THIS HAS BEEN MY LIFE FOR THE PAST 4 DAYS:

Seeing if it's possible to fit my entire life into a 5 x 10 storage space (plus a 5 x 5 space in the storage area over my parent's garage) In doing so, I learned a number of things:

1) I am not as good at packing as I was when I was a traveler and moved every three months. Back then, I was a packing and moving machine! I could get everything packed into the exact same rubbermade container and the containers in my jeep in the exact same order every time. I was systematic. I was focused. I was a moving force of nature! This time, I rather felt like Ten Second Tom from 50 First Dates. I was unfocused and unorganized and it took me way longer than I thought it would. 

2) Probably because I've accumulated so much stuff. What's strange is that I purge regularly. (My possessions, not my lunch) I try to follow the "one in, one out" rule. I don't shop a lot. Yet somehow, I ended up drowning in stuff. 

3) A lot of my stuff defies categorization. Which may have contributed greatly to the time it took to pack. In general, like goes in the same box with like. But I had so many little unique things that did not lend themselves to the groups. Now I have entirely too many "miscellaneous" bags.

4) I clean way more when I leave a place than when I'm living in it. That may be partially due to the fact that when you live somewhere, all your stuff is in the way when you clean so you clean around it. But that still doesn't fully explain why I turned into an Italian grandmother this weekend.

5) When cleaning and packing, something inevitably spills. 

6) The only thing that makes a bigger mess than a container of wasabi peas is a half-closed bottle of laundry detergent.

(Did I mention that this took me a lot longer than anticipated?)

But I think it was a good exercise in systematically focusing and getting to the other side. Which I will need. Because for the next few months, I will fit my life into this:

Yesterday was my last day of work. It still seems unreal. Like in two days, I will be getting up in the morning, putting on my work clothes and driving in to see patients. Today just seemed like a day off.

When I think of this upcoming hike, it still seems like it is in the distant future, a far off dream that I will get around to someday. Except that someday is 5 days away.

I once read that "A goal is a dream with a deadline." I'm not sure who said that. Probably Oprah.* And this year, that is exactly what happened. It picked a date and turned a dream into a goal. It still seems weird.

I was going through a bunch of papers today: one of those piles of things that seem so important to keep until faced with a limited amount of storage space. I came across a folder labeled "someday". I remember putting this folder together, many years ago. It was filled with pages from magazines; things that I wanted to do, places where I wanted to go, challenges that I wanted to complete.

As I went through the clippings, I was amazed at the number of things that I have completed. It was kind of nice to cull the pile of each goal that no longer belonged in a "someday" folder. See the Grand Canyon. Check. Ride in a hot air balloon. Check. Visit Venice. Check. Run a marathon. Check. Hike the Appalachian Trail. Check.

And then, it all seemed a little less weird to me. We all have our dream folders, our diaries and journals, our bucket lists. We all have that place where we guard our secret desires and lifelong dreams. We all have days like today when we look back over our lists and measure our progress on the items, be they 1) get married 2) buy a house 3) have a baby; 1) complete my PhD 2) secure a university position 3) cure cancer; or 1) travel the world 2) write a novel 3) get a picture published in National Geographic. We are all in it together, plugging away at those items on our lists, carving out our own little place in the world. It's nice that all our dreams are a little different. It's nice that everyone's little niche brings something unique to the party.

Yesterday was my last day at work. Today was one step closer to turning the dream to goal. Check.

My friends Adam, an avid marathon runner, once gave me the following advice:"Don't skimp on your running shoes. They are your only piece of equipment." And while this advice is patently untrue (Ever hear of a sports bra, Adam? It is equally important as the shoes!) it does offer a credible suggestion in terms of your feet. Footwear is key when training for a marathon.

It would stand to reason, then, that footwear is even MORE important when planning an AT thru hike. 

After reading Trail Tested, I set about replacing much of my gear with lighter versions. I got a lighter tent, a lighter backpack, lighter sleeping bag. Not too difficult, since much of my gear has been serving me well for 15 years or so. (I am nothing, if not loyal to my gear) And I was pleased to find that in the past 15 years, camping technology has really come a long way. My new gear appears just a durable, but a whole lot lighter.  

For my boots, though, I was still hesitant. I love my old boots. They are really old-school and really comfortable. Plus, when I purchased them in 1996, I had first tried just about every other boot in the entire store before deciding. Every time I put on boots that seemed to fit, I then walked down the slant board they had in the middle of the store and felt my feet slide in the boots and my toes smash up against the front of the boot. Every. Single. Time.

Finally, the guy said "Let me look at your feet again." He examined my feet, said, "Oh, you're one of those." And went out back to get what he promised would be the perfect boot for my foot. Oh, how right he was. 

"One of those" means I have a "Low volume foot"; my foot is narrow top to bottom, not necessarily side to side. And my heel is so narrow I practically have a hoof instead of a foot. What does that mean in the real world? Absolutely nothing. But in hiking and running world, it is of utmost importance.

It means that I will always have my feet ensconced in Mizuno Alchemy Waves and Vasque Sundowners. 

Or I thought I would until that damn Trail Tested book had me second guessing my entire belief system. Maybe the technological breakthroughs that had produced my new pack and tent had also meandered into footwear. Maybe there are ridiculously light but just and durable boots that are specially designed for "one of those" cloven hoofed hikers. (Don't worry, I don't have a forked tail. Or horns. Just hooves.) Maybe I should replace my boots with a totally different kind.

So in much the same way I skulked around EMS and REI looking for waterproof gear, I monopolized the boot section of both stores for an afternoon. The result?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. 

And I had to order off of Amazon! The cool camping stores don't stock those babies anymore. Their loss.

When it comes to injury prevention, I think nothing is more important than the fraternal twins: Core and Flexibility. As it gets closer to starting day, I am getting more and more concerned with keeping myself injury free. So I am spending a little less time on strength and endurance and a little more time on core and flexibility. 

I general, I tried to do a little core work with the strength aspect of the workout. Lots of body weight exercises and such. But for good measure, I threw in some planks, side planks, and hanging leg raises above and beyond the strength. I'm not a big fan of crunches, simply because I don't enjoy them, not because I have any information on their effectiveness. But I do think I may throw in a few of them in this last week.

For flexibility, of course, I have turned to yoga. I used to go to a yoga class at the gym that I dubbed "easy yoga" because of its gentle, flowing nature. From that class, I learned that I actually get better results from the gentle approach than from power yoga. And though changes in class schedule has made yoga at the gym impossible, I have tried to do one yoga DVD or download per week. I am rather partial to Sage Roundtree's Yoga for Athletes. I also did a lot of yoga downloads from Bexlife.com

SInce injury prevention is pretty much a full time concern, especially when engaging in physical activity all day every day for months on end, I'm in the process of putting together a Core/Flexibility routine or two for the apres hike, before sleep part of the day on the trail. I gotta stay injury free on the trail, too.

One week and counting!

One of the things I have been trying to mentally prepare myself for in the hike is being wet. Being wet for long periods of time. After all, as the saying goes: "No pain, no rain, no Maine." And I plan on making it to Maine.

I scoured the sale racks and clearance sections of EMS, REI, LLBean, Campmore, and Outdoor World for all the usual waterproof suspects. Rain jacket. Rain pants. Rain hat. Pack cover. Tent with Rainfly. Waterproof stuff sacks. Garbage bags. So it seems that I have all my basis covered.

Well, yes. And no.

It seems that there is waterproof, and then there is technical waterproof. One is like the yellow slickers we all went to elementary school in. Repels water for sure, but also makes a nice, drizzly April morning like the surface of the sun! Which is where technical waterproof picks up. Through the magic of modern technology, it makes things both waterproof and breathable. 

Breathable-waterproof items are apparently made of breathable fabric that is coated with water repellent polymers that bind to the fabric. While I'm sure any one of my nerdy ex-boyfriends could explain in explicit detail the ins and outs of water repellent polymers, the only important thing that sticks in my mind is that after while, the water repellent coating wears off. Which means that the very same tent that ensures the exhaled vapor from my mouth doesn't make the inside of the tent like a tropical rain forest may after time not ensure that the tropical rainforest outside of the tent stays on the outside. 

Why does it always seem like hyphens make everything complicated? Breathable-waterproof started out so promising and end up being just another pain in the water repellent polymer!

Enter Nik Wax.

Nik Wax is a spray bottle of the aforementioned water repellent polymer that binds to fabric. Handy because once the coating wears off, you simply have to spray Nik Wax evenly on your stuff and rub it around to make sure its even and uniform. Easy Peasy and good as new!

Interestingly, most breathable-water repellent apparel suggests spraying with Nik Wax BEFORE even taking it out the first time! You would think that after forking out the extra money to get hyphenated rainwear (or in my case, scouring in the sales racks and clearance sections to that I DIDN'T have to fork out the extra money) that it would be ready to go. Apparently not. 

Which is how last Saturday afternoon, after my training hike, found me waterproofing all my gear.

I waterproofed the tent and rain fly.

I waterproofed that backpack cover and backpack.

I waterproofed my clothing and stuff sacks and hung them all up to dry. It smelled awesome.
But now, I'm all good to go.

Now, if I could just find a way to keep the rain from turning my hair all frizzy, I'd REALLY be all set. 

In addition to endurance training, strength training was a big focus of my conditioning program. After all, I will not only be carrying a heavy pack all day long, but also going up pretty steep inclines. That needs some muscles! I'm fairly lucky in the aspect that I do alot of lifting at work, so I'm pretty strong to begin with. But there's strength and then there's strength over long periods of time. More like muscular endurance, really, but we already covered endurance. This is about strength, dammit!

For strength, I had two major types of workouts:
1) A WOD type workout with lots of bodyweight style exercises
2) Functional lifting exercises with weights.

The WOD workouts I gathered from a number of sources. Despite my rant about the Crossfit non-endurance training endurance plan, I do like their workouts for strength. So I gathered a few from a Crossfit website, wrote them on index cards and shuffled them up to bring to the gym. Fitness websites were plentiful and full of WOD-type workouts. I also gathered a few routines from BodyRock.tv. I like the workouts from this site quite a bit, but I'm not overly enthusiastic about the presentation. Oftentimes the exercise videos looked more like soft-core porn than workouts. (I'll just take a moment here to pause and let all my male friends check out the website since I mentioned porn. Ok, back guys? Good) I like it for me, but I'd never send my nieces there to look up workouts! I also grabbed a few from Blondeponytail.com and from Blogilates.com I tried for two or three of these workouts a week. Most of the time, it was more like two. These were the "strong bodies don't injure as easily" workouts.

The "I need to lift a heavy pack up a hill" workouts were more traditional weighted exercises. Two times per week, I did
1) Step ups with a 50# barbell
2) Walking lunges with 20# dumbells or a 40# barbell
3) Pushups on a BOSU
4) Kettle-bell swings
5) Cable pull diagonal chops
6) Cable pull diagonal lifts
7) Hanging Leg Lift

Don't know if this is gonna help me with the hike, but what the heck, I guess it can't hurt! 

Yesterday, I decided to take advantage of the weather. Since we had a few days of warmer temperatures and a few days of rain, the snow has melted away. Time to hit the woods!

I haven't had the new pack on for a training hike. (Trying the pack on and wearing it around the house doesn't count!) So I loaded it up, put it on, and hiked around some of the mountain bike trails in the area. My base weight (pack, tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, ground pad, first aid kit, clothes, guide books, hygiene products,trekking poles, and camping supplies) is 20.6 pounds. A little heavier than I had wanted, since I still have food and water to add to the pack. But I'm sure I'll figure out what to get rid of once I hit the trail.

I gotta tell you, it felt GREAT! 

The first thing I noticed were all the downed trees. There were alot of them.

I mean alot of them! I did a lot of climbing over trees. And climbing under trees. I was rather impressed with myself that I was able to scramble under trees like this one without disrupting the pack. (This tree was alot lower to the ground than the picture suggests. Trust me. Be rather impressed with me, too.)

Not this one, though. I had to do a bit of bush-whacking to get through this mess. I'm not that good!

In addition to a nice obstacle course, the woods provided me with other sources of entertainment and inspiration:

The last remnants of winter.

Next to the first signs of spring.

A few rocky hills. 

Some birds and animals (No pictures of them. They were too fast!)

And a few more downed trees.  (Plus my finger. What the heck is that doing in there?)

After the hike I felt great! The boots felt good, the pack felt comfortable, and after just a tiny bit of adjusting, no pinching or pressure areas. 

And best of all, I'm feeling a little less panic-y about the trail.

Now if I can just get the apartment packed up and the remaining work responsibilities taken care of! 

Have you ever had one of those friends who uses pregnancy as an excuse to eat everything in sight for 9 straight months? You know the one: at 2 months she's gained 35 pounds and says "It's the baby!" Never mind that the baby is the size of a lima bean. A 35 pound lima bean.

 By the time she reaches term, she's put on 70 pounds and wonders why it didn't all just magically melt away at the delivery. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that would be me.

Case in point: I have been using this upcoming thru-hike as an excuse perform a one-person re-enactment of Shark Week: The Feeding Frenzy. Chocolate? I can eat that! I'm about to hike all day long for 6 months straight. Cookies? I can eat those. I will be carrying a 30 pound pack. Ice cream? Well, I won't even have access to that. Ice cream does not keep well in a back pack. Better eat as much of it as I can before I start the hike! Not to mention pizza. That doesn't travel well, either.

As a result of my unbridled eating extravaganza, I pretty much resemble Fat Monica from Friends. Remember that? Why was it so funny when Courtney Cox danced in a fat suit? It just was. Good times.

Anywho... I've taken to wearing elastic waist band pants as much as possible. Even my shirts are fitting strangely. They have appeared to have gotten SHORTER as my weight crept up.( Must be because they're expanding out to the sides instead of hanging straight down) I tell you, I am a sight to behold!

All in all, though, I'm not concerned. I keep telling myself, that FAT is FUEL! I'm going to need alot of it soon. Just me, my heavy backpack, and no ice cream machines in sight. Here's hoping that after this trip, I will have gained not only a lot more self control, but a figure more like....ok, not like Skinny Monica. I could backpack every day for the rest of my life and still not have that physique. 

Maybe like Jennifer Anniston. With out of control hair and a backpack. 

In terms of physical conditioning, the biggest part of my training would, of course, be endurance work. This challenge is the mack daddy of any endurance event I have ever attempted. Way bigger than a marathon. Way bigger than a Tough Mudder. Way bigger than a tri. And it's pretty much all endurance.

In terms of training specificity, it would make the most sense to train for hiking by -- hiking. But winter in New England paired with my weird work hours makes hiking a bit of a challenge. Sure, there are some die hard hikers out there who would gladly trek through 2 feet of snow in the dark for training purposes. I opted for the wimpy version -- treadmill and other cardio equipment.

I essentially had 4 types of cardio workouts:
1) Long flat runs
2) Short, fast runs 
3) Hills
4) Weighted workouts

The long flat runs I tried to make 7 or more miles. I didn't worry about  speed (I never do!) I just wanted to get moving and get some miles under me. The short fast runs (Or shall I say, short and slow but slightly faster than the long run pace) were 3 or 4 miles. An after work get a few miles in workout. The hill workouts were done outside weather permitting. If the weather sucked, I did this treadmill workout. And the weighted workouts were done with a 15 pound weighted vest. I often combined the weighted workouts with the others, so maybe a weighted incline treadmill workout or a weighted short run. I didn't do long runs with the weighted vest, but often I would go on long walks with the vest.

I tried for a minimum of 4 cardio workouts per week, sometimes more, though there were, admittedly a couple weeks where I had a less, depending on how I felt or if I had to stay late at work.  But for the most part, I treated them as the prep work for day after day of the ultimate cardio experience. 

Am I ready? Truthfully, I'm not sure I am. But I also think I could workout religiously for the next 6 months and still not feel ready. I'm just gonna have to go for it.

Last weekend was busy! I was lucky enough to be up at Loon Mountain on Kostic Cup weekend. Kostic Cup is the annual winter sport challenge for New England Disables Sports (NEDS). It includes races, costumes, kid's activities at the mountain, and concludes with a dinner and awards ceremony later at night. It is truly one of the most fun and uplifting events  I have attended. 

NEDS winter program is such a well organized and well run program! The staff and volunteers at Loon have a great sense of camaraderie and love getting anyone possible out on the snow having a good time. I admit, I am much more of a summer girl than a winter girl. And after skiing the west coast, I became rather jaded about the snow we get here in New England. It took me a few years after moving back to haul myself back up to the mountains to go skiing again. 

When I started going up to assist with adaptive ski program, I was genuinely embraced by the NEDS family of volunteers. Even though I am a mediocre skier at best and really can't give ANYONE tips for improving their skiing whatsoever, I didn't feel out of place at all. I was another set of hands when needed, a rehab mind, if needed, and another person to add to the social atmosphere, always needed. Along with assisting the disabled athletes, I was getting tips for becoming a better skier, myself. (After all, you can't tell what is going wrong for somebody skiing on one leg when you are skiing wrong on two legs!) Best of all, I was able to once again re-discover my love for skiing while helping others to do the same.

Kostic Cup weekend culminates the fund-raising efforts of the NEDS winter program, which is necessary to keep this great program running . It was nice to be able to be present when the new skiers got medals for going out there and trying something new, the more seasoned skiers get trophies for placing in the afternoon's races, and the volunteers get recognition for all their hard work. The winner of the Kostic Cup isn't necessarily the fastest or most agile skier in the NEDS program. Instead, it's the skier who most clearly embodies the spirit of the NEDS program: striving for personal excellence, respect for others, being able to both teach and learn from others, and contributing to the sense of community. Which, quite frankly, means alot more than simply being the fastest.

Sunday night found me in the absolute best state one can be in after a weekend: tired, happy, a little sore, and completely fulfilled. It's good feeling. It was a good time.