Raymond Road Again

I was up and out for an 8-mile run on the Raymond Road loop this morning. A heavy fog was settled over the fields on Pleasant Hill Road, but things had cleared out a bit by the time I turned onto Raymond. I felt good throughout, and many thanks go to Snowman for helping me loosen up my very tight right leg last night! Didn't see much bird-wise, with the exception of seeing 5 very large turkeys hanging out by the road in the middle of someone's driveway.

This run finished out the week at 30 miles, which seems like a solid number.

Next week's plan is to continue to get in as much mileage as I can. We also plan to do a 15.5 mile hike on the AT on Monday. This hike includes the infamous Mahoosuc Notch, as well as the Mahoosuc Arm, which we've heard is just as tough. Snowman and I have been dreading this section, but as are now down to our two remaining sections aside from the 100 mile wilderness and Katahdin, it is time to tackle it! We decided to do the Notch as a long day hike, thinking that although it would likely be a rough day, it would also probably be a bit easier trying to get through it without a big heavy pack and poles to complicate matters as we climbed and went up and under the boulders in the Notch itself. The plan is to start by 7am, giving us 12 hours+ of daylight to get through it all.

In thinking about our remaining AT mileage, I can't help but be amazed that we are almost done (catastrophes aside)! Although it would have been wonderful to have finished the trail as a thru-hike in 2005, I think that in some ways, finishing it up this year may be even more of an accomplishment. What I mean by this is that it has taken a pretty awesome amount of determination, grit and perseverance to finish off the 660 miles that we had left when we stopped in Massachusetts in July 2005. We could have moved on, said forget it, we've done enough. But instead, we have managed to continue slowly knocking off the miles, despite the logistics of having to do most of the miles on weekends, when we're tired from long weeks of work, driving here, there and everywhere, coordinating shuttles, getting out on weekends when it would have been so much nicer to sit on the couch as the rain fell outside, etc. Snowman would likely say that the fact that we have continued to hike is due to my stubbornness and single-minded focus that we finish every mile, together :-) but seriously, I think it means we're pretty tough!