Running on empty

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Three nights ago Andy and I were feeling a little crazy and decided to challenge ourselves to hike 93 miles in 48 hours. It was an ambitious plan to say the least but we went for it anyway.
To fit the miles into two days of hiking, we left the cabin at 3:15am after a very short night of sleep. It was a long morning of hiking, waiting for the sun to come up but as with everyday the sun did finally rise along with our spirits. The rain that had ruined our hiking the day before was gone but the leaf covered ground remained slippery. Fatigue nagged at us a few times but Andy figured out how to combat that problem.
At the grocery store in Dalton Andy had picked up a box of coffee shots called Stoks. They look like little half&halfs but are some kind of concentrated coffee product. By mixing a couple ounces of water, dehydrated milk, and two stoks, Andy came up with the perfect trailside coffee jolt. So each time we started to drag a little bit we stopped to mix up a coffee concoction in an old peanut butter jar.
These brief coffee breaks carried us through the day and just a few minutes before the sun disappeared we reached our campsite. On that day we covered 42 miles in a little over 15 hours. We were exhausted yet thrilled at the same time. It was a tough day of hiking and by the time we had set up our tents and taken care of our nightly chores, it was 8:30 and far past our desired bed time.
Much to our dismay, the alarm sounded just 4 hours after we had laid our heads to rest. To Andy's credit, he was the one who got up to retrieve the coffee supplies from the bear box. Had I been in charge of that crucial task, we would have over slept for sure. We consumed two presses of hot coffee with a little oatmeal and cereal to get our bodies moving again. We left camp by 2:00am and were back on the trail to tackle more miles.
Once again, the early morning hours before sunrise crept by but we made it through thanks to the coffee. Hiking in the dark is not very much fun at all. Each and every step requires a little more concentration so that the novelty of walking with a headlamp vanishes quickly. We have found that walking in the dark at the beginning of the day is much better than ending a long day in the dark.
Through the day we hiked but as the afternoon started to fade, our lack of sleep began to catch up with us. The sleep deprivation made everything just a little bit worse. It got to the point that our coffee jolts were not doing us any good but we were reluctant to give up. Surprisingly we did run into runner Ben's support car again. This lifted our spirits to know that we were keeping up with a fully supported runner but ultimately it was not enough. As we neared the forty mile mark for the second consecutive day we realized that we were spent. We had enough hours left in the challenge but not enough gas in our tanks. After getting 9 hours of sleep and hiking 82 miles we decided to call it quits. In the end it was the right choice to stop before we completely drained ourselves. This morning we were able to wake up a little later and still hike 30 miles today. So over the past three days we have put in 112 miles but it was still a bummer to fall short of a goal.
Luckily we are enjoying another streak of beautiful fall weather but the temperatures are getting cooler. The past two weeks have flown by as we have been putting in as many miles as possible. Today we crossed the 1/3 mileage mark so our hike is going pretty quick but we are still a couple of days behind schedule. Hopefully we can be back on schedule around the halfway point but we will have to see how the miles fall.

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Photos

All aboard! Next stop is Georgia
The AT train platform in New York can be used to ride into NYC.

Comments

[Jessie]

It's been following your journey!
Hey guys, some of us from Wenonah Canoe have been following your blogs through your journeys. Definately sounds like quite the experience of a lifetime. Good luck to the both of you!!