So how did I get here!?! (pt2)

“The journey is the destination” – anonymous

As I continue don’t be surprised dear readers if some stream of consciousness, free association, (ala the comment about my less than illustrious football career LOL) pops up from time to time. On another note, my friend, while not yet out of the hospital has continued steady improvement over the course of the week. Wasn’t too sure I’d be saying that now but am glad and thankful that I am.

So, based upon the quotation above, please bear with me as we return to the issues at hand. The thing that first surprised me about the exercise program was truly how bad my physical condition was. In the beginning, the warm up routine had me breathless and I could not believe how hard it was for me to simply get up and down off the floor! (try it sometime if you haven’t in a while, hopefully you will not be as unpleasantly surprised as I was) Push ups, squats lunges, all of which I had once done easily as a young man, were a significant challenge. I was embarrassed and, honestly, aggravated at myself for having allowed my body to get into such a state.   But, I soldiered on and went through each phase of the program until I had a reasonable level of mastery of that phase. Fortunately, my body was kind enough to respond positively (which can be iffy at 62). During that time (from Sept to the year-end holidays) I dropped about 12 lbs and started defying gravity and shifting weight upward from my waist to my upper body. However, I had yet to have hiked a single step.

My first walk of any distance was a whole 3 miles in Gatlinburg TN after the fires. I walked from the Food City supermarket to the downtown intersection, roughly 1.5 miles each way. I was rolling along quite nicely until about 20 minutes in I realized…uh oh you have been going downhill all the way so far…which meant my return was all uphill. Looking back now, relative to what and where I have hiked since, the concern was laughable but I did get a nice set of shin splints and it took me roughly one hour to make the relatively easy walk.

I then did some longer hikes in the Chicagoland area where I realized that I needed to honestly learn how to hike which, at least in my mind, is different from walking.  From starting out my work career as a route man and supervisor for a commercial bakery I had one walking speed, flat-out. Of course the longest single distance I ever tried to traverse was generally no further than the length of a football field, so, one could go flat out. But, when one is wanting to cover miles in a day the old saw “slow and steady wins the race” comes to fore.

So, my job is research and that is what I did. I scoured the web for information on through hiking. REI.com, Blackwoodspress.com, any place where I could get tips on how to manage long distance hiking. I truly knew so little I did n’t even know what questions to start to ask. Fortunately, the hiking community is very sharing group and quality information was soon at my finger tips. I exchanged my boots at REI (for those who are not into hiking and want to start, REI is the first store I would suggest to go to knowledgeable staff and wonderful exchange policy) when my left toe nail started turning purple because it was banging against the front of my boot going down hill. (who knew?) A 1/2 size larger made all the difference in the world.

So, this being my first time blogging, I’m not sure how long a post typically is but this seems long enough for now. You were warned that I am a person who often times uses 5 words when one will do. LOL I thought I could be more abbreviated with this portion of the tale but there is simply too much ground to cover. I will have one more posting finishing up my preparations prior to my disembarkation in four days and supply my first photo showing what gear I think it takes to through hike 71 miles in 7 days. Thanks for joining me on this trip.