Top tips from past Oxfam Trailwalkers

  1. Dear Diary - Keep a training diary of distance covered, height climbed and total time taken. This will give you distance goals to aim for on the trail and help your support crew gauge what time you’ll arrive at checkpoints.
    Plus…interesting online team pages get more donations. Use your training information to update your online team page and let your supporters know all the hard yards you’re putting in. Include the funny bits…there will be many.
  2. Money drives motivation – The more people you have backing you the more you want to keep going. Get in early with your fundraising to keep you motivated.
  3. Do it together - The team that trains together stays together. Training together helps you learn your team’s strengths & weaknesses and gives you more material to reminisce over while you’re walking (or running) 100km! "Watch out for each other. All team members should be hyper-aware of the condition of other team mates, looking out for a change in attitude, physical condition or sign of injury."
  4. Do your research – there’s a world of general training information online and check out Gary Moller’s blog.
    Gary has published a number of excellent online articles about endurance training for events like Oxfam Trailwalker. If your Oxfam Trailwalker query has not already been answered, you can email Gary directly from his website
  5. Footwear - The great Oxfam Trailwalker debate continues to rage – shoes vs boots. Many walkers opt for running shoes or similar during the day, swapping to boots for night walking. Others recommend having two or three pairs of well worn shoes to swap at each checkpoint to change pressure points (which cause blisters) on your feet. Whichever you choose make sure they are well broken in before the event by wearing them on training walks.
  6. Food and drink - Hopefully you will have read Gary Moller’s blog on “what to eat and drink when training for an endurance event like the Oxfam Trailwalker”. Use your long training walks to experiment with different food and get your stomach used to taking on liquid well before the actual event.
  7. Hill Walking - Many teams credit successful finishes to the intensive hill work they included during training. Make sure your training includes a lot of hill to prepare your legs for the up-hills and your joints for the down-hills.
  8. Night Walking - Walking at night requires special vigilance on the part of all team members to reduce the risk of injury. We advise teams to practise walking at night (more than once!) with headlamps before the event. It’s not just about walking with reduced visibility but also walking when you’re tired – and you will be tired.
  9. Plans can change - This applies to training and at the event. If you’re training plan turns out to be a little on the ambitious side, scale it down. The important bit is to keep doing something. If you’re at the event and things aren’t going according to plan for your 24 hour target…relax! You’ve got 36 hours.
  10. The golden rule - Don’t do anything new at the event. From boots to bras and water vs sports drinks…if you haven’t tried it many times before – DON’T DO IT. This includes the walking part – even if you’re feeling great, stick to your practised pace and planned rest times. 100kms in 36 hours is a huge challenge for your body and mind, now is not the time to start testing it further.

Fundraising target

2012 Total: $741,954.22 (74%)

   

Target total: 1.0 million
Fundraising deadline: 20-Jun-12

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Congratulations

Huge congratulations to all teams who took on the challenge of walking 100km in 36 hours at Oxfam Trailwalker 2012. Whilst the physical challenge may be over the fundraising challenge continues toward raising $1 million before the fundraising deadline of June 20, 2012. With your help we can get there!

Oxfam Trailwalker raised $850,000 to fund our programme work