almost pulled the pin, but Ev and Tony convinced me to keep going.

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