Photos from the hike. More to come! Click on the slideshow to see the full album.

Highlights: Jeff loves natures, Jeff under the peach tree...

Labels: photos, rae

We actually did it. I'm lying here on my comfy futon after hiking 100km across mountains in the rain for the Oxfam Trailwalker Challenge. I can't feel my feet. My whole body is screaming at me, wondering why I put it through this torture. I'm still pushing through the pain like I pushed through it this past weekend.

I am so proud of our team. We crossed the finish line together at 3am on Sunday morning, completing the entire course in 42 hours (ジュスト！). Ours was the only Shizuoka ALT team to finish with all four members. We placed 101st out of about 190 teams and about 60th in teams that finished with all members. We trained together, we mocked Jeff together, we finished together.

It was the hardest thing I have ever done physically and mentally. Seeing other hikers drop out made me realise even more the enormity of what we were doing. It was really tough.

That's all for now. I'll write a longer post maybe later today when I'm more awake. Hopefully my sleeping pattern will return to normal soon and I won't be waking up at 5.30am every morning.

Labels: rae

We're leaving in 10 minutes for Odawara.

Tonight, we'll stay at a hotel only a 15-minute walk from the Start Line. And tomorrow morning at 9:00am, we'll be off with 189 other teams!

We're excited, we're ready, we're nervous... all of that. Wish us luck, we'll need it!!

Jessie

Labels: jessie

After reading Ken's post I have to say: maybe we should place bets on where and when Jessie will descend into her giggle-fest along the hike? It was checkpoints 5-6 during our 50km hike from checkpoints 4-7 of the Oxfam hike. I think there's a strong chance it will be there again. I mean, that winding road goes on forever. But, there's also a strong possibility it will be around 5am on Saturday morning when the sun comes up through the haze and we finally see how sweaty and gross we are and Jeff starts talking about yoga.

Also: bets on which songs Jeff will rip off. Last time it was the Proclaimers "I Would Walk 500 Miles", and don't forget Afroman's "Because I Got High." This time we'll have music (thanks to mini-speakers) so there are endless possibilities. Oh, the possibilities...

Labels: rae

So it has finally arrived. The day that we put on our calendars months ago less than 48 hours away. We have done the training, raised the money (so close to our goal of ￥300,000!) , and come together as a team. That last part is what has made our team stand out for me. While we were friends before this, not all friends make good teams. These ones have. We all bring our own strengths to the group and have meshed together incredibly well. It's a good thing too because we are going to need the strength and support of the team to keep on going those last 20km when we are sleep deprived, aching, and facing the toughest part of the course. While some teams could be doubting whether or not their teams will be there mentally when they get to that point, I am just wondering which one of us will step up and push us on. Whether it is Rae just putting her head down and forging ahead when the rest of us are dragging, Jessie sending us into a giggle-fest that makes us forget about the pains in our feet, Jeff creating a new team song that occupies our minds with something besides the mountain in front of us, or me quoting my family motto, "Just keep putting one foot in front of the other," I know someone wil step up when needed.

Well, there is my 2 yen before the big walk. I will see everyone on the other side hopefully with some adventures to tell and pictures to show.

Labels: ken

As the admin of our team blog I have the best job – I get to update our fundraising thermometer. I get a little buzz each time I update the totals from the Just Giving website and refresh our blog to see how much the thermometer has risen. Three days out from the hike we're two tiny bars off our goal of ¥300,000. Bloody brilliant!

I remember our first meeting at my place when we were sitting around filling in the entrance form for the event and deciding how much we wanted to raise. The minimum total to participate in the event was ¥120,000, but we thought why not raise the stakes? So ¥300,000 it was. Looking back we've done an amazing job of fundraising. We sat around at that first meeting writing down ideas for fundraising but it's been our family and friends who have really helped us out with very generous donations. It's extremely humbling. Our schools have also been fantastic in allowing us to collect money.

But that's just the fundraising part. I can't believe we set off on our hike the day after tomorrow. I am getting so nervous, but I'm putting all that nervous energy into writing lists of what I'm going to pack, including clothes, food and miscellaneous things like my headlamp and loo paper. There's no way I'm carrying one gram more than I need to so I'm packing as light as possible and putting a lot extra into my bag for Toby when she meets us at Checkpoint 4. Then I can pick what I need to supplement what I'm already carrying (and also stop and make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches).

One thing I have decided on is that I will definitely be taking my SLR on the hike. I have been extremely slack with taking photos but I want to record our experience and of course post pics to our blog.

That's all for now. I'll go back to writing more lists xox

Labels: rae

There are 5 days until the Trailwalk. What have I done in the past few weeks? I've been busy with training, of course. Two weekends ago, Ken, myself and Sharla (of another team) hiked 27km along Checkpoints 1-4 of the course.

Everything went well; I learned more about what I need to bring/don't need, and whether my knee injury would sustain me (with knee supports, it did). We had a beautiful, and I mean stunning, view on the latter part of our hike. We were stopped in our tracks as we found ourselves facing a lake with picturesque hills in the background. We stood staring until we realized that Mt. Fuji - obscured by some fog but still visible - hovered symmetrically between two of the beautiful hills. The landscape was beautiful enough without Mt. Fuji, but its sudden appearance to our vision - it just killed me. I can't wait to get to that part on the actual hike.

And last weekend, I finished my final hike before the event. Sharla, Jeff, Marian and I intended to hike Checkpoint 7 to Finish... we didn't even make it to 8. Everything was going well until we ran into two guys on the trail; friendly guys, they were, from the UK and the US. We walked together, but somehow despite our 6 brains (and decent ones, I should hope), we ended up astray on a one-hour escapade off the trail. We made it back, but after an hour of walking, we realized that our unfortunate detour would prevent us from reaching Finish before the last bus left. We had no choice but to turn around. Our hike took 10 hours, and all I can say is, "I know for next time." We did, however, manage some beautiful views of the ubiquitous Fuji:

And, I received some retribution for my miseries. After the hike, I entered that sweet, sweet training phase known as "the rest period." For 2-3 weeks before an endurance event, athletes get to ease up on training to rest their muscles and recover from injuries. So what have I been doing two weeks before the event? Taking baths, resting, eating chocolate (is that part of training?) and sleeping in.

It's all part of my rigorous training schedule.

Life's tough.

But now, 5 days before the event, I am start to get a small case of the nerves. My gear is ready and my body is in great shape (my. legs. are. made. of. steel.) But my knee injury (caused by The Accident and aggravated by another fall on my bike) is still a concern. It's technically ok, but walking 30km might bother it a little. 50km might make it stiff. 70km might cause some swelling. And 90km might make me want to saw my leg off. The problem is, I don't know. I've got to fight these little demons. But in the end, I still -know- that I can do this thing. Like Ken said, this is what we're made to do. And, I know that I'm ready. It's almost time to do this thing.

Tonight, we have the final team meeting where we'll tie up all the loose ends. And, we get to talk about how many donations have come in! I promise not to complain about how annoying it was to receive almost 400 yen coins in my donation box at school:

Ok, who's the culprit?

Labels: jessie

Today at school I did some real good. I gave a speech about our Trailwalk to all of the students and teachers at my school, Oigawa High School. Normally I would not consider something like this blog worthy, but this is Japan. What I mean is that we live in a country that in just the last 70 years has both suffered through a devastating war on their home turf (my professor once described the bombings of Japan this way: "Imagine that 9/11 happened everyday for a year.") and ascended to being the world's second largest economy. With the national attitude that these experiences helped to mold comes an unsympathetic, bordering on harsh, view toward charity. When telling one Japanese friend of mine about Oxfam's project to help people in South Africa fight AIDS I was met with the response, "People in South Africa don't need our help!" After my further explaining the situation and Oxfam's purpose, my friend was quite understanding and supportive but I think the intial response is telling. It's not that Japanese, in general, are against the idea of chartiy at its core (I mean, who really is?), it's just that they feel that no matter how bad it is, people should be able to pick themselves up with their own strength. After all, they pulled off a pretty dramatic turn around within the lifetime of many people still alive today. While this can sometimes be a valid argument, in cases such as Darfur it lacks the needed perspective.

That's where my speech comes in.

While I am a teacher, sometimes it feels like the chance to teach kids something that can help them for their whole life seldom comes around. I think that today was one of those chances. As I stood up in front of the whole school and my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) translated my speech, I could see some very confused faces. How are walking 100km and raising money for people in Africa related? Why are you going through the trouble to help these people? All good questions for people whose lexicon does not include such words as fundraising or philanthropy. Judging from the comments I got afterwards, I think that my explaination of our event and Oxfam in general at least got the gears turning upstairs. I hope that through my talk I was able to convey to my students that these people have been put in situations where, despite these people fighting everyday to make it, they need the help of things like Oxfam to just survive. At the very least, I am happy to have introduced the idea of helping others who really need it to over 600 people who maybe had never thought about it in the same way before. Today, I can tell myself, "You are doing good."

P.S. Found the origin of the name Oxfam. Comes from the original name of the group founded in England in 1942, the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief

Labels: ken

Ten days to go. Ten days until we start hiking 100km across mountains, through forests and valleys and try to dodge giant mosquitoes at 3 o'clock in the morning. It feels like it was only last week that our team decided to do this thing and we were sitting in my apartment working out the details of our walk at our first team meeting. Now we're finalising our preparations, deciding what to pack and psyching ourselves up for the biggest physical and mental challenge of our lives.

What am I getting myself into?

I must confess, during the last couple of weeks I've let myself go a bit. It was Golden Week, Ted visited and, yes, we played computer games and watched movies, but we also go out and about, exploring Hiroshima, Nara and scaring ourselves at the haunted Hospital at Fuji Q. It was a busy two weeks and unfortunately I didn't get any running in... I'm making up for it this week. I've also had skin problems that I'm a bit worried about and resulted in seeing a crazy doctor last week who wore two face masks. A bit of overkill, I think.

Anyway, I think things are on track. I'm feeling good and I think I'm mentally prepared. Hiking checkpoints four to seven the other week really helped and I'm looking forward to hearing about the other parts of the hike when I see Jessie this weekend.

Labels: rae