On 12^th September, members of the Spabreaks.com team will set out on a 100 mile walk to be completed over four days to raise money for cancer support charity, Look Good Feel Better as part of the first #bekindtoyou Women’s Wellness Week … so we thought we had better ask for a little help when it came to training!  Fortunately, personal trainer, Chris Young from Pennyhill Park has been on hand to help!

By now you should be well into your training for the Women’s Wellness Week Walk … What?! You’ve only done a couple of 10 mile walks in the last couple of weeks!?  All is not lost, but you are going to need to pull your finger out!  For the next few weeks I recommend walking four times each week, ideally on consecutive days as would be the case in the walk proper.

The main long distance walk should be done on your quietest day, and the other walks should be built around that. If your quietest day is Sunday then your schedule might look like this:

Friday – 40% of main long walk

Saturday – 40% of main long walk

Sunday – main long walk

Monday – 60% of main long walk

Or this might suit better

Sunday – main long walk

Monday – 60% of main long walk

Tuesday – 40% of main long walk

Wednesday – 40% of main long walk

I hope you get the idea!

This looks all well and good except that we still have to determine what your main long walk will be, and thus the distance of the other walks as well.

Ideally you should start training six weeks before a walk like this, with the following plan as a guide.  I would suggest that Week 1 is a fairly conservative estimate of a distance you could do without killing yourself in the process. You should have a good idea of this from your training thus far.

The overall goal is 25 miles per day for four consecutive days. With this in mind, along with understanding the motivation you will get from doing the event itself, I estimate that if you can walk for 25 miles and can get up the next day and walk for 15 miles, then you should be fine. The issue right now is getting from where you are, to where you need to be.

If you can currently walk for 10 miles on your main long walk then I’d recommend increasing your walks as follows:

Week 1 – Long Walk = 13 miles, 60% = 7.8 miles, 40% = 5.2 miles

Week 2 – Long Walk = 16 miles, 60% = 9.6 miles, 40% = 6.4 miles

Week 3 – Long Walk = 19 miles, 60% = 11.4 miles, 40% = 7.6 miles

Week 4 – Long Walk = 22 miles, 60% = 13.2 miles, 40% = 8.8 miles

Week 5 – Long Walk = 25 miles, 60% = 15 miles, 40% = 10 miles

Week 6 – The event!!

If you’re starting from a more advanced position than 10 miles then simply decrease the jumps taken. If you’re currently at 18 miles then just add a mile per week.

Also if you’re using this plan for a future walk which might not be as challenging, simply decide on the distance that your main long walk needs to be at the week before the event, ascertain where you are now and divide the difference by the number of weeks you have until the event.

If you’re doing a 15 mile walk and you currently walk for five miles with 10 weeks to go until the event, simply add a mile per week to your main long walk.

If with this event or any other, you happen to miss a walk then reschedule it for later in the week. If you miss your main long walk then you’d need to recalculate all of your remaining training, so for the example stated above instead of increasing your main long walk by a mile each week it might be 1.5 miles, depending on the time remaining.

A Couple of Tips:

• Break in shoes sooner rather than later. Some prefer hiking boots and some prefer trainers, or you might opt for what is really a highbred such as “Trail Running Shoes”, which are pretty much like trainers but more sturdy.
• Fuel your sessions. I’d imagine there are more than a few of you who are doing all this with the specific intention of taking in tasty fuel!  As well as following a good, balanced diet, yes you need that protein for muscle repair, you might like to keep extra carbs handy. I like a carbo drink, look for those with “long chain glucose polymers”. Unfortunately many can’t stand the taste of these drinks, especially when exercising. These people could try the gel packs which many marathoners use, or good old Snickers bars or flapjacks. Please be aware that Snickers bars can get a little messy on a long walk, especially in hot weather.  Also remember that if you decide to fuel yourself with food rather than a carbo drink you will also need to take water with you – just in case the really obvious isn’t that obvious!

If you follow this programme and the tips mentioned above then this walk still won’t be a walk in the park – as it were. This is a long way; you will be wondering many times what the hell you are doing, but you will be well prepared, and when it’s all over you’ll have that satisfaction of a job well done!