Archive for April 2011
50
Like the teenager with ADD who normally has an eight second attention span. Give him enough Ritalin, good weed and the right video games and he can stay focused until the end of time. Give me enough snacks along the way and I’ll walk to the end of the world
It was cold yesterday morning. I was hungry. Spent the first mile with the sandwich and first bottle of juice, then waited until my hands warmed up. Started eating most of the carrots, then the pork rinds (like Cheetos, but made of meat. . . ). More carrots. By mile three started with the granola bars, crackers, pop tarts, et cetera. Just kept snacking on them as the miles passed
Started off with a Vietnam era rucksack with the metal frame removed so that I could carry a lot of the food I planned to eat. The course I was walking was mostly repeating a 10-mile poorly paved road. It was set up so bags of supplies could be accessed every five miles or so. Used that to store cans, peanut butter and drinks and snacked on those every time I passed. Water was also accessible every couple miles.
After 10 miles started with the dried fruit and candy mix and just continued to walk and eat. After six hours and gone more than 20 miles, dropped the ruck sack and loaded granola bars and crackers into pockets. Continued to stop every five miles for spoonfuls of peanut butter, to finish the bag of fruit and for the couple of cans. After almost 11 hours of walking nearly all the snacks were finished and had traveled almost 40 miles. Finally finished 50 miles after a full 15 hours of walking. The world record holder covered that distance one-third of that time. A lot of people can cover that distance in half that time. But there is absolutely no way any of them can do it having more fun than I did spending the entire time eating. Being able to eat that much was a blast
Had I not done all the eating could it have been faster? Had I not done all the eating I wouldn’t have even started the trip
Forgot to eat the hard candy and couldn’t bring myself to eat the Ramen or the 31 ounce can of refried beans. Driving home stopped at the drive through for three burgers and a milk shake to make up for it. No way I would stop to walk into a store. Once I had sat down, every joint and muscle in my legs became completely useless
In addition to water, there were other snacks provided along the way — turkey sandwiches, Gummy Bears, generic Oreo’s and name-brand chips. Had a small amount of those, so we’ll call it 50 miles, 15 hours and 30 000 Calories
Didn’t run one damn step. Except a couple stretches of a few hundred meters that were steeply downhill. Which means there were also corresponding stretches that were steeply uphill. Twice I threw up after walking up them. How out of shape do you have to be to throw up just from walking? But it was after 10 hours of walking and a whole lot of eating. Wasn’t too much vomit. Didn’t taste too bad, like peanut butter
Also took three tablets of ephedrine along the way, which is used to make crystal meth. As Artie Lange said “Crystal meth is a great drug if you need to walk to St Louis one weekend”
For the rest of the week there is Xanax and blisters
Everything laid out and ready to go
Weekend Menu
50 Carrots, rinsed with the ends cut off: 1 250 Calories
50 cookies: 2 570 Calories
(16 Chips Ahoy, 16 Nutter Butter and 18 Oreo’s)
50 dried plums: 715 Calories
50 dried apricots: 750
50 Twizzler pieces: 410
50 peanut butter filled pretzels: 700
(all go in a ziplock bag together)
50 pieces hard candy: 680 Calories
(42 pieces with caffeine, eight mints)
so far there seems to be a theme of 50. . .
50 various granola bars, poptarts and power bars: 6 360 Calories
eight poptarts: 1520; 12 Nature Valley granola bars: 1140; 10 Quaker Chewy granola bars: 900; six Quaker imple Harvest granola bars: 900 Calories; six Quaker True Delights: 720; six Nutra-Grain bars: 720; two Power Bars: 460
50 peanut butter and cheese sandwich crackers and peanut candy bars: 2 000 Calories
48 sandwich crackers: 1520; two candy bars 480
side-note: candy seems like an easy choice for cheap Calories, but virtually any possible option is either chocolate which carries a high probability of melting into something ugly. Or it is little more than corn syrup with added flavor and coloring. The only two exceptions I could locate are Payday bars and Salted Nut Roll (which has a truly awesome name). These have peanuts added to their corn syrup, so that makes them healthy. Sort of like the whole wheat Pop-Tarts listed above
Five quarts juice and soda (ok, it’s really three quarts juice and two Liters soda. Ok, that stuff isn’t really even juice): 1 840 Calories
Other stuff:
Can of refried beans: 700 Calories — this should keep everything moving correctly in the days following
Hormel Chili: 520 and Chef Boyardee whole grain pasta: 500 — cheapest can foods that also have the huge advantage of not requiring a can opener
Ramen: 380 — is this snack the most famous or the most infamous for being cheapest Calories possible? Either way, it means it makes perfect sense to be included here
Pork rinds: 560 — they’re like Cheetos, but made of meat
Two jars peanut butter: 6 080
Sandwich with one-pound loaf of bread (1 120), one pound meat (720) and 12 ounces cheese (960)
Total Calories of all that: 28 815
Really feels like I should have bought even more stuff
Weekend Snacks
Finally going to try it. Make an effort to eat more in one day than ever have before. Bought most of the groceries already. There is some restriction, most everything must be highly durable and portable
Here is everything so far:
Four boxes granola bars
12 of the small packages of cookies, eight packages of sandwich crackers
Four boxes dried fruit
Box of cherry Twizzlers, box of Hot Tamales, some candy with caffeine, two candy bars, two power bars
31 ounce can of refried beans, chili, whole-wheat Chef Boyardee crap
box of whole wheat Pop Tarts (that makes them nutritious, right?) and six Nutra-Grain bars
peanut butter filled pretzels, one package Ramen and pork rinds (sup Chad)
one pound turkey and three-quarters pound cheese
six pounds carrots
two 18-ounce jars of peanut butter
two bottles Sunny Delight, one bottle Mtn Dew (regular, not diet)
Still need to pick up a loaf of bread for the meat and cheese (peanut butter is spoon only). Any ideas for anything else to pick up tomorrow?
another note about this in a couple days, then report back after the weekend
