Preparing for an 120 Mile Thru Hike Ultra
This morning I heard Barefoot and Lights Out leave the room fairly early. They were so polite and quiet that you hardly noticed them. Everyone else just rolled over and we kept sleeping until almost 9am. I was so exhausted that all I wanted to do was sleep all day. I woke up feeling like I didn’t sleep at all.
But around 9am we had to get up to go to the store to do our resupplying. We never did that yesterday and obviously have to get food before we leave town today. But in reality all I wanted to do was spend the entire day in town resting. We wound up going down the street to the grocery store and getting what we needed. Then 9 Lives and I spent the next hour trying to convince the guys to take a zero day today. We’re heading into the great basin which means we’re going to be able to crank out some crazy miles every day. Especially because we’re so used to doing elevation gain. But the guys weren’t having it and they just wanted to hike out.
On the way back from the grocery store, I stopped at the gear shop to darn tough exchange my other pair of socks. Then we rushed back to the motel room to pack our things and check out before it was time to leave. I got all my food put away and then 9 Lives and I were going back and forth about what to do. Her and I both really wanted to zero today. But Sidequest and Syrup really did not want to. They told us that obviously we could just take a zero and catch up to them. But for some reason, the idea of separating and resting today just made me feel more anxious than hiking out.
At that point I figured if they were gonna hike out, we might as well us all hike out together. So we wound up packing all our stuff up and leaving the room a little after 11am. We stopped off at the gas station across the street and then we headed down to the grill nearby because 9 Lives wanted to eat some pizza before leaving town.
At the grill, a couple people got Frozen lemon lavender alcoholic beverages to drink for lunch. I wasn’t feeling it so I just got a Gatorade. But at this point we were going back and forth about what to do for the day. Originally, we have been telling people that we were going to do Lander to Rawlins, Wyoming in one push. It’s a 120 mile section and we wanted to see if we could just continuously walk for 48 hours straight and do the whole thing. So since the guys didn’t want zero today, we decided that we just wanted to do the entire 120 miles in the next 48 hours.
But once we started talking about doing that, I realized it made a whole lot more sense to zero today and rest. Then have an early start tomorrow to actually start this 48 hour challenge to Rawlins. After finishing the wind river high route everyone was so sore. So the idea of doing the 120 mile 48 hour challenge had kind of gone off the table. But deep down we had really wanted to try to do it.
Everyone became a lot more impressionable after their second spiked sloshy. And around noon, we had made the decision to stay in town again. It’s so funny how things work out. I love that. We checked out of the room and packed up and did everything in a rush just to decide to actually take a day today today.
But now the plan for today is to rest. We’re going to eat and drink and nourish our bodies. Then tomorrow we’re going to have an early start out of town and I think we’re really going to attempt to do 120 miles in one push. It’s going to probably be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But of course I would expect nothing else from this incredible group I’m with. We just finished doing some of the hardest hiking of my entire life. Now we’re heading into a very easy flat section of trail. So of course we have to make that section of trail as hard as possible.
We hung out at the grill for a while and Hundo and Neil Bob joined us. Then we decided to get another room for the night and head there to drop off our bags. One of my other main reasons for staying in town is that I had to get some writing and other work done. I wanted to get into the room and relax and start getting some stuff done. Once we got in at the room I managed to get some videos and some writing done which was quite the relief. Then I took a nice shower at the room. Later on a few of us went over to McDonald’s together to get a little snack. I think we want to get Thai food tonight for dinner which doesn’t open until 5pm. So we got McDonald’s as an appetizer first.
I found a nice place to hang out and get some work done by myself. Then around 6pm I headed back to the room to hang out with everyone. It’s been really nice resting today since I’ve been so exhausted. All I wanted to do today was rest and not hike. I’m really glad that worked out because I knew that I needed it. But I still think that I want to attempt this 120 mile push. It’s going to be really hard, maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it sounds like a really cool adventure. I’ve never attempted anything like that before so I think that I have to give it a try.
Later on in the evening, all of us got together to go over to the Thai place. It was a short walk down the road, but it was definitely an interesting experience there. There was one woman working the entire restaurant. She was the cashier, server, and cook. We probably should have realized that that was a bit of a red flag. But she was really nice. The food definitely wasn’t the best and we probably would have been better off eating somewhere else. I got an appetizer which was kinda good. But the dumplings that some of the guys got were still frozen, which was a little concerning as well. The food was ok, but probably wasn’t the best in town. We were there for a while just because everything took a while. I definitely respected that the woman was working so hard and she was all by herself though.
After 8pm we headed back to the room. On the way back, we stopped at the local movie theater to pick up a bag of popcorn. Then we headed back to the room to hang out for the night and relax. We watched movies and I got some blogging and video work done. Then we had a relatively early night. We have to hitch back to the trailhead tomorrow morning, which is going to take a little while. Then we are embarking on the ultimate challenge. Attempting to hike 120 continuous miles in just 48 hours. This is going to be unbelievably hard but I’m going to feel really good about it afterwards. I guess as long as it goes to plan.
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