Day 94

Trail miles: 22.6

Total: 1229.9

My eyes burn from all the crying I did today. First thing I did on trail was cry. And then I would think too much about the miles I have to put in and I’d have be on the verge of an anxiety attack. I had to put on my headphones twice to stop them from becoming really bad. I would try to take a break from my music for a little, but my thoughts were too much today. I tried to take more breaks today for my feet. And I took plenty of photos along the way. I got to the last water source of the day and started balling my eyes out again. Krista, Brad, and Raechel talked to me for a bit because they were very concerned. Nothing changed with the miles, but now they know how unhappy I am. I may have to choose to pull back if it’s going to be like this everyday. I just have to get in the mindset that I will be hiking all day with small breaks and not a lot of time at camp. This has been the case before when we first started doing 18-20 mile days. Now I have to get used to it again and hopefully I will get stronger.

I thought more about what was making me so upset and I think I have found a better was to articulate it. I move around 2-2.5 mph and Raechel, Brad, and Spare Change move around 3-4 mph. In practice, I found that leaving an hour early gave me a little head start, but they caught up by mile seven. So that means every seven miles I have to hike an hour extra. If we hike 21 miles a day average, I am walking 3 hours more per day. All I ask is for some real breaks throughout the day and time to get sidetracked if I want to jump in a lake. And most of all, I want to get to camp in time to do my chores and get enough sleep. But usually the campsite is settled at lunch which I never make it in time for. So no matter how slow I go or how sore my feet are, I have to keep going until I make it to camp, because they are no doubt there and set up their tents already.