![]() I continued on the Creeper trail for almost another mile before realizing I was going the wrong way and had to backtrack. Unfortunately this distracted me and I didn’t see where the AT split off. I stayed far to the right of the trail as it was shared real estate with The Virginia Creeper Trail and bicyclists were whizzing by every few minutes. I left town Tuesday around 1:30 and purposefully kept my pace much slower than normal. ![]() Depending on how I felt at that point I’d either continue, or worst case scenario have him drive me back to my parents’ house in Raleigh since he’d be passing by on his way home. This had already been scheduled as he was on business not too far away and wanted to meet up for lunch and a few miles of hiking. Then I’d hike out that afternoon and set up camp so Wednesday morning I could meet my cousin George 12 miles to the north of town on Highway 58. On Tuesday morning I’d visit The Damascus Outfitters to pick up fresh shoes and get some sort of compression to wrap around the injury. That gave me a chance to come up with a plan. After showering and attending to my laundry she got me an ice pack and I rested and elevated the injury for several hours. Lady Di was awesome and helped me get situated. At this point I can only wish it would have been 5 days. She wasn’t sure what to make of it but said during her hike she’d suffered Shin Splints that put her off trail for 5 days, which at the time sounded like a disaster to me. I pulled my pant leg up to show her and was alarmed to see a clearly swollen and discolored circular patch about 3” in diameter just on the outside of my lower left shin. So I asked if she had any ideas about my issue. When I arrived at Lady Di’s hostel and she was checking me in I learned she’d successfully thru-hiked Nobo in 2021. Regardless, I hiked into Damascus Monday feeling like I was being stabbed in the leg with every step. However, it wasn’t attached all that long and didn’t leave a mark once removed. Then I do have one potential scapegoat in the form of a Tick I found attached at the same spot the pain is emanating from. Plus I was becoming more aggressive with my pace on the downhills. The most likely culprit was jumping from 12 to 14 mile hiking days straight into 20 and 25 mile ones so quickly. I can’t specifically say what caused my leg to start hurting, but I’ll cop to blaming myself for it. Not only will I need to still be standing come October, but I’ll need to be doing so atop that iconic brown sign on the mountain’s summit. But my stated dream of making it to Katahdin from start to finish in 2023 is beginning to seem precarious. Thank goodness an AT thru-hike works a little differently. If you fall to your knees three times it’s over. In order to protect fighters many bouts have a three knockdown rule. ![]() If this was in fact a boxing match then technically the referee could have ended it by now. Y’all, it feels like this thru-hike is knocking me out! After suffering Norovirus, after losing Sapling… we’ll, now I’m dealing with yet another setback in the form of a torn muscle in my lower left leg. He went the distance, meaning he didn’t get Knocked Out by the undefeated champion Apollo Creed. But he did manage to do something no other fighter had done before. ![]() ![]() Spoiler Alert from the original 1977 film: Rocky loses. They were cool, exciting and had a singular message throughout them all- that if you pour your heart and soul into any endeavor, no matter how badly the odds are stacked against you, you’ll come away from the experience better for having tried. When the Rocky movies were at their peak in popularity they served to influence a lot of kids my age. My career trajectory consisted of 5 main events: I went to the mall to see the greatest movie of all time, Rocky III I walked out of the theater and straight into the sporting goods store across from it to buy a cheap pair of boxing gloves I visited the record shop to pick up a 45 RPM recording of Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” I went home to begin training and finally I retired with a record of 0 Wins- 0 Losses- and 1 Draw. In the summer of 1982 I was 15 years old and took up boxing. ![]()
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