RESERVATIONS ARE MADE!!!

The reservations are made. We will be gone for two weeks, and besides the hiking trip, we will be spending time in Edinburgh. There will also be a couple of days when Scott will go his way and I will go mine. Mine will be spent in Inverness at Kilrovok Castle, the ancestral home of the Roses. Rose is my maiden name, and the castle is now a B&B, and I have reservations. WE LEAVE IN TWO WEEKS!!! Lots has happened since the last post. In May I spent some time with my awesome coach, Regina Reiter in Virginia, staying at The Dutch Haus B&B in Montebello. During hiking season, Lois and Earl Arnold transform their home into a hiking hostel catering to through hikers on the Appalachian Trail. All the rooms have bunk beds in them during this time of the year, and are so comfy. There were lots of different people and backgrounds and stories to tell. Rates are reasonable and Earl and Lois provide transport to and from hiking trails. Dinner is provided at an additional charge. The food is plentiful and tasty. Regina was the ridge runner for 80 miles of the Appalachian Trail in that area. For three days I hiked - some with Regina and some with others who were taking some time off the trail to do day hikes during this section. Also during this vacation, I spent some time at the VA farm, and with friends in the Spruce Pine, NC area. Coming down to the wire on the training - hiked 12 miles yesterday and 12 today on the Kennesaw Mountain trails, including hiking the mountain section, sometimes more than once. My feet hurt and I have blisters. AND I am encouraged to look at older posts of when I was excited that I had hiked 6 miles. The plan is to hike around Ammacolila Falls next weekend - the last major training before I leave. This has been an incredible two and a half years in training.

March 1-4 trip to Foothills Trails

Regina sent me the following information of our hikes this past weekend:
Itinerary
Thursday: Eastatoe Creek Spur Trail from Laural Valley parking. 5.4 miles round trip.
Friday : Foothills Trail Chimneytop Gap to Sassafras Mtn summit and back (5.4), then Chimneytop Gap to Laurel Valley (2.1). Total 7.5
Saturday: Foothills Trail Laurel Valley parking to Laurel Creek and back. Total 7.8
Sunday: Whitewater Falls View 1 mile
Bad Creek Access Trail 1.2 miles
Foothills Trail along whitewater river 2.6
Total sunday =4.8
Trip total = 25.5
Yippee!
I didn't get to the retreat center until 3pm, so we got a late start on Thursday's hike. Friday it rained a good part of the day. What really worked was the waterproof, windproof, and breathable slacks I got from REI. I paid full price of $70 for them and it was so worth it.
Saturday was the killer hike for me. It was a more strenuous trip and I carried a heavier pack than I have ever. I wore the funny toe shoes the entire day. My feet felt stronger on Sunday, though and I wore hiking boots. Alternating is good for now.

Lemme tell you about my hiking coach...

NOW let me tell you about my awesome coach, Regina Reiter. Last fall after completing the competitive swimming I intended to do for the year, I realized that having others to support me in my hiking would assist me in getting ready for this trip. So I planned a couple of hikes and sent emails out to about 50 of my closest friends and posted to my 1500 other closest friends on Facebook. One of my dear friends told me she would never go hiking (she is a dancer) and said I MUST meet her friend Regina. Yeah, yeah, so what… Finally, I called Regina and hired her to be my hiking coach. And she is awesome.
Firstly let me tell you about all her qualifications. She hiked the Appalachian Trail four years ago –completed the entire thing in seven months (over 2100 miles from GA to Maine). She works in the summer as a trail runner for the Forestry Service on the Appalachian Trail, too. She has also hiked the Pacific Crest Trail (2660 miles) , and of course has done the Foothills Trail (about 77 miles) and the Benton MacKaye Trail (about 288 miles) and the Superior Hiking Trail in Minnesota (275 miles). She has wilderness first aid training too. She is the mother of three adult sons and a naturalist who has taught at private schools, outdoor education centers and the like.
Secondly, she is patient, kind, funny, and willing to go at my pace. She encourages and prods, and is complementary and helpful. She makes me reframe things when I get into a disempowering context – like when I had hiked 7.5 miles on more difficult terrain than ever with a heavier pack and was disappointed because I could not make it all the way to the waterfall. I stayed in the disappointment, and she was in the acknowledgment of my accomplishments. I can now tell the difference between Mountain Laurel and Rhododendron. And the food – oh my God, the food… She prepares incredible lunches, including hiker’s pizza made with dehydrated tomato sauce rehydrated on the trail, sandwich rounds, lentil sprouts, and nutritional yeast. Yummy. And once we had sweet potatoes on the trail – dehydrated sweet potatoes rehydrated with hot water (heated on the trail with her little stove) and walnuts. You get the picture. She has successfully found places for us to spend the night at very reasonable rates ($20/night at the most recent – includes kitchen priviledges, too), so I don’t have to sleep on the ground. She is designing hikes that will train me for this trip and others beyond. And has connected me with the Benton MacKaye Trail Association (I’m a member now) and the Trail Dames Meetup Group. She also started a meetup group just for my training (Mary Hikes Kennesaw) and I have met lots of other cool people. I tell you, this gal rocks. If you know of anyone looking for a hiking coach, this is the person to hire for sure.

New update

Life is certainly happening and although I have not blogged any in a long time, that does not mean that I am not consistently, persistently working toward going hiking in August with Scott. There has been a lot to manage – the issue with my feet persisted even though I have super boots, I have gotten computer designed insoles for my feet from Foot Solutions, and I have been training.
Last spring on a whim, I competed in the Cobb Senior Games in several swimming events and won gold in all of them – 50 and 100 yard breast, back and freestyle races. I was recruited into the largest Masters swim team in Georgia – the Killer Whales, and went on to compete in events at the University of Georgia in June, the Georgia Games short course, and outside 1 K, winning many races. Who knew? Competitive swimming was not something that I thought I could ever do. I competed at Auburn University Nationals in August and came in 5th and 6th in the 400 and 800 meter freestyle and third in the 200 meter breast stroke. It was fun and rewarding, AND after the August 2011 meet, I began to focus again on the hiking.
My full time job is with a small agency that started offering health insurance last fall. It took few months to get an appointment with someone regarding my feet, but finally saw a neurologist in January. She did a couple of tests and found that the nerve in both legs that services the muscle that points the toe is compromised. She later estimated that the damage is 20-50%. She also tested the muscle and indicated that if the muscle had atrophied, then the nerve damage began a long time ago. It had. She was surprised that I had few problems with balance and that I had not had more problems with my feet than I had and attributed my continued use to my being an athlete. Never thought of myself as an athlete before.
In a subsequent visit, we discussed what options might be available. She said that she could order an MRI, but didn’t think it was necessary now, because it is probably just a disc in my back that has caused some damage. She said she would order it anyway and I could decide if I wanted to have that done. She agreed that physical therapy would be a good idea, as there might be some postures or exercises that would assist in keeping my back in place that would prevent the nerves from being pinched. She ordered more blood tests to check for any other flags of possible diseases that might have caused the nerve issue.
After the January appointment I had begun having sciatica, and I had not had that recently. Regular chiropractic did not seem to be helping, so I was concerned that the pain might be caused by something else. So, I thought the MRI might be a good idea until I found out it would cost me over $1000 to have it done. Those of you who are reading this who know me know that I have usually looked to alternative ways of healing when issues have come up. Indeed, there are many medical issues that have been diagnosed that seem to have disappeared. Soo, I started looking for different ways of looking at this issue.
I went to an energy healer that one friend recommended. Among other things, he told me to throw the hiking boots and insoles away and go barefooted. When I told him I was not going to do that, he recommended I read the book Born to Run and buy the funny shoes with toes. I did that within the week. The book is a great read and gave a great story and good information about the evolution of man and some things scientists may have been missing about what we humans were designed to do. And one of the surprising statistics was that since the design of the super running shoes, there has been an exponential increase in foot, knee, and leg injuries. It seems that what we are doing is compounding the problem, not solving it.
When I got the Foot Solutions insoles at the beginning of last summer, I started wearing the hiking boots or new tennis shoes with the insoles in them almost every day. Then I found that shoes that I could wear before I started wearing the super insoles, I could not wear at all. It was as if my feet were becoming weaker because of the extra support they were getting. So, I started trying the funny shoes with toes. I noticed immediately that I did not seem to need hiking poles as much – my balance with the new shoes was much better than before. Also, different parts of my feet and legs were being used now, and it was clear that these were muscles that had not been used before.
I would hike some in the funny shoes, and then sometimes change shoes (and socks) on the trail. I noticed within two weeks of wearing the funny shoes that I could wear heals where I had not been able to do that for some years. My feet were getting stronger. It is clear to me now that the reason I could not wear heals was because of the balance issue. My back would try to compensate and be in strain while wearing heals because of the lack of muscles to keep me upright. I also noticed that when I used the hiking boots with the special insoles that my feet hurt worse.
So I am now alternating between hiking with the funny toe shoes and have gone back to the regular insoles in my Keen’s. I still have trouble with the muscles – after a few miles, the muscle just goes numb and I get a burning sensation in the ball of my feet going to the second and third toe. When it gets too bad, I stop on the trail and prop my feet up. Then I go on. What there is to do is train.