Haven't walked since Thursday night. While I cranked out 18km, I've had pain in my right arch, a "shoe scuff sore" at the top of my right foot, heal spur pain and calf pain. I'm coming to the realisation that, while, after a lifetime of cycling, I could crank out enough training in 8 weeks to do 450km bike ride in 3 days, walking is not my primary "sport." So, the EGRT is going to be delayed.
The trouble with this delay is that the intended time, last weekend in March, is about the latest I can do it safely. Daylight saving runs out the following week, and I need to be able to cover the ground of each stage with enough time to relax, make camp, prepare food and pitch my bivi before nightfall. Tomorrow (March 1) is officially autumn, so late March is heading back into bad weather to be outdoors. SE Australia is usually great in March and April, cool, clear, bright and sunny, but the weather of the last 12 months as been uncharacteristically cold, windy and very very wet! The Weather Bureau are saying it isn't on the improve.
Winter is more "adventure" than my gear is up to and spring usually wet. So it looks like I have 10 months to train for this walk. Also, my wife is off to NZ in April, so I have to stay home for the cat and our loacal wildlife.
There, I said it. The EGRT, 3.5 day walk has been postponed for 11 months. I'll be back into training from tomorrow, but I have a less hurried schedule, now. I can build to 30km/day over 10 months. I can keep trying footwear until I find the best shoes at a more fiscally responsible rate. I swear, Inelda Marcos, look out!
So, plan B for my Wacky Weekend Adventures, is to paddle a blow-up sit-on-top, from the Melbourne suburb of Brighton, down the bayside beaches, to Frankston. This is 60km on a slow "yak", so I'm allowing 2 days and one night. Shout a mate to dinner at Mordialloc then "crash" on his floor, then paddle on to "Franger" the next day, deflate the boat, roll it up and catch the train home.
This is less training, less risk (I can bail for a train, via a short walk, at just about any point) and very close to home. Port Phillip Bay is a beautiful waterway, if heavily civilised, but adventures take form in the mind as much as the place, and there is much to see, in the form of tourism, history and local life. Life is what happens as we make other plans. Sometimes changing a plan is just part of the adventure of life.
Keep dreaming, keep living.
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