And on we go, after a somewhat unconventional week of moving around, regrouping and reorganizing as I approach the last half of this incredible little walk. Seems like I spent forever getting out of the greater Nashville area, which fortunately is a nice place to be. West Tennessee last week, drive across Nashville to Lebanon, Sunday in Lebanon and back to West TN, walk to West Nashville, then a day there, walk towards Lebanon, spent night, then on through Lebanon the next day, but stayed there again… feeling positively Lebanese yesterday when I finally made my way towards Carthage, where I picked up today and made it to Cookville.
Feet and everything else feeling perfect. Overcame a little food issue on Saturday, and though I lost a half day of walking, am back on schedule. A dear friend of mine visited this weekend, but now I’m back to my routine. Found it interesting to see how easily it is to fall out of rhythm. Also interesting to see how different is it to write about days prior in a past tense. I am going to fill in some of the days I missed, but I definitely notice how different it is to write about them, even though they were only a couple of days ago, I have the pictures, my voice notes, the maps and remember the day, but much prefer to write about it when everything is fresh and recent.
Did some of the math, pulling statistics from Garmin, Fitbit and MapMyWalk… all over the place. Unfortunately, there are some holes in the data, so I’ll pull from all of these to make an educated guess, and that’s all it is at this point! I’m also not stressing about it; as I mentioned before, it’s not about the number, it’s about what happens between departure and destination. Fitbit seems to be the most consistent and least prone to human error, that is, mine. Because it’s always on my wrist when I walk (I take off when I arrive at destination), it doesn’t require any intervention to record. Several times I have simply forgotten to turn on the Garmin or the app until several miles into the walk, so I have to depend on the other ones. Here’s the tally so far…
Have to adjust the Garmin - and spend a little time on Maps to reflect the exact route. These maps give a general idea. All I know is that I’m closer to Strawberry Fields than I am to Zilker Park.
One statistic that I like is off the Fitbit, and that is, as of a few minutes ago, I’ve supposedly walked 1,825,056 steps since I left the park. That’s a bunch of steps, and I really hope I don’t jinx this, but in all of them, I have only tripped four times, two of those self inflicted with my evil walking stick. And by trip, I don’t mean trip and fall - these were four tiny missteps along the way.
This past week, which I may call the halfway slump, threw me off, but it also gave me a good chance to look back on the previous seven weeks, which I really haven’t had that much time to do. By the time I get ready to walk, walk, recover from walk, wash skivvies and try to put it all into worlds, there is very little time left in a normal day, but my very luxurious two days of rest last week, one being my birthday, allowed me to think back a bit… halfway is probably a good time to re-think reasons, analyze mistakes and prepare for the next six or seven weeks.
I still get the question “why?” every place I go, and the reasons remain the same as when I left. All I hope is that something I have done, said or written will spark some positive change in someone’ else’s life. I want people to challenge themselves, start doing the things they think they couldn’t do, fix the things that need fixing, anything to bring a little more happy into their lives. It may mean getting out of their comfort zones, both physically and mentally. It may mean asking, and answering, some hard questions, but as long as the goal is clear, it’s all worth the process.
I will also restate that if I can do it, so can anybody else. I’m not a super athlete, ex-olympian, rock star or otherwise. Five years ago, I would have said “impossible, can’t be done.” And indeed, there was no way, at that time, that I could have done this. But we all have these amazing human bodies, one of the few things we know that can “fix” itself and be equal to, or better than before it healed. When I started taking care of mine, feeding it only things that were good for it (one of my rules), and jumped from 4 to 6 miles, then 8 to 10 fairly regularly, it opened up all kinds of new possibilities… longer hikes, climbs, and then longer and longer walks. I challenged myself to walk a marathon; nailed the first, and three more after that. And when this idea came along, after a lot of deliberation, I stepped up to the hardest physical challenge of my life, and perhaps mental as well. And every one of these days has been a challenge in itself, but little by little, all surpassed one by one.
Tennessee continues to be beautiful, and the people very nice. Thank you Josh for the water. nice meeting you Luke, Robert. Thanks to all the cars & trucks that moved over and all of those that waved.
Bought some pickles at the farm stand - haven’t seen an Honor System wagon or store in many many years. Isn’t it sad that this is the huge exception in today’s world? I think about how much energy we spend because people lie and steal… everything from law enforcement, to alarm systems, to lawyers and judges and jails, and the list goes on, just because a few among us don’t follow the rules.
So week 8 begins refreshed, regrouped, and reorganized. Also a very good reminder to step back every so often to look at the bigger picture, put everything back into proper perspective.