Lord willing, in just 3 months, I’ll be several days into my thru hike of the Tahoe Rim Trail.
Three months! Gah! It’s coming up so fast! (Really hoping and praying that Covid-19 will be under control by then!)
If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that after my Havasu Falls hike – yeah I’m still planning a blog post for that – I took about a 3 week break from hiking. And then I realized my TRT hike was creeping up on me and I got back to it. But I wasn’t very consistent.
So I gave myself a challenge. I did not publicize the challenge or talk about it much other than with my immediate family. But I challenged myself to go for a walk/hike every day in the month of April.
Every.
Single.
Day.
No matter what.
I am proud to say that I was (for the most part) successful. There were 2 days when for one reason or another I just didn’t get a hike in. But that means that I went for 28 hikes in the month of April! Now, many of them were only a mile long. And I didn’t even start carrying a day pack until half way through, but I was out there (in the canyon behind my house – mostly on my own property because #socialdistancing and #stayinghome and #quarentine), and I was training. And here’s the thing. It may not seem like a mile a day is much, but I’ve learned that it does help. Today I went for a 2.25 mile hike with 630′ elevation gain. Just a couple weeks ago, that would have been a lot harder on me than it was today (nearly all the elevation gain/loss was in the first and last quarter mile!).
And you know what else happened? I set a new personal record for the number of miles I’ve hiked in a single month! My previous best was 27.05 miles. As of today, April 30th, I am wrapping up the month with 37.35 miles – a full 10.3 miles more! And that’s by doing baby steps.
So where do we go from here? Well, I definitely know I do better when I have a challenge the meet. So I’m setting a new one: 40 miles in the month of May. #40mileMay #MoreMilesInMay
April’s challenge was about frequency, May’s is just about getting in the miles no matter how. In fact, I need to start going on longer hikes, but I don’t have time to hike higher miles every day. That’s the main reason why many of my hikes in April were only 1-1.5 miles. I am so busy. Yes, even during quarentine. We are a homesteading, homeschooling family and we’re building our own house. We are busy! So by doing more miles on fewer days, I can have more days to devote solely to projects around the house. And I get in those much needed longer hikes.
So yes, more miles in the month of May. Including some longer hikes. And loading up the big pack once more and taking it out on the trail.
And I gotta get the family hiking more, too. They are going with me for the first several days of my thru hike. They need to get in shape, too! And we have plans to go camping on our property to test out all our gear once the weather warms up a bit more.
Oh, and I’m still continuing with the 52 Hike Challenge. I only count my daily hikes toward that challenge if they feel like a real hike, not just a walk in the “neighborhood”. Usually that means more than an hour of hiking, taking my pack, and doing a bit of exploring, etc. Today’s hike was #23. With my new goal for May, I’m sure I’ll be logging in quite a few more “official” hikes. So far, I’ve gone on 23 official hikes and logged 69+ official miles since November 12, 2019.
Oh! And speaking of miles logged, I recently surpassed 100 miles for the year! That’s right, as of today, I have hiked 103.65 daily/training miles since January 1st! I totally didn’t realize it on the day I hit 100 miles or I would have taken a celebratory picture. All I got were some pretty wildflowers.
It’s good to have goals. It’s good to achieve them. It’s good to feel accomplished. And it’s good to set new ones, to always have something to be striving toward.
Journey in the Wilderness 