Pushing The Limits

I have always found a good way to keep motivation up is to set little challenges or big ones!

This month I have set a big one :-)

On the 9th of October, I'll be hiking 50km from Luxor to Esna a journey I don't think any foreign woman has done! I'll be going along with my co-conspirator Mr. Ken.

So this weekend we decided to take a training hike setting out at 5 am. Being earlier it was nice and cool and we made a great start clocking up 1km every 10 minutes, we were eating up the km's and soon made it to 15km. Because the route we had originally chosen was shaping up to be shorter than we had hoped for we decided to change it so we could get as close to 50km as possible to really push ourselves to make sure we can make it.

Now I have discovered walking on tarmac/asphalt is awful!! I would have thought it would be easier to hike over but nope! That long thud, thud, thud of the same for km after km is just draining and really hard on the feet and joints, this is when good footwear really comes in to it own.

20km seemed to take forever to get to, the road we had decided to take was a long one much longer than we had realized! The sun was also starting to get hot as by this point we had been walking for over 4 hours.

It was around the 25km that my feet and legs started to get sore I could feel a blister starting to form on one of my toes so we stopped to readjust before setting off again.

My God, it was hard to get going again! my legs had started to cramp up and my head was all over the place.

It's odd how weather plays such a massive effect on your ability to get the job done you could understand if it was pelting with rain but having the sun out you'd think it would be easier.

But in some ways, it's harder, you are hot and sweaty, and trying to put one foot in front of the other can feel a real struggle.

It's in these moments you need to dig deep as your mind starts to play tricks on you and your aches and pains seem to amplify.

For me I know I'm feeling low when my ability to chat starts to dry up it's then, I know I need to dig in and use all the negatives I'm feeling to propel me on.

This helped and getting cross with myself I shook off the pains and kept going and we sailed through 30km.

Coming off the main roads and taking a sidetrack, It felt great to get soft ground underfoot even if I could feel every stone through my trainers!

I knew my limit was nearly reached but also knew I only had 5km to go so then set a goal, I needed to get down my walking time from the 12 minutes per km which it had gone up to, to 10 minutes per km which it had been.

So on I went watching Ken's backpack ahead of me striding out faster so I could try and catch him and get my time down. It's at times like these that it's good to be competitive.

The last few metres the feet really didn't like me but we made it! in just under 7 hours we had accomplished 35km. We had also learnt a lot about what we needed to change for the forthcoming event.

I know that the 50km will be hard and it will really push me to the maximum but what is life without a good challenge and that feeling we get once finished is like no other.

So I say to you, get out there push your limits, go further than your comfort zone at the time it will feel like walking through hell but once your the other side the feeling of accomplishment is worth everything.

In the famous words of Frida Kahlo 'We Can Endure Much More Than We Think We Can'

Until next week

Put your best foot forward

L xx

if you would like to sponsor me for my hike on the 9th October please click the link for my sponsor page

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/lesley-hammamtrek