I watched the long walk and now I’m reading the book. I was wondering, how credible is the distance? It’s 300 to 400 miles. What would happen to your body on the way?
But Americans collapse after halfway across the parking lot.
Yeah, but have you seen some of our distopian level parking lots?
Most are at airports, but it’s amazing to me that number one is a shopping mall in Canada… albeit Canada’s Texas.
The other non-airports were media-related amusement parks (mostly Disney)
There was a pilrimage/challenge a friend of mine went on. It was walking 20 miles each day for 3 days for a total of 60 mi/96.5 km. That was in upstate NY where there are plenty of hills to keep it interesting
Blisters, chafing and fatigue is common but many people do that every year
The Appalachian Trail is about 2000 miles and a lot if people walk that. Worth a Google search. There are documentaries, memoirs, plenty of before/after photos, etc.
They mean without stopping.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Long Walk, it’s a story where a bunch of kids are in a contest to see who can walk the longest. If you stop walking, you get shot.
Ooohh. I definitely read that first as The Long Walk about Slawomir Rawicz’s escape from the gulag to India.
Ultra-marathon runners will typically run/jog for over 100 miles without stopping (except for a piss), and the hard-core ones will just piss themselves anyway.
With decent footwear and training the only thing stopping you from walking will be your need for sleep which will come at the 48-36 hour mark. But even then I suppose the desire to not be shot will keep you going further.
At an average walking pace of 4mph, you can walk 300 miles in just over 3 days without stopping
I watched the long walk and now I’m reading the book. I was wondering, how credible is the distance? It’s 300 to 400 miles. What would happen to your body on the way?
I don’t know what happens in the long walk, but if you mean nonstop, 300-400 miles isn’t happening unless maybe as a death march. OTOH for someone who is in shape, 300-400 miles with stops for sleep and provisions is certainly doable. The Appalachian Trail is 2200 miles and lots of people through-hike it. It typically takes 5 to 7 months though some do it faster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Trail
Oh man, the long walk sounds nuts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Walk_(novel)
Sleep deprivation, no pooping, etc. Yeah, I found Stephen King to be a horrible writer and never understood his appeal.
300-400 miles isn’t happening unless maybe as a death march.
He-he, I guess you typed that before reading the wiki page.
I haven’t seen the movie, but the book is very detailed about how the death march is tearing apart their bodies and minds. Some basically sleepwalk and get the tiniest fraction of rest. But even those that do are driven insane.
I’m not really a fan of most of King’s work, but The Long Walk is worth a read even if you don’t like his other stuff.
My main dislike about the few King works that I read was that the characters got put into horror-like situations and then had no freedom of action. This sounds like another one of those. I guess I’ll make a note of its existence in case I find it on a park bench someday, but I don’t feel likely to go looking for it. Thanks.
I think he’s a great writer that frequently drops the ball with the ending and has a few big flops.
However, he wrote the Green Mile and the Shawshank Redemption, which are awesome. He also wrote Thinner, which I quite liked. I recently read, I have to remember the date 11-23-69 I think it was. That was pretty good. I think many people liked the Shining. I personally never saw or read it though. So personally I have mixed feelings.
If you use the book’s pace of 4 MPH, which is actually what many people would consider a brisk walk, 300-400 miles would take 75-100 hours, or around 3-4 days. That’s a long time to stay up without sleeping, let alone being physically active the entire time. I’d guess someone who is really fit might be able to do half of that before collapsing, with most people probably not making past the first 24 hours.
Someone who was using drugs or doping might be able to do it, but even then I’d be skeptical.
I did wonder that they walked for days and hadn’t done training for it. I just can’t see it’s possible
It’s been theorized that human beings’ ability to walk or jog long distances is what brought us out of our primitive era and made us the most advanced species on the planet.
Yep. It brought about a new hunting strategy that a lot of prey didn’t have a counter strategy for.
It is unknown what the the max distance is. Terry fox ran a marathon every day over the course of 140+ days and ran around 3500 miles …… and he was missing a leg when he did it.
Just learned about Terry Fox from Do Go On. What a legend
Absolute legend!!!
Was he running to find his leg?
Sort of, or the legs of others? Ran to raise money for cancer research and awareness, he’s basically the closest thing we have to a secular Saint in mainstream Canadian culture. The Terry Fox Run is a staple of grade school life.
Without rest? I don’t know. I could walk a marathon distance with the right shoes but would need to stop to pee. Two marathons? Probably not without training some months, and where would I find the time? Also, if it was in the day here, risk of heat exhaustion is pretty high at midday & afternoon.
300 miles? No.
Assuming male, because it’s the internet afterall, you don’t need to stop walking to pee. Just saying.
