ARTICLE OUTLINE
An unfortunate consequence of my growing immersion in the world of running has been the nagging voice of others questioning my motivation for wanting to do the things that I do or the much more ominous and obvious question of my sanity. That question has never really bothered me much. My simple rationale behind running has always been simple; I enjoy running and it makes me feel good, so I end up doing it a lot. That’s always been enough for me. I first became interested in the concept of expedition trail running when I finished my first big solo backpacking trip - 280 miles in 10 days on Vermont's Long Trail. I was happy with the pace of my walking, but I had been running competitively for several years and after a big triathlon, I felt ready to apply the focused discipline of athletics to the world of long trails. A job in outdoor education had brought me to Australia, so I cast my gaze around Oceania for a long trail where I could explore the idea of expedition trail running. After a few listless weeks of clicking around on the internet I found the Te Araroa, a trail that ran the entire spine of the island nation of New Zealand. The southern island section was thirteen hundred kilometers of some of the most beautiful trail in the world. New Zealand was high on a short list of places that I wanted to explore while in Australasia, so it was an easy call. All that was left was figuring out how I was going to run eight hundred miles.
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The Greatest Trip That Never Happened
Man, that's rough!
I hear you though. I was planning something less ambitious, but for me still pretty large, and I jacked my knee and spent 5 weeks hanging with my cousin in Portland instead of hiking the PCT up Oregon. It was still a good time, but dealing with big let-downs after big build-ups is a difficult process.
Thanks for sharing!
We sympathise – having been through the same problem ourselves. (Caught bad virus on way to start of trip.)
But – primary requirements: survival, then having fun.
Cheers
Hey, just as kids fall while learning to skate, ride a bike, ski, etc. I guess we should expect to fail sometimes as adults. Not sure why our perspectives change as we grow older, but it's a reminder to get up and brush ourselves off. It's good not to be too reckless, and glad there was a plan B…besides flying back home.
Thanks for sharing.
Tom
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Boy does this hit home!
My daughter and I spent MONTHS preparing for a through-hike of the Colorado Trail last summer. We made spreadsheets. We invested in ZipLock baggies. I arranged for a 2-month leave from work. She quit her job. We purchased some new gear. We enlisted friends and family to help with resupplies. We bagged and boxed food and gear. We went on training hikes.
The day to leave arrived, and we started hiking. Yay! So glad to finally be doing the thing that had dominated our thoughts for so long. But within a few hours of starting, I began to develop blisters. Nothing new there, just tape 'em up. But over the course of the next couple of days, those turned to blood blisters. I ended up pulling off the trail after 72 miles, leaving my daughter to continue solo.
I shed many tears on the drive home and really felt like a failure for the first time in my life. I didn't want to return to work early and have to repeat over and over why I was there and not on the trail. But as a coworker eventually pointed out, failures can actually teach us more than successes, an idea I have grudgingly come to appreciate. I will eventually complete the trail, perhaps differently than what I envisioned, but maybe that's OK.
The first day of my planed modified 6-week JMT on steroids (or Quaaludes depending on how you look at it), and I mean literally the first night I checked my Inreach I got a message from my lawyer that my douchebag former employer, who owed me 4 months back pay offered to settle my fraud lawsuit against them. They had been using every delay and lie in the books to take longer (they actually made multiple LAWYERS say "wow, these guys are jerks"), and we figured they still had a few more they could try before the Sheriff would be able to knock on the front door and threaten to freeze their assets.
So we all assumed I was good for 6 weeks at least. Still when I got the message I naively thought "well great – that's one less thing to worry about." However after about 10 days it was clear that they were still playing games and my lawyer said I desperately needed to be near a fax machine! Arggh! Long story made short, the last month of negotiating with them was the most painful part, and kept be from ever disappearing into the wilderness more than a few days from technology. I was so upset that I failed to do what probably would have been the most logical and economical thing, and just go home until it was done. So I kind of skulked around the carcass of my murdered plans, doing modified section hikes and fly fishing withing a day of phone coverage and the dreaded fax machine, all the time hoping that the thing would finally be settled enough so that I could get back on schedule somewhere along my original time-table. Almost as expected in my newly pessimistic world view – yup, they finally fully caved THE DAY BEFORE the the date I originally planned to exit at Whitney Portal. JMT plans completely nuked. On the other hand they had to pay like 5 time more than they would had they just paid me my back salary and not committed fraud. I can use the money to do my dream JMT next summer I guess.
The only time I had an illness cut short a planned trip the first day ended in tragedy. I got sick with the flu and had to bail on my friend, but offered to pick him up in 3 days. That ended very badly.
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