Well, sports fans, the end of the story first: my plan to cover 190 miles on foot and on bike ended up with me only being able to cover about 15 miles during the whole 2 weeks. This has been very disappointing, but a few valuable lessons have been learned.
Two things held me back, both physical. One is that on my first day of walking, after 8 miles, I starting getting very bad hip joint pain. I have hip sockets that are slowly degenerating from a problem way back in my teen years, but they have only been a mild annoyance. But at the end of day one, I could barely walk. A trip to the orthopaedic doc showed an X-ray with some pretty gnarly socket joints, with a fair bit of wear. the balls are misshapen, and it's eating up the sockets. What a bummer! Plus, during my training for the bike ride portion, I developed a saddle sore that blew up into a giant abscess. Opening it up and cleaning it out left a three inch hole that has to heal from the inside out. My father always said that the only thing that people hate to hear more than your medical problems, are your pets medical problems.
It was a real blow to all the work that had gone into the planning, and I was really looking forward to the trip itself.
And it's a real wake up call personally. I could have been in better shape going into the trip. Loosing 40-50 lbs would take pressure off my hips. So it's time to buckle down, and do what I have to do so that this can continue. It will happen, and I will be better for it!
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