DAY 114: HARD MILES

miles: 27.5

Northern California has been good to us. It is forgiving, beautiful, hot, luxuriously rich with wildflowers and pristine. It reminds you of the Sierras in a way, in it's beauty. But it can throw some pretty serious punches your way. For instance, the landscape has been remarkably tougher than usual with it's rocky cliffs, sharp paths, near vertical up's and down's... It is tiring. Perhaps the three of us are more tired because we have been pushing huge miles prematurely? Typically "they" say that once you hit the Oregon border, you fly at 3.5/4 miles per hour and do 30 miles a day. Does this mean people actually WAIT until Oregon to push 30's? Because... we've been packing in the 28, 29, 30 milers and our bodies are beginning to scream (or at least mine is).

The foot pain has not subsided. Still worrying about that one... however, new pains have emerged, such as knee pain. I think it may be "Runner's Knee" which is highly uncomfortable and aggravated by going downhill, which there has been a lot of. Both Manchurian and Rocky are also having joint discomfort in their knees as well as foot pain's of some sort or another. We plan on pushing through the pain until we reach Ashland. All three of us are on a tight deadline and wish to make it there by August 14th. Ben and I have a wedding to attend and Manchurian has plans later in September to meet up with his girlfriend for over a week so he needs to bust out a lot of miles in order to get ahead.

The three of us have done such huge miles every day that we have officially caught up to a lot of hikers we hadn't seen in a while, which is fantastic! The reunions just keep on coming! I love feeling fast. We also have been really good about not zeroing. Most hikers we run into are still not doing 30 miles a day but more like 25-26 miles a day due to the harsher terrain in Northern California. This is good news for us in that we can catch up to them, but bad news in terms of overuse injuries... maybe they had the right idea... We're paying the price.

The view from our tent in the morning.

Last night's beautiful camp spot turned out to be a wet one. The condensation on the inside of our tent in the morning was ridiculous! I know, I know... why do we set up the tent when we don't need it? Ben and I love our tent. We love the privacy it provides, the coziness, and we have our established routines inside the tent (in terms of where everything goes, how we pack up, etc.) so we regularly put our tent up regardless of weather. Most people out here cowboy camp these days, weather permitting. We just don't cowboy camp.

Focus heading uphill.

Ben heading uphill.

The Marble Mountains do not disappoint: they are stunning.

(But taxing)

My knees were on fire, my feet screaming, and the rocks were brutal. I knew immediately that it was going to be rough going today.

I know that typically in my blog posts I highlight the more positive things and focus less so on the negative aspects of thru-hiking. I don't want to be a Debbie-downer, after all, but there are a lot of times I simply want to rant about the bad things. Today is one of those days on the trail where, when the pain sets in, all I can do is push forward and try to forget about it, which is easy to do when the scenery is so pleasant.

But mostly I just wanted to sit down today.

reminiscent of the Sierras?

Skidaddle walking along.

Aptly named.

Lunch break involved chairs today... Found them sitting next to a cabin.

Lunch was rough for me today due to our low mileage by lunch time, which always brings me down. I get anxious when we haven't done our usual amount of miles by lunch. The elevation changes were extreme, the weather hot, and the path was brutal. But we did manage to snag a few chairs from a nearby cabin and we were able to take turns sitting in actual CHAIRS!

Distant fires, a constant companion.

Ben agreed to go fetch both of us water...

I ran into Belgian Red today both at lunch and later along the trail. It was great to see her! She was one of the original few that started the same day from Scout and Frodo's house. Well... she started a few days later than the rest of us, but she was there the night we were and we got to know her then. She is from Belgium and is a pretty amazing woman. She's travelled the world and is currently in the middle of a huge travel adventure. She is taking her time on the PCT and doesn't do more than 15 miles per day, which is nice, and easy for her considering she is flexible about whether or not she officially "finishes" the trail in Canada. It is more about the journey than the destination for her, in the true sense of that phrase.

Which is inspiring.

Anyways, I ran into her this afternoon and we got to talking and we discussed how our bodies were feeling this far into the trip. We talked about how it is possible that our bodies are simply protesting at this point, telling us to go no further. She was musing on the many problems with thru-hiking and almost described what we are doing as simple "mad".

"If you really think about it, it is simply mad, what we are doing. What we are doing to our bodies. Even pro-athletes don't train or work out in the way that we do, 12-16 hours a day, every day, for months on end, regardless of how our body feels." Not a direct quote, but essentially, these were her sentiments. She was in no way being negative or considering quitting, she was simply dumbfounded by the insanity of it all. And sometimes, all you need is to commiserate with someone about what you are going through, and she nailed it on the head.

And it's true. What we are doing IS mad, it's insane, and it's a challenge. It's not always fun. It's often NOT fun, actually. But we still do it. Which is so interesting. How we keep coming back for more...

I explained my aches and pains, as did she, and it was nice to relate with someone who had great insight into the philosophical side of what we are doing and I felt better for having talked with her.