The Rat Race in the Rear View Mirror

The Commute

I briefly touched upon the fact that the idea of walking across the United States has been an ongoing compulsion of mine for the last couple of years in the introductory post of this journal.  One of the things that I hope I can develop over time, is a somewhat reasonable and rational explanation for just why this idea has become so "sticky" or resilient in my mind.

When the idea of walking across the country first entered my consciousness, I was in a very dark period of my life.  It would be comforting to blame this on external circumstances, but if I am honest, most of the reasons were largely self-induced.  I strongly suspect that, at the time, I was manifesting a fairly strong desire to run away...run away from my problems...run away from my circumstances...but mostly just run away from myself.

A relatively short number of months later, I find myself with a completely different outlook on life.  The path to this point has not always been easy, fun, or rewarding in the traditional sense, but I am truly grateful that I have had the opportunity to wind my way through it.

That being said, the idea of walking across the United States has not gone away.  I'm no longer running from all of the circumstances in my life, but the compulsion remains.

One thing that I have discovered over the last twenty-four months is that life is an endlessly fascinating journey.  Each moment is a special gift, and staying with this "Present Moment" mindset is both rewarding and surprisingly challenging.

The photo above is representative of my thirty-four mile commute (each way) every day.  It is an analogue of one of the myriad of things that I had grown to loath and was I suspect was trying to escape during those darker times.  I would find myself on the road, at least two hours a day, with 200,000 other people making the daily slog to a job that I did not find fulfilling to support responsibilities and obligations I had collected over the course of my life (often unthinkingly) and absolutely hating every minute of it.

The irony that the drive is about the same distance as the distance that will be required to walk from Newport, RI to Newport, OR in the timeframe I am planning on has not been lost on my.

One of the ways the idea of taking on this adventure has evolved is that I'm no longer running, but I do want to put certain aspects of that "Rat Race" in my rearview mirror.  I don't think I'm particularly unique in this desire, and I think that just about everyone could take the time to live, take the time for a real adventure, put the things we are collectively encouraged to value in the rearview mirror and make our own path.  That is an underlying value for me in this endeavor.  To prove to myself that I can do it, and to show to others that they can as well.  It's an effort to shrink my world, to live in the present, to revel in the now.

I invite you to join me on this journey of discovery with whatever small sense of wonder that I've been able to renew since the idea of the walk first struck me during the darker days.

The First Practice

Google Maps tells me that a walking from Newport, RI to Newport, OR will cover a distance of 3,111 miles and take approximately 1,014 hours to complete.

My initial back of the envelope calculations indicate that to complete the N2N-TCP in 130-150 days assuming a ten-hour walking day, my partner in crime (more on this person later) and I will have to cover about 30 miles per day on average with some float built in for unanticipated outcomes along the way.

After talking this project up for the last several months, it finally occurred to me that I did not have the foggiest idea what walking thirty miles in a day actually felt like.  Forget about the fact that on average we are likely to have to cover that distance for multiple days in a row.  I had no idea what one of those days was going to feel like.

I am not completely inexperienced when it comes to physical experiences.  I have five marathons under my belt including finishing the Marine Corps Marathon four times and finishing the Pensacola Marathon.  Both of these events are great fun (if covering 26.2 miles can accurately be described as fun) and I highly recommend them for anyone contemplating the challenge of covering the marathon distance as a relative novice.  I have also completed two half-marathon distance "races" and participated in a number of shorter distance events.

My partner and crime and I also completed the trek up Longs Peak just outside of Estes Park, CO via the Keyhole Route twice (in much younger days for both of us) and Mount Elbert just outside of Leadville, CO.

All that being said, not that any of it matters anyway, I had no real idea what it felt like to conduct a road hike of any distance.  I decided it might be a good idea here in the early stages of planning for the N2N-TCP, so I set off last Saturday to complete what I described to my family was going to be a fifteen to thirty mile walk in the morning, and that's just (about) what I did.

I suppose you could call the experience a success.  I covered 17.2 miles in just under five hours, and here is what I learned:

The Good

I told my roommates that I intended to complete a fifteen to thirty mile walk on Saturday morning, invited them to participate (no takers), and managed to meet the low end of that milestone within the target time lines.

I now know what it feels like to walk about half the daily average distance that my partner and crime and I are going to have to cover from between 120 and 150 days in a row to capture a title of Transcontinental Pilgrim.  Based on some decisions I made, some mistakes I repeated (that should have been obvious in retrospect), and some poor planning, I'm happy to report that there remains quite a bit of work and progress to achieve over then next 700 days or so.  Put another way...it felt pretty rotten right near the end of the trek, but I'm grateful I made it, didn't have to call my roommates for outside support during the event, and motivated to give it another shot soon.

One of the underlying reasons that the N2N-TCP has been such a compelling idea to me is that I have this desire to shrink my world...to really force myself to live in the moment...to be able to answer (truthfully) the question, "Where are you?" with the answer, "I am here."  To be able to answer the question (again truthfully) the question, "What time is it?" with, "It is now."  This short little jaunt, this practice did achieve that.  At one point on that trail, my whole existence had managed to shrink down to a quarter sized spot on the ball of my right foot...every other step.

That is the good.

The Bad

I had a plan to carry water in my 70 oz CamelBak Urban Assault pack.  It was a good plan that I did not follow.  I figured that I could pick up some water somewhere along the trail.  While theoretically I probably could have executed this back-up plan, I didn't.  That was a mistake.  Five hours of walking on even terrain with very little significant elevation change led to a slight bit of dehydration.  Due to the nature of my environment, this didn't turn into a truly dangerous oversight, but it did lead to a two hour nap after I returned from the trip.  That nap felt fantastic, but I will go to great lengths to avoid the dehydration that turned it from a wonderful diversion to a necessity.

I also forgot some lessons from my marathon days about the discomfort of chaffing and friction.  There are a great many products out there to avoid these discomforts.  I've heard that Body Glide, Mueller Lube Stick, and DZNuts Bliss (for our fairer readers) work quite well.  For me, I going to stick with the old stand-by, Vaseline, due to its ubiquity and low cost.  I suspect that on a 3,111 mile journey ubiquity is going to be a non-trivial positive trait for consumables.  A word of warning, Vaseline does have a tendency to stain clothing, so this may be a consideration if you decide to go this route.

The Ugly

These are my right and left feet.  The blisters are the result of my failure to take into account friction, and an indication that I have some foot toughening as well as footwear selection experimentation to conduct.  That right foot is where I was able to shrink my perspective, so it wasn't all bad.

My partner in crime has a saying..."Physical discomfort is only important when your attitude is wrong."  That's a great perspective that's sometime hard to live up to, but I found myself thinking along these lines during the last three or four miles of The First Practice.

All in all it was a great five hours...I'm glad I did it...and I'm looking forward to Practice #2.