One of the highlights for the team in completing the Oxfam Trailwalker in 11h4m was undoubtedly a ‘top 10’ finish (we finished as the 5th full team and 7th team overall). The big question we all were asking ourselves was how we had achieved this – exceeding the expectations of ourselves and everyone else.
Setting a stretch goal
In the initial planning for our team we had agreed on a stretch goal of finishing by sunset. We knew this gave us about 10 hours with a 5pm sunset and would require a 5.5km/h pace – without any training under the belt we thought this sounded reasonable. As the training commenced we began to adjust our expectations back toward an 11 hour pace (5km/h) but much more toward 12 hours once breaks were included.
Tracking progress
We didn’t specifically set milestones or undertaken any major analysis of our performance as we went through the training experience. But with Strava we are able to evaluate each longer training walk.
Mid way through our training, Jon & I completed a decent walk of 30km at a pace of about 5.3km/h so we were thinking we were looking good. However, our expectations took a slight hit when our last long training walk ended up under 5km/h despite it being across fairly flat ground for on the initial part of the real course. In short, we were back to thinking about the 12 hour target.
Under 2 weeks out from the event and we had a major cause for concern as Jon was admitted to hospital and suddenly the whole event was at risk. Up until this point, our largest team risk was the absence of Ian at any of our training events. Individually, each of us was time poor and the planned training activity seemed to be below-expectations for everyone else in the team (according to Strava).
Being flexible and adjusting the target
As I’ve noted elsewhere, on the day we recognised early in the event that we were exceeding our own expectations as we entered CP1 in 8th place and started to believe a top 10 finish was possible – but being careful to note that 3/4 of the team had not completed over 30km in either training or other events, and it was still a long way to the finish. However, our stretch goal made a resurgence and we were suddenly racing the sun and pushing to finish by 5:30pm (civil twilight).
On the day, it was with some surprise to the team that as we passed the 35km mark of the Oxfam Trailwalker that this suddenly was within potential grasp – at 1:30pm we had completed 34km and averaged 5.2km/h (including our main break). We now had 21km to go with 3.5 hours until sunset and 4 hours until civil twilight – we weren’t going to make sunset (5.7km/h) but civil twilight was within reach (5.2km/h).
The next 10km to CP3 would take us a bit over 2h (about 4.7km/h) and then final 12km to the finish took us 2h20 (5.2km/h). A chance encounter with the QUT team Happy Feet as we exited CP3 saw our pace quicken substantially with the first 4km of this segment taking a little over 40 mins at a pace of 5.7km/h – a 20% jump on our CP2-CP3 pace. Clearly comparative performance can be more influential than comparison purely to a stretch goal!
Celebrate victories and recognise success
A key aspect of what we did, even if not fully acknowledged at the time, was to celebrate success along the way and recognise the contribution that each person was making to the team success. We constantly checked in each with other, coached and supported each other, and took turns to set the pace for the group. These small milestones and celebrations undoubtedly assisted with our momentum and overall success.
These Suits Are Made for Walkin 
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