Date: 2018-01-10
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Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

I'm sitting in an armchair in a friend's house near the ski resort of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It's been snowing all morning and the skiing is probably wonderful now. But I'm not skiing. I have my right leg propped on a stool in front of me, as I rest an injury to my MCL (mediate collateral ligament) sustained a few days ago on my first day of skiing since March 2016. So I have lots of time to look back on my AT thru-hike and reflect on it and what has happened since I finished on Katahdin on July 28, 2017.In retrospect, I suspect I was hiking on borrowed time for about the last month of the hike. After three and a half months, I had lost 40 pounds. I was still carrying a backpack that was too heavy, but at least my body was no longer being assailed daily by chafing straps and waist belts, as the good folks at REI in Richmond, VA had set me right with a slightly heavier but more comfortable pack. However, I had begun falling constantly, a sign of possible deep-seated fatigue. On one day in Maine I fell 19 times. I remember in particular the frustration and misery I felt as I descended Mt. Moosilauke in wet conditions, falling three or four times, including one fall in which I broke a trekking pole, followed by another horrible day during which I ascended North Kinsman. So, although I was still able to do 20-mile days once I hit Maine, it is debatable for how much longer I could have kept that going.I arrived home on July 30. My family and friends made a fuss of me, deluged me with questions, and fed me. (Actually, let me change that ¢ I stuffed my face at every available opportunity.) I quickly gained back every one of those lost pounds. But I found that I had no energy. I'd looked forward to getting back on my bike in preparation for the 192-mile charity ride I do each year in early August, but I was only able to drag myself out on the road one time, and felt wretched on that ride. I headed back to Boston for the event (the Pan-Mass Challenge). I rode it all, but for the first time ever, was not able to keep up with my team, who kindly waited for me at water stops and feed zones. That was a novel and humbling situation for me.I spent a few weeks with my wife before I headed off to Ireland to see my mum for a week. Then my wife joined me for another week in Italy, before I drove up to the Italian Alps with my bike to ride with some relatives and friends on some of the steepest slopes in that region, including a long side trip one day by car to reach and ride the infamous Stelvio. Despite my continuing tiredness, I was able to make it up the climbs, but not as quickly as my younger brother and brother-in-law. On the downhills, I am still king!!!To complete my adventurous 2017, in late October I flew down to Lima, capital of Peru, with my daughter. Starting there, we spent 6 weeks traveling by bus, Toyota Land Cruiser and plane through Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. It was only after two or three weeks at altitude in Peru that I noticed that the fog of exhaustion had lifted and I felt energised again. Perhaps it was the thin air forcing my body to respond by creating more red blood cells which helped heal me. Maybe it was just a function of time. We hiked some arduous trails in Peru, topping out at altitudes of around 15,000 feet, where on the upward stretches we would hike for two minutes, and rest for three to let our lungs and legs absorb the effort. I saw that I was able to keep up with the guides when others failed. (The AT did not purge me of my competitive instincts... sorry...) Today, over five months since I summited on Katahdin, I still have plantar fasciitis in both feet, and some toes on each foot that remain numb because of the nerve damage accumulated from 5 million steps.Here are some questions people ask me about the AT:Did you enjoy it?Yes and no. By the last four weeks, I was dying to reach Katahdin. There was no way I was going to quit, but I wanted to quit and only pride kept me going. The scenery was stupendous all through New Hampshire and for a lot of Maine, but all I wanted was to get through it. I'll never forget the fear and misery of my descent of Moosilauke in wet conditions, falling three or four times (breaking a pole in one fall), and feeling so sorry for myself. But I'll also not forget the joy I felt setting out from the Murray Shelter in New Jersey after a long evening spent with the owner, Jim Murray. I literally danced. I¢m happy now that I did the AT. I saw scenery only hikers see. I met some beautiful people. I made friends. So like the rest of life generally, the AT was a mix of good and bad, joy and pain. Some parts I enjoyed, some I didn¢t. And for the rest of my life, I have bragging rights!Would you do it again?Probably not in its entirety. I am making some vague plans to hike certain sections again, maybe even with my wife, although she finds the thought of camping a bit off-putting. Just this morning I finished reading Cheryl Strayed¢s book Wild about her time on the Pacific Crest Trail, and I have to admit that I felt some stirrings of interest in that. I¢ve agreed with my son that we should hike some of the hills in Ireland like the Twelve Bens, but these are weekend hikes and no big diversion from ordinary life. Taking several months or even weeks away from my wife again would be a difficult thing, and unfair.What surprised you most about the trail?I¢d done a lot of reading about the AT in advance, including following many of the Class of 2016 on trailjournals.com, and had spoken at length to former AT hikers. So I found very few surprises on the trail. A few of the minor surprises were: (1) how quickly injuries healed; (2) how rocky the trail is; and (3) how cool it was.(1) Injuries: I frequently went to sleep with chronically sore knees or feet, certain that my hike was over. I would emerge from my tent in the morning with no pain. I have a theory, based on some material I read about people on starvation diets whose injuries healed more rapidly than expected. I think this healing-under-stress is an evolutionary development. Imagine two humanoids on the dusty African savannah a million years ago, both very hungry, and with identical serious injuries. One heals quickly, although that means her body must draw on depleted stores of body fat, potentially bringing her closer to death. The other heals more slowly, meaning his reserves last longer. However, when a gazelle goes by, the healed one is able head off in pursuit, chase down and kill that gazelle, and survive, passing on her genes and her quick-healing abilities to her descendants. The unhealed one lingers and dies. I think that since all thru-hikers are more or less in a continuous state of starvation, our bodies go into ¢hyper-repair¢ mode, fixing us up quickly. If we were not starving, our bodies would feel safer in conserving reserves and letting us heal more slowly.(2) Rocks: I knew in advance that certain sections of the trail were going to be rocky. But I was surprised at how rocky the trail became, particularly from Pennsylvania on, and for how long that rockiness persisted. It would be interesting, if it were possible to compile the statistics, to see how much of the trail¢s surface would be classed as ¢even¢, ¢moderately rocky¢, and ¢rocky / technical¢. As an aside, I think the oft-quoted statistic that the last 20% of a NOBO¢s hike contains 80% of the effort is a big exaggeration. We forget the difficulties in Pennsylvania, parts of Virginia, and even back in Georgia and Tennessee ¢ remember the ascent of Mt. Albert, or the descent from Dragon¢s Tooth, to name just two?(3) Temperatures: I expected that by the time late April or early May came around, I¢d be dying in the heat, sleeping on top of my sleeping bag, and having to carry massive quantities of water. I sweat a lot ¢ thanks for that segment of your gene code, Dad. Many years ago, when I was a runner, I would lose a pound per mile In Bermuda¢s hot and humid summers. But with the frequently wet and overcast days on the trail in 2017, and the cooling effect of being at altitude, or hiking into the wind, or shaded by the green tunnel, I found the temperatures far more tolerable than I had anticipated.Did the trail change you in any way?Sadly, I don¢t think so. Unlike many of my fellow-hikers who had come to the trail to ¢find themselves¢, I hadn¢t. Most of them were 18-22 years old, and they had questions to ponder and decisions to make ¢ to go to college or not, to change jobs, to leave home. Others, usually older, had gone through or were dealing with life crises ¢ addiction, divorce, the impact of tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, the loss of a loved one. Luckily, I had suffered little in my life, and was not out on the trail to recover from a loss. The most I could claim was that I was on the trail to shed the stress of a job that had become unbearable. But most if not all of that stress had already fallen off my shoulders the day I left my job, two months before I headed for Georgia; my heart ceased to worry me with its little arrhythmic dances, and I began to enjoy untroubled sleep. I went on the trail partly just to see if I could do it, relishing the choice of an activity for which I was totally unprepared both physically and in terms of skill-set. I had never hiked before, and had never camped, apart from a few nights in Ireland 31 years ago, when I did a 700-mile bike tour. (People ask me why I didn¢t do a few shake-down hikes before tackling one of the toughest hikes in the world. I really have no answer, except that I was limited in my ability to do so in Bermuda, and if I¢d done so in the US, Uncle Sam¢s IRS troops would have expected me to file a tax return there for 2017, since I¢d have exceeded my permitted number of days.) So I was pleased that, despite suffering with sore knees, with backpack-induced aches and pains, and with cuts, scrapes and bruises from all my falls, I managed to complete the AT. But changed? I don¢t think so. I love the sound of my own voice, as my family and friends will only too readily agree, and I¢m still a chatterbox. I¢m good company, and I think my trail colleagues would confirm that the trail didn¢t change that. I put up with mild adversity reasonably well, and that was a good quality to bring on the trail, but I don¢t think I¢m any tougher. I¢m still me.Time to finish.Here¢s to all of you, those who helped me out along the way, those who cheered me on, those whose friendship supported me. As we say in Ireland: May the road rise to meet you, and may the wind be ever at your back.Sl¡inte