Bad Days

On a five month hike you can’t expect all good days, all sunshine and rainbows.

I’ve talked about the physically rough days, running out of water, getting rained on while cowboy camping, and limping through different injuries. However, even some of those physically hard days I can feel really good, mentally overcoming obstacles and pushing through pain.

However, even when there is literal sunshine and rainbows the mind can be a thunderstorm.

I’ve seen many people post about how people don’t talk about the bad days, so I’ll talk about mine. 

I hiked with ‘Raw Dog’ through all of Oregon, we were a great team, on the same page crushing miles and sticking to only neros and a hero instead of taking any zeros through the state. After crushing Washington in under a month, I went back to Portland from Cascade Locks to take two zeros. Raw Dog went ahead to take two zeros in Bend with her boyfriend.

I started Oregon heading up Eagle Creek and grabbing a resupply at Timberline Lodge. I packed seven days of food, planning on going straight from Timberline Lodge to Shelter Cove Resort.

It didn’t take long for loneliness and thoughts of my issues with work to fester in my brain. I started losing motivation, which affected my miles. 

One thing I learned in the military is how much our thoughts affect our output. If you think you can’t do something, then you can’t do it. More than physical strength, we need mental resilience to keep pushing. 

I’ve noticed it every time I’ve parted ways with friends or trail families, the feeling of loneliness. I also get overwhelmed with too much socializing, and sometimes on trail, it’s hard to balance my introverted tendencies and isolation. 

I was moving slower than I wanted, always heckling myself about how slow I was going – I wasn’t accomplishing my mission. 

When I hit Olallie Resort, I was going to drop in for a few supplies and then head out to do another seven miles, but I called it a day. Needed to relax and hopefully recover mentally a bit. 

I slogged down the state and figured out I probably didn’t have enough food to actually make it to Shelter Cove Resort. 

When ‘Ted Talk’ told me they were in Sisters, Oregon, I immediately hopped off trail because I needed a break, I needed some socialization. 

I had told myself I was going to get through Oregon as fast as possible, long food carries and no zeros. However, like many plans, they don’t survive first contact. 

I needed a break, I needed some socializing and recovery – mentally. 

It was just what I needed. I stayed at the Creekside Campground in Sisters with Ted Talk, and soon ‘Two Braids’ showed up. 

Socialization was just what I needed, trying not to think about the miles I’m missing or that I’m delaying my trip. I’m here for my mental health and this trip has been amazingly healing. 

This trip has been the happiest I have been, honestly ever. I can’t think of any part of my life that has had this little stress.

Still, anything this long has hard days. I’m here because it’s hard. I’m here to push myself. 

It’s definitely interesting pushing myself through a journey that is so prolonged. It’s one thing to lift heavy and push through seconds or minutes of discomfort. It’s different to run and push knowing that everything will be over soon and I just need to push harder. This journey takes more willpower, days, months, miles. I can’t just suck it up and push – at times I can – but you need to do it every day, all day.

I’ve always had the viewpoint that you don’t know how you would react in a fight without being in a fight and you don’t know how you would react to getting shot at until bullets start flying. We honestly don’t know how we will react in situations until we experience them. 

People do love to talk but talk is cheap. There’re too many things people want to do or would do but never have and never will. 

How would you react to waking up in pain, knowing you have to do 25 miles or you’ll run out of food before town. Knowing the pain won’t get better and you won’t be in town for days. You have to suck it up, no one cares. 

You can stop lifting weights, you can stop running, but on a thru-hike, you can’t quit when you’re in the middle of the woods a hundred miles from town.

You have to embrace the suck.

The suck is why we are here, this isn’t a vacation and absolutely not a resort. We’re here to suffer, to push further, to break and to laugh at all of that suffering. 

The hard thing for myself is to let myself take a break even when I’m not limping or bleeding. In the same way I needed a break from life to work on my mental health, sometimes you need a rest on trail for your mental health. To do what you need for happiness to feel refreshed and go back to the suck. 

Embrace it, 1,130 more miles to go.