It’s been two days now, since The Bloody Long Walk in Melbourne. I have been training for this 35k event for the past few months and have  looking forward to competing with my walking buddy and good friend Tina.

Well, I WAS looking forward to it, up until a few weeks ago, when I started to get pain under one foot. I did what I always tend to do. That was to ignore the pain and hope it goes away. In the last week, I did no walking at all, due to the pain, thinking that it was probably best to rest the foot, hoping all would be well on the day.

Lining  up st the start, with Tina, I was very nervous and apprehensive. I was going to give it my best shot, I had no doubt that I would be able to walk 5k, and I hoped to be able to walk 10k. But I had serious doubts that I would be able to walk any further than that. I was stressed about not finishing, but more stressed about letting Tina down.

At the 10k mark, all was going well. There was pain, but so far it was manageable. Not too long after that everything went wrong. The pain in my foot was unbearable. Because of the way I was having to walk, pain developed in my knees, thighs and groin.

As the pain became worse, I made the devastating decision to pull out of the event. This is the first ‘Did Not Finish’ result that I’ve had and I was and still am, very unhappy about it.

Now that a couple of days have elapsed, I can look at the event more clearly, I feel very proud of myself, that I managed to walk 20k with an injury.! I really did not think that would be possible, at the start.

My plan now is to get my feet right. As soon as they have healed I will set s date to walk 35k. For no other reason than to prove to myself that I can do it.