rock on. bring good socks and kick some ass.

Woohoo! I wondered if you did it last time you talked about it. Keep us updated on your training progress. Oh, and those people that think you're mad? They're just jealous ... don't give them another thought.

Right on!

FYI, bunnies, this is what the website says this Kododa challenge is:

Participants will trek a 96km course that leads along fire trails, crosses 12 creeks and summits 5,000m of vertical elevation. The goal is to finish as a complete team of four in honour of the spirit forged on the Kokoda Track in 1942: mateship, endurance, courage and sacrifice.

So, is your team supposed to do this in July 2011 or 2012? Either way, big admiration from me!

Yeah, 2011. One of the biggest challenges will be not the physical effort, but the sleep deprivation, as we have to walk through the night (there's nothing to prevent us stopping for a sleep, but the advice is that no team has ever stopped for more than an hour at a time and been able to finish). We start at 7.00 am on the Saturday and are hoping to finish at about 11.00 am Sunday or a bit earlier, leaving us an nine-hour buffer before the 39-hour cut-off.

We have our first 'on-course' training session this Sunday, although we have all been training 4-5 days a week for about a month now. For anyone interested, I've been doing the following:
Monday afternoon - ~60 floors of stairs at work (up and down)
Tuesday afternoon - ~6 km walk around the city after work
Wednesday night - 60 minute boot camp session
Friday morning (5.30!) - 60 minute runners' group training
Friday afternoon - another session in the stairs
Sunday morning - 15-25 km walk on-course.

I've got over being tired and sore all the time, but have found that I am hungry a lot now - eating much more, but still losing weight.