If Muhammad won't go to the mountain, the mountain will come to Muhammad
Well minus the 20,009 steps I completed yesterday – yup I walked home and then some last night. Coincidentally Challenge Hannah has also set off like a rocket and completed her first training walk – 6km!! I’m more than a little jealous, as when I started training for the Moonwalk many moons ago!! – I think I managed 2-3km in my first week!! Clearly Challenge Hannah is a NATURAL Athlete.
I should emphasise that Walking the Great Wall of China is a virtual FitBug Challenge. I got a few confused looks and queries as to when I was flying out to China, talking to colleagues yesterday.
I got my first weekly FitBug challenge stats yesterday, including my current ranking. Evidently this has raised my competitive hackles – cue yesterday’s 2 hour walk!!
Excuse the tres boring name - bug is work property and preregistered.
More importantly - investigation who is TeddyBug is a go!!
This week, the virtual FitBug challengers are tackling the section from Shandan to Youngchang and crossing the silk road enroute. Try as I might I still haven’t located this on a map yet but I have discovered that the Great Wall of China is actually a series of walls and that they don’t all interconnect, and that there are an unbelievable number of toilets along the route for tourists!!
The full distance of the Wall(s) from Shanhiguan to Lop Nur is 5500 miles/ 8851.8km but if you discount ditches and other geographical interruptions the actual wall is only 3889.5miles/ 6259.6km. Based on Lucinda’s Februlous performance, it would only take Lucinda 2 years, 7 months and 1 week to run the actual Great Walls of China – just a little challenge for you Luc – you could survey it whilst you’re there just to double check my accuracy ;-))
Don’t worry, my AWESOME! maths doesn’t stop here:
I worked out that based on my FitBug performance to date – I walk about 6000 steps an hour when I’m out and about (yup I’m fairly nippy when I want to be/ desperate for the loo). That means I have 104 hours of walking to complete this walking challenge in the next six weeks – meaning that I need to average about 2 hours walking a day/ 3-4 if I want to improve my ranking (who am I kidding – sub 50th here I come!!)
This couldn’t be more perfectly timed as I need to shed the Winter Walking Laziness and start seriously prepping for the 60km walk across the South Downs that, old and new Walking Challengers (including Challenge Hannah – see Sky’s the Limit Task 1 of 4), are undertaking on the 7th May 2011 – JUST NINE WEEKS AWAY. Eeeek.
Bashing out one final calculation – I estimated that based on my 74 cm stride (yup I’m short but perfectly formed ;-)) and that 60km = 6,000,000cm – I will need to take 81,081 steps to complete the distance.
Sidenote: Can you get RSI from walking?
Based on my current 6000 steps an hour rate - this walk will take me 13.5 hours. If only the course was the smooth and flat pavements of London. So adding in 2-4 hours for rough terrain, steep hills, rest breaks, eating breaks, loo breaks, getting lost, climbing even steeper hills, emergency blister stops, major strop ‘cannot take another step unless BRIBED with chocolate or a very hot man’ stops – we will likely be on the go for 16-18 hours.
Er – Han – I might have been a touch naïve when I said it would only take us 10 hours.
But at least I now understand why the expected finish race time is around 1am! xx
p.s. If Challenge Han/ the Hare haven’t read this - you are so ordered not to say ANYTHING!! til after they’re all signed up – mwahaha. After all my maths is notoriously rubbish ;-)
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