Date: 2008-09-29
To: About my hike 2
Miles today: 0.0

        Miles: After I had my hiking legs, especially in the south and mid-Atlantic states, I could walk all day at 3mph whether the terrain was flat, downhill or uphill. Within 300 miles you will be in pretty good shape, though it may take longer if you have a huge load or are overweight. At this point, it is easy to do a 20 mile day, and I hit 20 miles a few times by 1pm or so. No big deal. The big days will come when you are ready, I didn't do my first 20 until southern Virginia.        After I was in shape, I started flying down the trail. I only took a couple zeros that I didn't really need, and I found about 25-27 miles was just about the right amount of trail I liked to cover. I wasn't hurrying up to get done with the trail, I just liked the challenge of pushing myself daily to see what I could do. Since I had no problem with hiking fast all day long, it was easy to cover big miles even with hours of breaks when you came to a nice spot, or wanted to take a siesta over lunch.        I had no problem hiking a marathon a day. It was easy for me, and if I held up short, I would arrive at my destination with hours until I went to bed. That was boring. I figured as long as I was just sitting there, I might as well be walking. Don't let people tell you you are hiking too far. You are in outstanding shape, and can do it day after day with no penalties.        Zeros and neros: I took 7 or so zero days my entire trip. 5 were to heal up my knees. They were all set 300 miles in, and after that I never felt like I needed to take a day off. Zero days were also expensive. You are spending two nights at a hostel or such, and eating a lot of food in town. A much better way to go about this is the nero (nearly zero mile day, trail slang). The easiest way to do this is to stop for the night 3-10 miles from a town. The next morning you can make a dash into town and be there for most of the day. Plenty of time to do all your town chores and relax before spending that night in town. If you wanted to save more money, just hike out of town a mile (uphill) and camp. Neros can be just as relaxing as a zero.        My main problem with zero days was boredom. You are in town for two nights, so you get your chores finished, make some phone calls, spend some time on the Internet, and then there is nothing else to do. I always got bored and was wishing I was just back on the trail. Just me though, I'm sure some people enjoy the time off more.        Remember you can always nero or zero at a shelter as well. You would have to carry some extra food, but its free and may be more relaxing if you spend it at a nice spot on top of a mountain, by a stream, etc. I did over 1000 miles one stretch without a zero, and never in that time felt I needed one.        Food: Everyone does this differently, but here is what worked for me.Breakfast: 4 packs of instant oatmeal. No fuel: pour the oatmeal into your water bottle at night and pour in more water than the instructions call for. The oatmeal will hydrate overnight into a drink you can quickly consume in the morning with no dishes. I did this every day after I discovered it, and it worked amazingly well. If you want hot oatmeal, you could add too much hot water to your water bottle, or just pour the water directly into the oatmeal packets. They hold water unless they have been punctured. I did this for a very long time.Lunch: I hate peanut butter, but found myself craving it. 1/3 jar of peanut butter on 2 bagels or raisin bread. Usually a granola bar too. If you want some more flavor, add some honey. Remember to put the honey in a ziploc because it will leak. I found keeping the foil seal and placing it back on the honey helped it not leak.Dinner: I did 2 different things. 1: Lipton Side or Mac and Cheese with tuna and extra angel hair pasta. Add pasta until I ended up with a liter of noodles. I had a 1 liter pot. The extra pasta is just so you have some more calories. You will still be hungry if you just have the Lipton. 2: Skip the Lipton and just use about 34 lbs of pasta and a couple bullion cubes. Tuna as well. May not have enough flavor for everyone, but I loved large volumes of food and taste didn't matter to me too much.        I ate a ton of food on the trail. I also didn't lose any weight from beginning to end. You won't have a huge appetite until a couple weeks in, and from then on you will always be hungry. They say the rule is 2lbs of food a day. I did 2.5-3. Food is your fuel. DO NOT SKIMP.More to come tomorrow.