Date: 2010-01-10
To: Psyching Myself Up
Miles today: 0.0

At this point in the planning stage for my ¢05 hike, I had the great good fortune to come in contact with a through-hiker from ¢03 by the name of Liteshoe. Her journal is one of the most popular ever (over 550,000 hits, and well worth the read). She also has an award-winning book out on her Long Trail hike: ¢The Ordinary Adventurer¢. I met her on the at-l email list, and she was kind enough to give me some really good tips about the trail, including one bit of advice I¢ve never forgotten. We were discussing the phenomenon of the trail community, and the dynamics of how that bonding process occurs. She noted that it actually takes a bit of time, and doesn¢t happen immediately those first few days on the trail. Everyone is pretty much totally psyched up, and there¢s a lot of nervous energy, but most folks don¢t quite know what to expect or how to behave, and they are focused first and foremost on simply surviving ¢ trying hard not to screw up their hike right out of the chute. She suggested, therefore, that it would be a good idea for me to sort of ¢prime the pump¢ those first few nights on the trail. You know, be sort of a catalyst for getting the collective spirit going. I thought that made a lot of sense, and I tried to follow her advice both in ¢05 and again in ¢09. Mostly it just involves a big smile, a welcoming greeting, making sure to introduce yourself to everyone you meet ¢ no exceptions ¢ and then, especially for those who are a bit shy, introducing them to others. Bringing along a large bag of marshmellers to share around the campfire on those first couple of nights doesn¢t hurt!I also decided, however, not to wait until I got to Springer to begin that pump-priming process. So I read through the journals on this web site, and came up with a list of those who were planning to leave out at about the same time as me ¢ plus or minus a couple of weeks. I then sent out an email inviting those who were interested to join me in an email forum. That initiative led to a web site accessible by all of us on the list (only one hiker declined the opportunity), a contest to come up with a name for our group (¢March Company¢), and the beginnings of a lot of long-term relationships. I was struck recently by how many of those original March Company members are now on my Christmas Email List!I never got around to doing that last year. Too busy working, I guess. I finally got it done this year, just this past week, and the response has been really cool. We don¢t have a name yet, but tentatively we are ¢The Tenners¢. I can¢t wait to meet all of these ¢new best friends¢ on the trail. If experience is any guide, you can be sure that among the 40 some names on the list there will be a whole bunch of ¢best friends forever¢ before this little adventure of ours is done. All of which brings me to what is really on my mind on this cold and blustery Sunday morning in January ¢ just 62 days before I leave for Springer Mountain.   Will I be one of the lucky ones who, when this adventure of ours is done, will have summited Mount Katahdin with my friends? I have seen the summit photos of those I was hiking with last year before injuries took me off the trail ¢ Squeegie, Newt, Ms. Scarlette, Sunbeam and Half Moon, Doc, Samwise, Colonel Mustard, Topo, Hammock, and others. And all I can think about when I see those photos is how desperately I wish I could have continued the journey with them, all the way to Maine. Only those who have experienced the pain of being forced off the trail can know the depths of our anguish. By the same token, however, those who have experienced the agony of being forced off the trail, but are later able to complete the journey, have an appreciation for the accomplishment that goes well beyond what those who make it on their first attempt can possibly feel. I¢m thinking not only of myself, but of Scholar and Cuppa Joe from ¢04 and ¢05, and Butterfly Moon from ¢05 and ¢08, to name just a few. My transcriber, Break-a-Leg will experience that same exquisite joy in the not distant future ¢ her ¢unfinished business¢ with the trail, as she puts it.   So which will it be for me in 2010: The triumph of victory, or the agony of defeat? If the outcome simply depended on my commitment, dedication, and perseverance, I¢m so there! Unfortunately, it¢s a bit more complicated than that. I hate to employ such a trite and abused phrase as this, but there¢s no better way to put the dilemma: ¢The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.¢ As I said in an earlier entry, I¢m feeling just a tad spooked by my first-hand knowledge of how easy it is to get taken off the trail by injuries. So I¢ve been trying to come up with some kind of strategy that will give me the best possible chance of making it all the way this year. The best I can come up with is to focus all of my attention on getting through each day without something going wrong physically. Three problems with that approach: First, if I¢m really, really cautious, it¢s unlikely I will be able to keep up with my friends in the first place. In fact, ¢keeping up with friends¢ is one of the surest ways of over-stretching what may be best for your health and well-being. There¢s always a lot of ¢hop-scotching¢ going on in the best of times, so even if my friends get a bit ahead, I¢ve always been able to catch up when they take a zero. Unless I¢m really, really cautious¢¦. Second, there¢s absolutely no guarantee that it will work. There are, I don¢t know, something like five million steps between Springer Mountain and Mount Katahdin. And every single one of them is a potential hike-ender. It only takes one wet and slippery rock, or root, and ¢¦ Third, and most important, such a strategy would take all the fun out of my hike! It would turn it into a totally ¢avoid the negative¢ focus that is the antithesis of what the journey should be all about. Life, as they say, is filled with trade-offs. What I¢m going to have to do is just be as careful as I reasonably can be, and then let it go. For guys like me, that¢s not easy. We don¢t like to admit that we¢re not in control. If my trail experience has taught me nothing else, however, it is that none of us is really in control of our destiny out there on the trail. We can argue about who ¢ or what ¢ else might be, but I know this: it ain¢t ME.