life is a journey...

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
-- Confucius

This quote used to be my favorite during collage days but I had never imagined that I would ever reach so closer to its literal meaning. (how? read along.. :))

Walking is a very primitive activity, something we learn even before we learn to speak properly.

The idea for this walk was implanted (remember the context of Inception movie) few years ago in my mind by my friend Shishirji (and his wife Shaifali) who both have gone through this beautiful yet painful part of their respective journeys. They successfully completed this walk years ago and the idea of "completing it one day" remained stuck in my mind.

So, in the beginning of this year when I was "planning" my vacations for the whole year (a new exercise I started recently ;-) ), I decided to concentrate on 4 things in this year. These 4 events would allow me to experience extraordinary and expand my existence.

First one was trekking trip to Sikkim in May end where I set many personal 'first time' and was an amazing experience.

Second one was this one: 200kms walking event in Nijmegen, Holland.
(remaining 2 are still a secret ;-) )

Info about the event:

Quoting from wikipedia:
"The International Four Day Marches Nijmegen (or Vierdaagse) is the largest marching event in the world. It is organised every year in Nijmegen in mid-July as a means of promoting sport and exercise. Participants walk 30, 40 or 50 kilometers daily, and, on completion, receive a royally approved medal (Vierdaagsekruis). The participants are mostly civilians, but there are also a few thousand military participants."

"The "vierdaagse" (Dutch for "Four day Event") is an annual walk that has taken place since 1909, being based at Nijmegen since 1916. Depending on age group and category, walkers have to walk 30, 40 or 50 kilometers each day for four days. Originally a military event with a few civilians, it now is a mainly civilian event. Numbers have risen in recent years, with over 40,000 taking part - including about 5,000 Military. It is now the world's largest walking event"

Barometer for 2011 (from http://www.4daagse.nl)

During the Marches the Barometer can be found here. It shows the number of walkers that have dropped out or have finished every day.

Registrations	45,000
Registered on Sunday and Monday	42,812
Started Four Days Marches	41,316
Dropped out 1st day	1,209
Finished 1st day	40,107
Non-starters/dropped out 2nd day	868
Finished 2nd day	39,239
Non-starters/dropped out 3rd day	643
Finished 3rd day	38,596
Non-starters/dropped out 4th day	174
Finished Four Days Marches	38,422

So out of 41,316 starting, 38,422 finished successfully... which is a HUGE success ratio making this event quite unique.

Stupid math:

being an engineer can't help not doing some maths. ;-)
(I) usually take 3 steps to walk 2 meters, which makes =>

-> ~1500 steps to walk 1km
-> ~1500*50= 75, 000 steps in 50kms (distance which was covered in one day)
-> ~1500*50*4 = 300, 000 steps during the whole event (3 lacs)

which is just crazy if you look it from this perspective.
no I didn't count them while walking else I wouldn't have been able to walk at all ... :D
but yes my perception about numbers/math evolved during all this, now I can feel numbers in a better way.

Preparations:

Of course, it needed lot of preparations, specially for a person like me who has started sportive activities just 2 years ago.
It has two equally important aspects
1. physical training
2. mental training (it might sound surprising but this part is even more important than the first one). why? it may become clear when you read along the experience part and specially the day2..

I started to train in mid-April so around 3-months before the event. which also means that during these 3 months I had to plan other things around training schedule. specially the Sikkim trip in may-end came on top along with preparations for that.. and it was a big challenge to maintain consistency and not get diverted from the plan.. (being a human I did get diverted from time to time ;-)) but I remember some of those outings/parties/trips had to be sacrificed.
but I appreciate my friends for their patience and understanding in this phase, specially to my roomie Subbu :-)

In the very beginning (in March) it was more to test myself if it is in my capacity and I should register/plan it or not.

I still remember that day I walked first time 40 kms (27th March as you can see below), between Antibes-Antibes-Nice while it was raining for half the time. (took around 12 hours and gifted me back many blisters in both the feet.)
it was a very tough test to begin with but gave me enough confidence to proceed for this event.

in order to walk more and more in a week I walked back from office to home many times (probably 15-20 times in total).
training target was to achieve/increase weekly distance.

following is distance graph for individual day (hope it is not too much ;-) ).

This is on Calender week basis (ok ok .. I know what you are thinking ;-) )

This is the last one which shows the total distance covered.

So, as you can see that I am not so far from touching 1000 kms mark.. (hence my initial remarks of being so close to the quote ;-) )

Setup:

I reached Nijmegen on Sunday evening and reserved few square meters (for my tent) in a beautiful camping site called Winkelsteeg. it was around 5-6 kms from starting/end point of the event. early morning buses would take me there.
First night, I tried to got used to sleeping in a tent/sleeping bag (seriously it takes some time), registered for the event and bought extra supplies for nutrition on Monday.
(being a pure vegetarian, nutrition/food supplies had to be managed with extra care. 3 restaurants in the camping site didn't have much to offer apart from salads/cheese sandwiches)

Tuesday: endless walk

Day started at 3:00 am.. got ready, took bus to reach starting point and started to walk .. it was just amazing to see so many people walking together ... quite interesting to notice their getup/gear and everyone greeted the residents who had placed their chairs outside their houses (with blankets to add to coziness) with goede-morgen (good morning).
there were so many people (specially young) up in the streets in early morning to greet us .. everybody was shouting at us.. "Success" or "I want to see you tomorrow as well".. and hi five by hundreds of them.. it raised our spirits to new heights..
in many senses the treatment was no less than as if we were going for a war or something ... their message was not to give up and as you can see from barometer above, most of the walkers survived ;-)

after crossing a beautiful bridge we were in countryside and there was more space between walkers as almost everyone walks at a different pace.

It was the day where walkers cover the longest distance out of 4 days (52 kms)... so it was a very long day ... in last 10kms or so I lost my patience and was a bit desperate to finish (which means you feel very tired suddenly). I felt this part of the walk to be just endless...
it took 12hours to finish on first day (from 4:30 am to 4:30 PM).

when we reached near the finishing point there were thousands of people to greet and cheer us.. all clapping for us... the scene and enthusiasm of people is so overwhelming that you forgot all pain and tiredness for some time.. you are so special for them.. there are the moments to realize what every walker is trying to achieve is an heroic act.

I was damn tired and to my horror I already had two blisters in fingers of my right foot.

when I reached camping site it was like miles to walk from bus stop to tent (those 500 meters were difficult every day). i was not able to take steps longer than a feet.
but funny part was that almost everyone in the camping site was in more or less same situation.. scene was like as an unknown disease has suddenly infected the whole territory.. no was was able to walk normally.
only question was 'how much funny condition' who is in. :D
at many occasions I crossed people and we just started laughing at 'our' situation. we shared something which didn't require words.

Muscle pain was ok after some stretching and a hot water shower but I was in pain (while walking) due to blisters.
so big question was what would I do following morning? so far my rule with blisters was simple - blisters means stop walking and wait until they heal but now what?

end of day1/beg of day2 is the time when most of the people quit (among who don't finish ) .. with determination to come next year with a better training ..
was I also going in that direction ?

I talked to a wise fellow camper who had already completed this march 8 times before.
he told me.. "my friend! almost no one completes this walk without blisters and walking with blisters (so bearing the pain) is part of the deal and actually the definition of joy and pain is all defined in our minds" he also said that you will be fine next morning to walk another day so don't worry.

those words were like magic to me.. I recomposed myself and continued with remaining routine .. (i.e. puncturing blisters so that fluid comes out, finish early dinner and go to bed by 8:00PM).

I believed in his words and magically I felt so fresh (comparatively) the next morning when I woke up at 3:00 am again.

Wednesday: pain and agony

my body had amazingly recharged itself during the night (training was helping), but the blisters... uffff!!
there was pain associated on each step.. I don't have much experience of bearing pain.. i usually get irritated if some part of the body sends such signals.
so there was a huge mental challenge to bear the pain for the rest of the day (actually next 3 days .. ).
I tried to co-relate myself with characters in those numerous war movies where they are wounded and they bear the great pains to continue their duties .. I respected them much more than ever ... and I found my pain to be negligible ... (btw, I somehow always have been fascinated by military)
it was the time to push myself and expand ..

the trick was to start walking slowly and then increase pace after 50 meters and so and then keep walking so that the respective body parts becomes kind of numb and you don't feel much until you stop walking again (when it comes back again).. repeat same cycle each time you take a break.

and mentally, biggest challenge was to "not think about the pain or the walk itself"... in my opinion it becomes your biggest asset if you can train yourself to divert (actually distract) your thoughts according to situation. (sorry, if it doesn't make much sense but then may be you haven't been there yet)

the routine of starting slowly, speeding up, continuing and stopping went on for the whole day and that day it took 12:30 hrs to complete 48 kms.

again a BIG crowd welcomed in last kms to convey what you are doing is extraordinary.

but after second day's walk I felt much better .. first due to the fact that I was able to mange pain successfully and that I had already completed 50% of it.. and muscles were also in not that bad shape.. in fact they were much better than the previous evening. A hope was rising somewhere in a corner that maybe, maybe I will be able to complete the walk (previous evening I had become really skeptical and had stopped to think about it)

when I reached camping site, I noticed that few tents had disappeared .. my fellow camper who had given me magic advice had numerous blisters in both his feet too and I had 2 new blisters to deal with in left foot.

Thursday: walking 7-hills in rain

Holland is remarkable flat ... but circuit on this day had last part passing through a terrain which is relatively 'hilly'...

beginning of third day was not so special in terms of my codition.. i was tired, i had pain on each step due to blisters but it was not new.. actually each day one walks for so long that you become quite habitual to things just in a single day ..

but during the day I had a new issue.. my neck had started to pain.. the part where neck connects to backbone.. reason was not clear but most probably it was due to the fact that I was carrying many things in my bag.
temporary solution (which I then used for nearly two days) was to hold and pull one strap of the bag by hand to that presses against the shoulder (weird but it worked) leaving only one hand free for hi-fives and returning greetings :D ...

I had lost my original pace (established during training) on the first day itself and specially after having blisters..
in the last part, rain also thought of joining others in greeting us .. being slower I was late in reaching the last segment so it lasted longer for people like me.. around 2 hrs we walked in rain.. everybody had something or other to protect themselves from rain.. I had raincoat but nothing to protect my shoes from becoming wet.. eee!! your shoes are the most important element for walking (after the legs/feets itself ;-) ) and switching to backup shoes at this time could spoil everything.

so when we reached back I stuffed lot of paper napkins inside the shoes in the hope I can still use them next day and will not have to go for backup shoes.

It took 12:30 hrs this day.. but no new blisters.. in fact pain in old blisters was reducing but by this time my leg muscles had started to give up and they started to complain badly..

3 days were over.. they say that if you suffered 3 days already then you are almost sure to survive 4th day as well.
I went to bed at 8:00pm like other days.

but it is never that simple...

Friday: final day

I woke up suddenly due of dry throat and was shocked to notice slight light in the tent.. have I overslept, did alarm went bad and didnt ring ... oh my god what is it!!!
and I looked at the wrist watch and it read something like 10:46 (I was expecting it to be like 2:00 or 3:00 am)... at that moment it made no sense at all.. I thought it is some kind of delusion due to extreme fatigue and I have been taken away from reality.. (by that time I had already done the dream-test by biting myself to confirm that I am awake) ... in that state of mind the next thing came to me that probably watch is malfunctioning so I should check another source.. I searched for mobile and to my surprise found similar time on it.. is someone playing tricks with me was my next thought (I had re-watched Amelie movie recently so a similar scene was in my thoughts). next thought was to cross-check with some else outside my tent.. I first drank lot of water sensing symptoms of dehydration .. then went to toilet and asked a fellow guy what time it is .. he said it around 11:00 of the evening..
then I (fully) realized this simple fact that I had woken up only after few hours of sleep (which was so unusual as previous days I was waking up just before the alarm ..)
one of the reasons to not accept this fact was that I was feeling unusually fresh for such a short sleep (but there was pain in muscle which hadn't gone like other days.)
so in the state of delusion i drank lot of water so that I don't wake up again and tried to sleep ... but

I had stupidly consumed too much water... oh boy!! I wanted to sleep but ....... I had to wake up 2-3 times afterwards to go to toilet..
so when I woke up finally for the long day ahead, water level in my body was ok but I had missed a mandatory good sleep.

fortunately my shoes had dried up well so I could use them and started the walk .. a bit earlier than the other days (at 4:15am).
Due to neck pain I had kept the minimum things in my bag this time.. didn't even carry the raincoat (which proved to be a mistake later on).

contrary to weather prediction based on which I had left extra clothing, it drizzled on some occasions and most of all it was windy and cold.. I made me shiver at my occasions specially in open fields... I tried to walk between people so that I am less exposed (like penguins do on north pole :D) and tried to walk faster so that body generates more heat..

this day I was in a very different mindset as if I was lost somewhere.. didn't look at people much.. didn't do many hi-fives .. I just tried to walk undisturbed (while managing the neck pain which had grown significantly since last day).. and my fears were that I am quite tired and i may run out of fuel on the way..
and it was happening exactly like that.. during one break I didn't realize that I had already rested for 20mins whereas it was supposed to be a 5-10mins break..
my body wanted to stop walking and stop doing everything including the thinking/timekeeping part..
so I had to continue... after all 'Glory' was not that far away (line written specially for my friend Jose ;-) )
strange enough when I completed the remaining distance I felt almost nothing.. I had almost no emotions when I crossed the finish line... it was very strange.. I was kind of numb.. neutral about almost everyting.. on contrary when I had finished the first day I almost had tears in my eyes..

So the walk was over and I went on to submit my control-card and received my medal.. I just sat there and looked at the medal expecting that it may speak .. and trying to believe that it was actually happening.. I had sustained which seemed impossible in last few days.. my hands were at this moment were shaking a bit while I was trying to believe that it was all for real .. I had finished the toughest walk of my life.

On the last day and in the last part you are gifted with flowers .. not everybody gives flowers to everyone but people choose their heroes and give you only if they really mean it.

I too received (at least 3 of them) and I received them from heart.

People say that you enjoy it most on the final day but it didn't happen to me.. may be I will have to go again for the missing part.. :D

Acknowledge:

I would like to thank all my friends for their support and motivation without which it wouldn't have become a reality. some of you even came to walk with me for practice walks. :-)

I would like to thank my father who being a farmer have done many strenuous activities in his time.. it always reminded me that I have got it in me too. I would like to thank my family who believed in me that I could do it.

Special thanks to my roomie Subbu who always supported and motivated me.. never complained about my long absences and less contribution in household activities. Dude, you simply rock :-)

one video which I captured (several clips actually) during the walk, don't miss the last part from last day where walk was about to finish and we were being treated like heroes: