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At 8pm on a recent rainy Saturday night, Barb Lambert set out on a long walk home. The almost 75-year-old, from Mangawhai challenged herself to walk 75 kilometres in 24 hours, to celebrate her milestone birthday.
A runner in her youth, Lambert took up race-walking in her forties and has competed in marathons across the country, the most recent being in Hamilton last June. That was the start of her rigorous training programme for the 75km walk. The walk was rigorous of her own making – as Barb follows a conscious approach to walking, allowing her body to dictate pace and duration.
Lambert had a sound plan for her birthday challenge. She chose the weekend for its full moon to light her path, but the weather didn’t come to the party. She eventually embarked in the rain, under grey skies, breaking up the walk into four hour shifts with rests in between. The only thing she didn’t plan was her route.
“I just wandered in any direction I fancied,” Lambert laughs, making it sound like a stroll along the beach rather than a 75-kilometre endurance walk. Her only criteria were to start and end at home, using it as a pit stop to grab a bite, a hot shower and to put her feet up in between shifts. Despite chillier than expected Spring weather, Lambert maintained a steady pace of 5km/h even through to the last shift when the wind picked up and her body was tiring.
Friends and family joined Lambert at different points of her walkathon, swapping shifts in-between to make sure she was never alone. In the truest test of friendship, she even had a close friend wake up and join the 3am shift. That was Lambert’s highlight, “I had the most wonderful support from friends and my husband,” she said.
At 6pm on the Sunday, around twenty friends joined Lambert to walk the last two kilometres to the finish line, before celebrating together at her home. Hard work and dedication to keeping fit has paid off but Lambert doesn’t just do it for the exercise, “I love it.” The day after her walkathon, she was feeling so good that she even headed out on a gentle walk.
Despite their camaraderie and support, Lambert confesses it hasn’t inspired a trend with her friends, “Funny enough, nobody seemed interested in doing it themselves!” Though she has given thought to her next challenge, “I did think about doing another 25km and banking them to celebrate my 100th birthday.”
