Preparing to walk a marathon

Jump back to the night last April when I confidently announced that I was going to walk a marathon in 7 1/2 hours.......  That's a very "Sally" thing to do - rashly make such a bold committment, then wonder how the hell I'm gonna deliver - because deliver I must!  Once I've set myself a challenge, I have to face it!  I'm a box ticker (that stupid box again!) so am always very uncomfortable if, for any reason my plans aren't progressing.

So the first job in the cold light of day was to verify my initial calculations with a treadmill and a calculator to just check that my challenge was physically possible.  Off to the gym for some science (I really should get a job on Mythbusters - I'd have to work on my welding but I'd be ace at the rest!)......  My maximum comfortable sustainable walking speed was 6 kilometers per hour which is 3.7 miles per hour.  At a constant speed of 3.7 miles per hour, 26.2 miles would take 7 hours and 8 minutes. so yes, it was possible, but with minimal stopping and no slacking of pace!  I have GPS and a clock on my phone, so I knew that I could monitor my pace, and I'm a determined beggar (OK stubborn!) when I get the bit between my teeth, so I knew I could push through whatever pain my body threw at me and sustain it; but what would I actually have to stop for?   Being female, I can easilly eat and walk, drink and walk, talk and walk and even facebook, text and phone and walk (woman, know thyself :-) ), so no need to stop for any of those life essentials   But wee and walk?  I guess I could but I wasn't going to!  So the only thing that I would have to stop for was to wee!  In fact I had a whole 22 minutes to wee.  Luxury!  I was happy, I'd figured out how to do it!

So I then, excitedly, started telling anyone who would listen all about the latest crazy Sally scheme!  One of my first victims was Sam at one of our post-work coffee drinking pow-wows sat at my kitchen table, and I ran all of the science past her.  Her eyes started to twinkle.  "You up for it too?" I asked hopefully.  "Yes as long as it's after Edinburgh" were the best words I've heard all year! 

Sam was running the Edinburgh marathon on the 22nd May, and obvoiusly wasn't going to do anything to jeapordise her training, so she went and got her diary and we settled on Sunday 5th June as "Walking Marathon Day".  "What if the weather's rubbish?" was the immediate joint husbandly response.  "We're doing it anyway" was the stubborn united wifely reply!