How much could one walk without stopping before death or exhaustion claimed them?

It’s a good question, one I have no answer for, but the details are fascinating.
I dunno, I guess I could pound out the miles til I drop, certainly under those brutal circumstances.
Drinking water whenever I want it, that must mean you piss on the go, mind the splash back fellas.
To my mind, sleep deprivation would be the eventual killer, exhausted & mentally shred.
I like to think this mass walkakillathon would have a theme song…Run DMC anyone :D

“the long walk” That was a good novel. My thoughts are that people could walk for a very long time. I have personally done a couple of strenuous hikes that were approaching 30 miles in a day without being too demolished. 400 miles is not a stretch.

The Long Walk is a great one. The Bachman books are better than King proper, if you ask me.

That was a great story. The physical side doesn’t sound too bad. I can do 4 miles an hour forever, but I don’t know about the mental exhaustion. I think that might be my downfall. The dump issue might be a problem too. :)

I used to walk/run up to 5 miles in one day but that was about it for me. If it was a level path I could go for a long time, if it was steep hills I’d keel over after about 2 miles. lol

You would have to be a very tough athlete to walk 400 miles with no rest or sleep.

On my 60th birthday I tried to walk 60 miles. I got up at 1 a.m. and started walking. All was going great until around 20 miles when I started developing huge blisters on both of my feet. By 30 miles the blisters were much bigger. I stopped at a pharmacy and bought tape and bandages for my feet. It helped a little but the pain was overwhelming. I had no idea blisters could be so incredibly painful. At 45 miles a friend in a car stopped and asked me if I needed a ride. “Hell yes!” said I. I was done. But I believe that I could have reached my goal with no problem if I didn’t get the blisters. I didn’t reach my goal of walking 60 miles but I did walk over 60 Kilometers.

it’s hard as hell to find these days, but if you can track down a copy of “Getting it On” or “Rage” (same story, two different print titles), @Symbeline, do. I think you’d like it. It’s about a high school kid who brings a gun to school, so you can imagine why it’s not in print…

@gondwanalon – the dudes with the rifles would be a bit of a motivation to continue.

Also, bravo!

Heck..horses can only go about 20–30 miles a day. Keep that up and you likely to be alone in a desert on a dead horse with no name. lol

Sleep would be the biggest problem… Considering that you walk 4 mph for 24 hours straight that makes 96 miles traveled per day. At that pace it would take you 4.16 days to walk 400 miles. While staying awake for 100hrs isn’t impossible, it is difficult; and that’s with mostly sedentary activity. Add to that difficulty a pace that is 1mph faster than the average walking speed… IDK… Without a steady feed of cocaine, I don’t think its possible; unless someone had been training themselves for this specific feat.

Honestly, I read this question as “How much could one talk without stopping before death or exhaustion claimed them? lol

If I remember correctly, the “contestants” were between 18 and 22 years old, and volunteers, and there hadn’t been a “winner” (someone to make it to the end of the race) in several years.

And people think The Hunger Games is rough. They’re about 30 years behind. LOL.

@ibstubro LOL..oh a looong time for me. Babbley blonde wonder. haha
How much water am I allowed to have to stay hydrated and keep my vocal chords lubricated?

@Uasal So, anyone over 40 is dead before they even get started. ;-p

As long as you talk/drink with your mouth open, unlimited, @Coloma. Cat, er, duck naps allowed?

@ucme That’s right about the exhaustion and mental breakdowns. That is, of course, how a lot of the guys end up “buying their tickets” as they put it. But one dude, man…he just keeps going. He’s like, just not there anymore. Like a walking shell, a zombie. Eventually he attacks the soldiers, they shoot him like a bunch of times, his intestines are falling out…and he keeps going. It was nuts. He dies eventually, but damn.

And yeah, pissing. Most of them do it by walking backwards lol.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Heh heh yeah, but you could rest and all whenever you wanted. :) I myself love walking…but I have a feeling this book will stay in my head for a long time.

@Uasal I enjoy both King and Bachman, but I like how a lot of Bachman stories aren’t about monsters and shit all the time. I like this, and I love Blaze. Blaze was like Of Mice and Men kinda, I enjoyed it. I guess Thinner had supernatural stuff in it though, just as some King books also don’t have it, like Misery. Still one of my faves to this day.

And that’s right, all the contestants here came to the race of their own will. I’m not done the book yet, so the whole race thing is such a mystery. Who will win, why’s this happening, who’s “the major”, what’s up with Stebbins…man, such a simple idea, yet so fun to read. Fuckin love this book.
Haha but I accidentally looked at the last page and saw Garrity’s name in big letters…I’m guessing he makes it. But he is the main dude, so…

And thanks for the head’s up on Rage. I guess if I want it, one of my only hopes is to go through used book stores. :/

@Adirondackwannabe Haha yeah, you know I’m thinking about this more than I probably should, but if I went on a walk like this, I’d do one of two things. Fashion a pair of pants with a flap on the ass part, you know like those pajamas in Disney cartoons. Then you could just unbutton it and take a crap whilst walking.
Or, I’d just wear a skirt with nothing underneath, and simply let it fall as I walk. Some of the skirt would get dirty unless you hike it all the way up, but better than having the poop hang around in your undies lol. Haha, gross. But you’d have to think about this shit if you went on a crazy ass walk such as this.
Men couldn’t wear skirts unless they really wanted to, but I suppose they could wear kelts. But how about it, guys? If you walk a lot, you probably wouldn’t want to go commando, right? If your bits were slapping around constantly that would become a problem. Even for a girl, chafing would be inevitable. I’d bring like 10 pairs of spare undies with me, but imagine putting them on or taking them off while trying to keep walking…at least it would look funny haha.

@Coloma Yes, everytime the characters in the book need to go up a steep hill, they really don’t enjoy it. One guy eventually brings out a pack of smokes, and then he’s like, eh…fuck it lol and hucks the cigarettes away.

@gondwanalon Nice. What kind of shoes were you wearing? I’m wondering, in this question, what kind of footwear would be best for crazy walking. Suprising, but in the book the characters mention that running shoes are the last thing you’d want to wear. Weird, as I thought that would have been best…one guy eventually puts on moccasins.
But yeah, blisters suck, I’ve had them before, they’re a bitch and a half.

@Esedess Thanks for the technical answer. :) Egads, 96 miles a day? Fuck that lol. But you must be right, sleep is something that regularly turns up in the book as a main issue. Using cocaine for four days without sleep though, I’m thinking one would mess oneself up even faster than they would without it, especially as a coke high lasts like 20 minutes. You’d need a whole garbage bag full of it lol.
Are there any healthy foods you could eat on the go that would push back sleep? Well…I’m guessing that at a certain point, nothing could help anymore.

The Running Man is one not to miss, too. Better than the Ahnold film based on it. Rage and The Running Man can be found in an anthology called The Bachman Books: Four Early Novels by Stephen King

@Symbeline Nice visual descriptive there, a women in a skirt going on the hoof. Well..I guess it could be done, horses do it all the time. lol
I wear a lot of hippie skirts around the ranch here and often hike ‘em up and go pee in the bushes or behind the barn. It’s a long walk back up to the house to use the bathroom sometimes. I do not poo in the wilderness though. haha

Interesting question.

According to the Wikipedia description of The Long Walk, there is no designated number of miles or finish line.

The Walk begins at the Maine/Canada border at 9:00 on the morning of May 1 and travels down the east coast of the United States until the winner is determined. There are no stops, rest periods, or established finish line, and the Walk does not pause for any reason (including bad weather or darkness); it ends only when one last Walker is left alive.

By the evening of the fifth day, the Walk has progressed into Massachusetts, the first time in 17 years that it has done so.

The distance from the Canadian/US border to Massachusetts is roughly 500 miles. At 4 miles per hour, it would take 125 hours or ~5 days to reach that point. They would be walking ~96 miles per day.

One of my nephews is currently hiking the Appalachian Trail, which starts at the US/Canadian border, just like in the book, only the nephew and his friends are starting at the bottom (in Georgia) and working up. Their goal is to cover the 2000+ mile trail over 5½ months at a rate of 13–15 miles a day.

They started on March 2nd, and so far, are averaging 15 or more a day. While they are able to stop at will for biological function necessities like food, bathroom breaks and sleep, the terrain may be more challenging than those depicted in the book. The AT is rocky and has many uphill and downhill trails. What’s interesting is that there are several comments about it being harder to walk downhill vs. up.

I agree with the comments about the psychological factors contributing to the demise of the Walkers more than the physical ones. 24 hours for five days of constant stress over one’s potential fate would probably do me in before the physical factors would.

#touchthetruck :D

Agree with the Bachman books being better than King proper.

King is definitely readable. He weaves a good tale. But he’s not so good at wrapping it up. His endings are rarely as good as the rest of the book. Kind of a bummer. The Bachman books don’t seem to have this issue for me. I wonder why that is?

There is a reason, at least according to King. He likes people to use their imagination, so because of that he doesn’t like to explain shit much. dark tower That doesn’t mean he can’t though, as I guess prove some of the Bachman books.

Bachman is also not a very nice guy, but as a popular author, he probably needed to justify shit every now and then. Guess that makes King a nicer guy lol.

For a guy that doesn’t like to explain much, he sure does ramble on a fuckton of tangents.

In 9–10 day adventure races like primal quest, athletes will go 48 hours or more without sleep, but they are eating small amounts every 20 to 30 minutes. I think the lack of food would eventually lead to low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) or low salt concentration in the blood (hyponatremia).

You’d get dizzy, muscle cramps, nausea, etc. You’d lose cognitive function and would start having lucid dreams. You’d think that leaves on the ground were dollar bills. You would get down on the ground and pull the leaves into your pockets. The dirt would resemble ground hamburger and you’d shovel it into your mouth. So goooood. It would be so comfortable there, you’d decide to stay.