total received funds
Sponsor our team and help us raise money for Oxfam Australia.
Our target is $4,000
Sponsor our team and help to overcome poverty and injustice.
We've raised $1,855.
$1,800 can train Mozambican women in issues of nutrition and reproductive health.
help us reach our target of
$4,000
Help us reach our target of $4,000.donate to our team
our top online donors
- Steve Marsh $405
Fundraising efforts from raffle tickets, chocolate sales, and donations.
$400 can pay for a year's worth of support counselling to South Africans living with HIV/AIDS.
- Steve Marsh $350
Raided my piggy bank of $2 coins. All in a good cause to get our fundraising started!
$350 can provide a year of home-based care for a person living with HIV/AIDS in South Africa.
- Anonymous $200
where does the money go?
24 February
Footsore Times - issue 2
The second issue of the Footsore Times is now out! With a circulation spanning 5 continents, the latest news from the team is available on request from any member of the team. Or you could just read the team's news here instead!
24 February
A personal view from James:
As we reach the half way mark in our training program, we have now walked well over 200km each over the past few months. I feel that our bodies are starting to condition for the 100km challenge in ahead. It’s surprising what your body is capable of once pushed. The most important part of the body to look after has been the feet. It is these muscles in your feet that give out way before the legs, and blisters, lots of blisters…..big blisters! The pain has been well worth the challenge & the cause. A highlight being our fundraising effort in the lead up to Christmas which saw Footsore & Fancy free peak at #21 on the Oxfam Trailwalker fundraising leaderboard. Our fundraising efforts continue into 2010 with the Trivia Afternoon on 28th March. Tickets are selling fast!
24 February
Two Down, But Not Out ...
Well much has happened with Footsore & Fancy Free since the first newsletter—they’ve walked the whole trail, they’ve begun fundraising in earnest, they’ve introduced running into the training, they’ve broken a couple of bones. But we’ll get to all that in good time! On the fundraising front, the team have had two strategies to date. The first, you may remember from the first newsletter, was a raffle for two rather mouth-watering hampers, and a slab of beer. If you are still hoping that you might have won, it is with regret that the team breaks the news to you that you haven’t. First prize went to Clay Wesener. Second prize went to Maria Constantinou, and third prize went to Kerry Walker. The second thrust of the team’s charitable events was selling Cadbury fundraiser packs of chocolate. If you are wondering why the work colleagues and families of the team are a little more wobbly than they used to be, you now know the reason! The third major fundraiser is a Trivia Afternoon to be held at Station 59 pub in Richmond on March 28th. The event promises to be a lot of fun, and if you want to secure a place, you need to contact one of the team NOW as tickets are selling fast!
24 February
Erin shares her thoughts:
Silly me, I was playing indoor soccer without shin-pads in early January and was kicked in my shin which resulted in a fracture. While it is only a small fracture, it is putting me out of training until at least the end of February. Oxfam is now only 9 weeks away, so I will have A LOT of work to do in March to try regain my fitness very quickly, I have definitely set a challenge for myself. On the fundraising side, I think we are doing pretty well. I’m really excited about our trivia afternoon and hopefully if it all goes to plan, then we should be close to our $4,000 pledge. I would really like to thank everyone for their support so far, it makes this challenge so much easier. Hope to see you all at our trivia afternoon on Sunday 28 March.
24 February
... Two down But Not Out ...
Training is going well for the team, and they now have all completed all sections of the trail at least once. With familiarity of the route, and with increasing fitness levels, the team has begun introducing running into the mix a little more. The intention for the Trailwalker event itself is to run as many of the flat parts and the gentle downhill sections as possible. In the team’s mind, there is a careful balance to be made between time on their feet, against fitness to run. The longer the number of hours the team spends on their feet, the more gruelling they expect to find the event. The ideal would be to run the whole trail to minimise the ‘time-on-feet’ aspect, but the team are the first to acknowledge that their fitness does not extend to this extreme! The best compromise is to move as quickly can be managed. Training experiments over 25 km, have shown that the fearless foursome can sustain running for 4/5 of this distance and walking for just 1/5, but it is generally acknowledge that this result cannot be extrapolated over the full 100 km! Many sections of the trail do not lend themselves to running, such as the Melba trail. After sliding and falling down this sharp downhill section, the team agreed that they actually preferred walking up the infamous Hackett’s Lane!
24 February
A few thoughts from Steve:
Well, I knew the training would be tough, but I didn’t expect broken bones! It’s sad when you get to a certain age and your bones start to get brittle! It was on a team training session from CP3 to CP6 when I managed to land awkwardly, and turned my right ankle. Now I often do this while running, and didn’t think too much about it, in spite of the rest of the team’s concern. We were only 5 km into the 25 km walk, and I was a bit reluctant to bale out so easily, especially as it was my car at the finish! When I finished, my ankle was very swollen. Subsequent x-rays showed that I had a small fracture on the head of my fibula. I’m now under the expert care of Chris Constantinou of the Melbourne Physio Group (116 Punt Rd, Prahran—03 9529 2258). If I thought training was painful, it seems like a breeze compared with the rehab! I’m hoping to be in shape to be back with a taped ankle for our first night training session. The lesson I’ve learned from the experience is not to spend too long looking at the map, and watch where I’m putting my feet!
24 February
...Two Down But Not Out.
One training session in January was aimed as seeing how much of the trail from the start to CP3 could be run. The plan was abandoned almost immediately when it became apparent that Erin was carrying an injury that made running extremely painful. A week earlier she had been kicked in the shin during a soccer game. Subsequent investigations showed that she had fractured her tibia. This wasn’t enough to stop her completing all but the last 3 km of the 35 km training session, however! Erin has subsequently taken time out to let her injury heal. Just a week later, Steve managed to turn his ankle during a session from CP3 to CP5. Only 5 km into the 25 km route for the day, he elected to continue to the end, in spite of the common-sense advice from Yonna and James. It later turned out that he had sustained a fracture in his ankle! So the training has continued with a depleted team, while Erin and Steve have endeavoured to beat the medical predictions by maxing-out on their rehab training to get back into the game as quickly as they can. This pretty much sums up the attitude of Footsore & Fancy Free—it will take more than a couple of broken bones for the team to walk away from the challenge they have set themselves. Please continue to support Footsore & Fancy Free in any way you can. Your help and generosity is greatly appreciated.
24 February
Yonna’s thoughts:
“I can't believe it's almost the end of February and it's only 8 weeks until the main event.. eek! Training has been going well and we've been sticking fairly closely to our planned fortnightly training sessions. Now that we've walked all the legs of the trail at least once, we're revisiting it again with the aim to run the flat sections. Running puts a whole other dimension to our training. Having walked the trail last year, I'm excited about the prospect of finishing earlier and not spending as much time on my feet but it is a lot harder on your legs and feet when running. Thank goodness this is a team event because there's no way I could (or would want to!) attempt this on my own. “I'm hoping the Nike+ sportswatch I got from my boyfriend for Christmas is going to give me the motivation to run faster or longer. So far, it's been great! I can see my pace, distance and time real time.. though come to think of it, I'm not sure if knowing that I have 99km left to go is a motivator.”
24 February
The Footsore & Fancy Free raffle prize winners
Congratulations to the following for their skill in buying the winning raffle tickets. Ist Prize goes to Carl Wesener. 2nd prize goes to Maria Constantinou. 3rd prize goes to Kerry Walker.
03 February
The odds are against us! (by Erin)
The last month has been very challenging for our team. At the moment there are two of us who are unable to train for a significant period of time due to injuries. I (Erin) will tell my story and leave it up to Steve to tell his. Erin's story: I was playing indoor soccer in the first week of January and was kicked in the shin by a girl on the opposition. It was painful, but I didn't think too much of it until a few weeks later when it was still swollen and bruised. We went on a 35km training session a few weeks ago and I had to pull out at the 30km mark (Belgrave) due to shooting pains up my shin. It turns out I have a chip / small fracture in my shinbone and am now only allowed to do swimming, cycling and cross-training until it's healed. If I heal in the time expected, I will have about 5-6 weeks of training time until Oxfam Trailwalker so hopefully I can build up my fitness very quickly to be able to achieve the time we set for ourselves. Needless to say, I am no longer playing indoor soccer.
05 January
Footsore & Fancy Free
Our first team photo! Here we see Steve, Yonna, Erin and James at CP6 after completing a training session from CP6 to the end of the course. Obviously the 27.4 km wasn't taxing enough as we all look ready to go again. Yeah, right! This picture marked the team's coverage of all the sections of the 2010 Melbourne Trailwalker course in training. We covered the trail over three training sessions on different weekends: Start to CP3; CP3 to CP6; and CP6 to the end. Adding our time for the three training sessions gives us a cumulative time of 20 hours 40 minutes to complete the 100km. We are hoping for a sub-20-hour time when we cover the whole distance for real in April.The next challenge is to inject a bit of running into the mix to increase our average speed.
09 December
Footsore & Fancy Free hamper raffle
Hamper raffle to be drawn on Sunday 20th December.
09 December
What the Oxfam Trailwalker means to Yonna:
“My memory of the Oxfam Trailwalker 2009 is a mixed bag of excitement and exhaustion, laughter and tears, throbbing feet and aching legs. But mostly, I remember the overwhelming sense of achievement and pride as my team crossed the finish line. That's one part of the reason why I'm back to do it all again in 2010. The other main reason is that it's my way of contributing something to the world. I believe everyone has their own way of giving back, be it sponsoring a child, volunteering, or donating to a charity like Oxfam. This is mine.”
09 December
THE CHALLENGE BEGINS ...
Welcome to the inaugural issue of ‘The Footsore Times’—the official newsletter of your favorite team for the 2010 Melbourne Oxfam Trailwalker challenge, ‘Footsore & Fancy Free’. So who are Footsore & Fancy Free? The team comprises Yonna Lim, Erin Johnson, Steve Marsh and James Russell. Yonna and Erin are old hands at endurance walking, having successfully completed Trailwalker 2009. When Yonna and Erin mentioned their interest in competing in 2010—at the finish-line of the 2009 event—their two erstwhile teammates decided that while Trailwalker 2009 had been a great experience and they had such a sense of pride at the finish line, once was enough. Steve and James were drafted in as replacements, and Footsore & Fancy Free was born. The team are united in two important goals: to help raise money for the important work carried out by Oxfam Australia; and to set themselves a worthy physical challenge. Yonna and Erin completed Trailwalker 2009 in 32 hours and raised $5,000, having pledged just $1,000. Having proved to themselves that they could actually complete the challenge and raise considerably more than they had estimated, they began to wonder just how fast they could complete the 100 km distance, and whether they would be able to raise a similar sum in fundraising a second year running. Yonna and Erin are convinced that there are many ways of improving upon the time set last year. They could not help but wonder how much time could be shaved off their previous achievement if they minimized the rest-time at check-points, jettisoned the longer break, and ran some of the course. Both Steve and James liked the idea of running some sections of the trail. James has been on a bit of a fitness mission over recent months, and as a graduate from a number of boot camps, was looking for a way to push himself that bit further. Steve, by his own admission, has always been a bit of a masochist for pushing himself hard and fast, and blames the British Army for this.
09 December
A personal view from James:
“With such a great lifestyle in Australia it is easy to assume that others enjoy the same standard of living as we do. However many people across the globe face daily challenges for the simple things we often take for granted. I see the Oxfam Trailwalker as an opportunity to raise awareness of global poverty plus participate actively in helping to improve the living conditions within developing countries. Training for the 100km walk also provides me with a personal challenge and a motivator towards keeping fit & healthy”.
09 December
... AND CONTINUES
Together, the team decided that 24 hours would make a great target to complete the 100 km course. Somewhere along the line, the effects of enthusiasm and bravado reduced this to 20 hours. To date, team training has comprised two sessions on the trail (Start-CP3 34.8 km; CP3-CP6 37.8 km), and a couple of sessions at the 1000 Steps in Sherbrooke Forest. A team training schedule has been drawn up, involving team sessions every two weeks. Each member of the team is also training individually during the non-team weekends and during the week. As the team gets fitter, they plan to increase more elements of running into their training, with the ultimate aim to run as many of the flat and downhill sections as fitness and safety allows. Of course, training is only half the story. The team have also met to strategize their fundraising efforts. The first fundraiser is a raffle to be drawn on Sunday 20th December. Ideal for a last minute Christmas present, or simply to indulge yourself, the main prize is a large hamper, valued at $200. Second prize is a medium-sized hamper, valued at $75, and third prize is a slab of beers. The team encourage friends, family and colleagues to contact them for a chance to win one of these fabulous prizes. Tickets are on sale now—$2 each, or three for $5. Concurrent with the raffle, the team has also purchased a number of fundraiser packs of chocolates from Cadbury, and will be selling these at their workplaces. Footsore & Fancy Free will also be hosting a quiz night in March 2010 to boost its fundraising efforts. More details will follow on this event Your support will be most welcome. You can support Footsore & Fancy Free by buying raffle tickets, buying chocolate, attending the quiz night or simply making an online donation. We will keep you posted on all the team developments as we continue to fundraise and train for Oxfam Trailwalker 2010.
09 December
Erin shares her motivations:
“I have two big reasons for participating in Oxfam Trailwalker 2010. The first is that this year I want to push myself further and complete the 100km in about 20 hours. The second reason, and the most important reason is to raise money and awareness for Oxfam. Oxfam do a wonderful job around the world fighting against poverty and injustice by providing people and communities with the skills and resources they need to help them create their own solutions to fight poverty and achieve their human rights. If I can raise money and awareness for Oxfam and all it costs me is 20 hours of exercise, then I think it’s well worth it.”
09 December
The Team Logo
The team logo for Footsore & Fancy Free utilises the three Fs to represent a succession of hills receding into the distance, and is intended to symbolise the route ahead, still to be covered. The team name itself shows that while the team expect the Trailwalker event to be a significant challenge—resulting in sore feet and tired legs—their over-riding outlook is a positive one. Here is a team quietly confident in its abilities to complete the course, and to reach its pledged fundraising goal.
09 December
A few thoughts from Steve:
“I have been fortunate to travel extensively throughout my life, and have seen firsthand the poverty and deprivation suffered by people across the globe. My travels with the British Army—especially Afghanistan and Iraq—has highlighted the effects of conflict on a local population. As a recent immigrant to Australia, who is now ‘living the dream’, I consider Oxfam Trailwalker to provide a fantastic opportunity for me to partake in a worthwhile cause. My time with the army has opened my eyes to the way many people in the world are forced to live. The army has also given me the training and mental discipline to complete something like the Trailwalker event. My pain and discomfort will last less than 24 hours. Hopefully our team’s fundraising efforts will help alleviate suffering for much longer.”
