My first Trail Walking 100 km: The Oxfam 100 at Brisbane... here is the Review

The Team: 'Non Chafe Neanderthals' - Nick, Steve, Oscar (me) and Paul

The Idea:

Everything began as an idea from my mate from Skin Strong Nick Ellson, he was keen to do the Oxfam 100 from long time ago until he finally bite the bullet and started to get some friends to join him in his adventure, he contacted me, Steve, and Paul and we finally formed the team.

The training:

To be honest I was not very enthusiastic with the idea of walking 100 km around D'Aguilar Reserve Park in Brisbane Queensland but as we started training doing night walks I catch the vibe and the great feeling of been in nature.

At our first night out, training of course... we walked 50km covering 3 section of the race, it was an ordeal... We didn't know what we were facing until we did that training walk: cold weather, rain, and lots and lots cane toads (I got a phobia against any reptile or amphibious creatures) we were simply not prepared for that long walk but with determination and proper nutrition we managed to get back on track and keep on training hard. Nick, Steve and Paul kept on doing trail walk and runs but as I live far away from the mountains and just continue with my swimming, cycling, and running training as usual but putting more emphasis on long runs at a comfortable pace.

Night Time was coming!

Moonwalking! Crossing the creeks

The event:

Oxfam 100 is a event organized by Oxfam in order to raise funds for the organization to fight against poverty around the world. Usually is a 100km trail walk done by teams of 4 (all 4 have to walk the 100km) in Australia takes place in all the major cities and Brisbane is the toughest course of all walking from Mt Glorious to Mt Coot-Tha.

The registration is $150 (2015) per each team member and the team needs to raise a minimum of $1400.

We were so pumped at the start! Good times

The race:

The trail walk started on Friday with two waves one starting at 7am and other starting at 8am, the trail walk started, it was wonderful and pretty exiting to see all the trailwalk team walking and starting the journey of 100 km of trail, the day and weather conditions were incredible, chill but with sunny and no rain at all, our plan was to keep walking only stoping on the aid stations to eat something and refill our Camelbaks until check point 3 where Nikki (Steve's wife) was going to be there waiting for us with a wonderful hot dinner, to refill properly we stopped for an hour and then keep going.

The day walk was simply amazing, beautiful nature, huge trees everywhere and a lot of camaraderie between fellow participants. The night was tough, the temperature drop down and the pain and cramps started to kick in but our will and determination didn't stop us, we kept walking to all the check points and around 1:30am we found an oasis in the woods: a mobile catering car with coffee, and hot tea it was fantastic and so much needed at that time! During the night you just keep walking... that's my humble advice. We ran out of stories and some parts of the walk where in complete silence, I am really good at downhill but steep climb have always been my Achilles' tendon so some part of the race I fell back and had to keep walking or running to catch my team.

Is not Jurassic Park...

The views were amazing!

Yeahhhh! Posing for Facebook

The last but not lost

The oasis!

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In the middle of the night

I will never forget the scenery

When the sun raised in the morning was literally a magic moment, we just got our energy back and knowing that we where close to the finish line gave us a push to keep going stronger through the course until around 9:30am on Saturday we got to the finish line. We finished 26/292 teams in 24hours 46 minutes

All our families, friends and Oxfam crew where there receiving teams with a great applause and cheering everybody, it was such a good feeling!

The aftermath:

As soon as we stop we got stiffness in all our bodies, some pains here and there, luckily I have always been blessed with speed recovery after races, so with a 5 hour nap and good quality food I was ready to go with my regular day to day activities.

Oxfam 100 is such a great endurance event, is for a good cause and all the money raised will go to support people in need, I truly encourage everyone around the world to do this type of races to help this great organization.

Tips and final words:

Train, know the terrain of the race, and walk sections to get used to the topography and the endurance you'll need to do this challenge.

Do not underestimate the walk, it is a trailwalk but is really tough.

Fuel properly with sport nutrition products or natural foods, and caffeine. Train your gut and stomach while training and get use to eat during long runs or walk.