Another Blister Rest Day

Another day of rest in the self-proclaimed Irish Capital of Nebraska - O’Neil.

Sidewalk Art - O’Neill, Nebraska

Got out on the town a little to test the foot. Apparently the town takes their claim seriously since these shamrocks were painted on the sidewalks at every intersection.  

Foot feels better so....

Ready or not, back to the trail tomorrow.

Pulled up in O'Neill

No pictures today. It's hard to get snapshots of the inside of your eyelids. 

Took a much needed day off to try to get ahead of a blister on the bottom of my left foot. I ended up sleeping till 1130, and that felt pretty good.

American Bison

Today, we got back out on the road. Dad walked the first couple of miles this morning to test out his foot. Everything seemed to work out pretty well. 

He spent the rest of the day trying to track me down on the trail to help with logistics resupply. He did a great job, and really pulled my iron out of the fire with a timely delivery of some tape for a blister that was really giving me trouble.

It’s good to have him back, and it was good to get out on the road and put some miles under our shoes.

American Bison - Linn County, IA

Not too many truly photogenic moments today, but I did see the first American Bison on the trip. Sure, they were on a bison ranch, but it was good to see these creatures roaming a small piece of what was once their vast unchallenged territory.

Hope you all enjoyed your Saturday!  

Babying Blisters

Valparaiso, IN

Beauty is all around us if we're willing to see it.

Took a day to baby some blisters.  Back on the road tomorrow.

First World and Billion Person Problems (FWP and BPPs)

Today, I went to one of those big box stores, and I racked up the single biggest bill I have ever managed to put in one cart.  I've had some doozies, but this was one for the record books.  As I was feeling just a little bit sorry for myself, I realized that I'd just run smack into a classic first world problem (FWP).  This bill, and more importantly the items listed that add up to that bottom line, are if anything a very good problem to have.

This is a good problem to have

Believe it or not, I was saved from my own pity party associated with the bottom line of this receipt from a conversation I had with Rory Conlan this morning during the course of my walk.  As I've noted recently, the days are getting shorter which means that I'm finishing my morning walk in advance of the sun rising to a sufficiently high altitude to take reasonably good photos.  My rule set for the last month or so has been to only allow myself to use contemporary photos in these little missives of mine, and I've stuck to that practice without fail.  That's one of the reasons you've been treated to multiple pictures of the area around the Capitol.  It's moderately interesting, and the sun is up high enough to facilitate photography.

This morning I was talking to Rory and thinking about how to solve this dilemma.  I suggested that later in the day we should talk about solving billion person problems.  I was first introduced to the concept within the last week or so by an interview on NPR with a Google executive.  It's a great concept, and there is a pretty good description of using the concept of solving Billion Person Problems (BPPs) to frame an approach to useful living linked here.

The problem that I used as an example to explain the concept of BPPs to Rory was the problem of providing access to optimal footwear to each individual on planet earth.  I'm not really sure if this is truly a BPP or not, but I know that eleven months ago I had this problem myself.  What's really fascinating to me is that until I started putting some miles of asphalt underneath my own two feet, I didn't even realize this problem existed for me on an individual level.

If I had photos of the number of times my walking has resulted in feet taking on a consistency similar to ground hamburger, I'd be able to more adequately illustrate my point.  I have addressed the issue once before on this blog in the early days, but suffice it to say I can actually look back on this matched set of big but not particularly terrible blisters with feelings of warm nostalgia.  After this little experience, I've had some that would make your teeth hurt just looking at them.

Since I live in the first world and almost exclusively have FWPs, I strongly suspect that  at least 15% of the world's population (about a billion people) are at least as poorly off when it comes to having access to optimal if not adequate footwear.

I like the way that my journey so far has allowed me to expand my horizons one small step at a time and bring some much needed perspective to my incredibly rich and blessed existence.  There are problems all around us just waiting to be solved, and the awareness that has come with my pilgrimage in six mile segments has made me grateful for the things that have been entrusted to me.

Facing Forward...The Second Trial Run (or Walk that is)

The Way Forward on the Second Course of Ground Work

Last weekend, I managed to put the rat race behind me for a relatively short period and conduct the second of what I'm currently calling my training walks.  The concept of training for a Transcontinental Pilgrimage (TCP) strikes me as a bit laughable on the surface of things, but until someone can suggest a more clever title, that's what I'll call these relatively short weekend jaunts for now.

To a degree they do provide some of the escapism that I believe I was seeking when the idea of the TCP first entered my mind.  I found that reflecting back on my first training walk and planning for this one was a much needed diversion from the monotonous bureaucratic grind of the current method I've landed for earning a living.

This walk was just 10.2 miles covered in the space of 3 hours and 01 minutes.  For the math wizards in the audience, you will no doubt note that the pace was just a bit off from the first training walk.  I would be fibbing a bit if I said I wasn't a bit disappointed in that factoid, but as soon as that thought enters my mind, I intellectually understand that particular reaction is an almost Pavlovian response to the some of the very aspects of the rat race that I'm trying to distance myself from.  It's an indication that I have some additional "spiritual," or at the very least attitudinal, work left to do.

All that said, it was a good walk.  I was able to cover the entire distance of what may become one of my principal training routes over the course of two weeks.  As you can see by the picture, I conducted the walk in  the rain.  Interestingly enough, the weather was not such a bother and a little wrinkle in the planning that I found injected a wee bit o' apprehension and challenge to the whole event.  I have a bit of a taste for chaos (more on that later perhaps), so I drew upon this minor adversity in satisfying ways.

I continued to have a minor vexation with blisters, but this last longer walking experience has shifted my butt, and I've continued to take action to mitigate this development.  I'm applying a salve derived from some things suggested in hiking and ultra-marathon forums.  It's pretty early in that process, so I'll report on the results after a little more run time.

One final note.  I looked back on the post documenting my first training walk, and I noticed that I managed to violate an idea that's been maturing in my experience over the last several months that characterizing events or experiences as good and bad is becoming less and less valuable as I get older.  This "philosophy," if you will is relatively knew and probably warrants an explanation all to itself (more on that later I think), but suffice it to say for now that narrowly bucketing any of the experiences associated with living as good or bad is intellectually lazy at best.

I am grateful to have experienced this last walk, and I'm looking forward (but not too far forward) to whatever comes as a result of this endeavor.

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.