Walk Going The Distance!

On January 1st 2015 ultra-distance race-walker, Richard McChesney announced that his goal for the year was to break four national long-distance race-walking records ranging from 100 miles to the greatest distance walked within a 48 hour period. This is the personal account of his training and racing during 2015 in his quest to break those records. It is a story that incorporates the drama of races ranging from 100 miles around a hilly street circuit, three days around a dusty track and a trail race from Birmingham to London along the Grand Union Canal plus much more. Richard considers himself an ordinary everyday type of guy with a normal job, a family, and a passion to push himself to the limit. After taking up long-distance race-walking in 2012 Richard had completed three races of 100 miles or longer before setting his ambitious goals for 2015. Did he achieve those goals? All is revealed in his book WALK - Going The Distance!

Some quotes from the book:

• "I was in serious pain every time I lifted my foot off the ground and every time I put my foot back down again"
• "... another 6 hours of this torture was not a pleasant thought"
• "... in a 24 hour race you start to lose all sense of time"
• "... went the wrong way and ended up in a graveyard at 2am"
• "... my fast walking was faster than all but 46 runners between 71 and 91 miles. I was on fire!"
• "... and for the next six hours I was expelling all the food I had consumed during the day at 20 to 30 minute intervals"
• "It was like I was on auto-pilot now. A very slow auto-pilot..."
• "For the first time in 15 or more hours I felt good!"
• "He asked me to repeat what I had just said as he thought I said I had walked 145 miles!"
• "With daytime temperatures of up to 39 degrees and night time temperatures in the 20's, this was definitely the hottest race I have ever competed in"

________________________________________ Hopefully the quotes above have inspired you to read my book. The book is a consolidation of the race reports I have written from my five major races in 2015 - all between 100 miles and three days in distance - as well as my thoughts on my training throughout 2015. Writing this book has being a form of therapy for me. A kind of a debrief after a long hard year as well as an opportunity to reminisce - remembering both the highlights (like walking from Birmingham to London down the Grand Union Canal and walking laps of a 1,000 meter circuit in France for three consecutive days) and the hardships (you will have to read the book to find out more about the hardships). I have written this book during a period after my last race when I would rather be out walking but need to give my body and mind time to recover before I start training for what promises to be a huge 2016. I also wanted to write this to show you what you can achieve. I haven't really done anything special. I have simply gone for some very long walks - and then written and reflected about them. Hopefully some of the people that read this might be inspired to chase their own goals. And I am hoping that I might sell a few copies of this book in order to earn some money to help fund my races for next year. But more about that later in the book. Thanks in advance for buying a copy. I hope you enjoy it. Richard