Out With The Old

Yesterday was a hot walking day! It was almost 90 degrees. I drank 3000ml of water/Gatorade and I felt thrirsty (but not dehydrated) for the last 4 hours. The first 4 hours went really quickly. I shouldn't have looked at my watch. Once I realized I had been walking for 4 hours I kind of freaked out and kept thinking "4 hours, wow that is a long time to be walking." So I ended up walking for about 8 hours.

Before I put on my shoes for the marathon walk, I noticed that the padding in the heal of my left shoe was totally gone. I knew it was torn, but hadn't looked to see that the hard leather of the shoe was coming through. I tried to do a quick fix with cotton and tape, but it totally failed at about mile 6 (I was getting a blister and the back of the shoe felt really hard). So I took out the tape and cotton and walked with the hard leather. No cotton padding was actually better than the cotton. Shoes are complex tools!



So I came to the realization last night that these shoes will not make the entire 40 mile walk as I have been hoping. I went to Big 5 at lunch today and tried to find an exact replica (which I knew was impossible because I got these great no blister shoes for $19 on closeout). I did, however, find a close match today. They are half a size larger than the no blister shoes, but I have them on this afternoon and they feel great. So I have 2 weeks and several short (less than 10 mile walks) to break these new shoes in. I am going to take the worn out shoes as a back-up for the long walk, because they are still nearly perfect - just not reliable for a 40 mile walk.

The trail was really busy with bikers yesterday. I guess a lot of people have the summer off in Santa Fe. When I was walking in Eldorado I saw a really tall coyote. The cactus picture was also taken in Eldorado. I saw a lot of jackrabbits and cotton tail bunnies (all too fast to photograph). Now that it is hot out, the smells along the trail are really different and strong. I can smell the pinon trees baking in the sun.

So this was my last long training walk. It feels good to have it done, but the walk still seems pretty far in the future (now less than 2 weeks away).