Sapwell's long walk for milestone

It’s not everyday you go for a 100km walk, but that’s exactly what three-time Adelaide 36ers championship-winner Rupert Sapwell did during the recent July school holidays.

The 359-game NBL champion said the walk was an idea he had come up with when trying to challenge himself in the lead-up to his 50^th birthday earlier this year.

“One of things that attracted me to doing it was I heard about this Japanese tradition about doing something difficult and not telling anyone about it,” Sapwell said.

“Some people do this stuff for recognition and that’s not something I wanted to do it for.

“I don’t profess to have any newfound knowledge out of it other than I got new parts of my body that now hurt that I didn’t know I had.

“The idea was to just do it, not raise money for anything or not do it for any other event, but just to do it by myself without anyone there cheering me on.”

But then Sapwell did start informing family and friends about his plans.

“I started to get more and more scared about it because when you turn 50 and you use to be a professional athlete, I wanted to do something that I felt proud to do but not easy to do,” he said.

“I was 50 this year, I was training to do a 50km walk, a 50 at 50 type of deal.”

Sapwell and his wife Cyndi walk regularly, so the thought of the longer trek wasn’t daunting.

“I went for an 8km walk and I thought ‘oh, that was alright’, we normally go for about five,” he said.

“So, I went for a 30km walk straight off the bat and it’s fair to say I got the shoe choice wrong, my feet just exploded.

“I went and got my own shoes and paid an exorbitant amount of money for a pair and it was significantly better.

“I was back doing 30s and 40s and did a 50km walk just after my birthday (in February).

“I struggled the last five kilometres of that and after I thought ‘I don’t think I can do 100’, that’s too much.”

Sapwell said the 100km target was just a number and had no significance other than ‘wow, that’s going to be tough’.

“I had people saying ‘oh you can do it along the Heysen Trail’ and thought ‘no, I’ll do it on the flattest part of Adelaide, which is along the beach’,” he said.

The former 197cm forward set off from his Largs Bay home and walked to Seacliff and back before replaying the journey again to get to the 100km barrier.

“In April I did a 58km walk but I felt really tired, I didn’t think I had the juice in me,” he said.

“That’s why it’s such a worthy goal. So I went for a 30km walk every week for the past 10 weeks to prepare.

“So last Thursday (July 21) I left at 1am and got to Seacliff just before 6am.

“It was perfect conditions, calm winds, so I got lucky there.”

But there was a slight hiccup in Sapwell’s well-thought-out plan.

“One of the main reasons I picked the beach route was due to the amount of toilets along the way,” he said.

“But those electronic door ones are shut between midnight and 6am.

“So there were a few anxious moments at the beginning.”

Sapwell said he spoke to several former teammates on the phone throughout the walk, including Paul Rees and Scott Ninnis.

“We had a good old chat and had a few laughs that’s for sure,” Sapwell said.

At the 50km mark back at home, Sapwell did stop for a quick refuel, but that had its challenges.

“There was like four or five minutes of straight-legged zombie walking to try and get that range of movement back,” he said.

Sapwell also had organised to meet his parents at Glenelg at around the 70km mark.

“It was about four o’clock and I got there about 10 minutes before them and laid down on the grass,” he said.

“I had my feet up and I could feel they were unusually throbbing.

“We had a chat and some food but when I got up to walk, I couldn’t and I’ve 33km to go.

“My parents are looking at me thinking ‘my child is not going to make this’.

“So without telling me, they waited for me at Seacliff just to see if I was still going.”

The former 36er said the hardest part of the walk was the stretch between Glenelg and Seacliff the second time.

“I’m dead tired and I was still walking away from my destination,” he said.

“So when I made the turn for home I got a new lease of life.”

Sapwell said the final 10km were “interesting” and doesn’t think a repeat effort is on the cards.

“That was the part of the journey (10km to go) where it was a case of ‘don’t arrest this man, he’s not drunk’,” he said.

“Those last 10kms were tough, but I wanted it to be tough.

“I got through it and I don’t think I’ll be returning for any PB’s.”