12 Miles in the Dark

[00:00:16] Miles in, folks. We're feeling it. We didn't get you a podcast in early. We got some video early. We spent a lot of time in the pitch dark just walking and muttering.

[00:00:30] And now we've foregone the sleeping in the woods because we really kind of rocked and rolled and decided to just go the full 12-mile trek and finish at the Jones Homestead and curl up on his nice new deck. Yes, sir. We're damn close. I feel it. I'm motivated. My legs are hurting a bit.

[00:00:56] But the hip flexors and the thighs in particular, and this is the last mile. It's actually one of the steepest parts, but I feel it good. Yeah, I don't feel too bad either. We're covered in sweat head to toe. This is relative. I think we're being facetious by saying we feel pretty good because this was a tough hike.

[00:01:24] You know, it was 1,000 feet elevation change, right? Something like that? We're going to look at the exact numbers, but we gained more than 1,000 for sure and went down more than 1,000. But we'll see the exact numbers, but it was a lot of up and down. We thoroughly sweated through our garments. I'd say you probably went through what? Half gallon, gallon of water?

[00:01:50] I'd say about two-thirds gallon, three-quarters gallon. I got a little bit left, but I'm almost done. But I still got the emergency packs from the Lima Tango backpack. So I'll be drinking some of that on the deck. Although I think we are excited to get the water hose and just pour cold water on us. That's going to be real nice. That's the goal. I don't know what this thing is, 32 ounce probably? I don't know, 24 maybe at most? It's pretty small actually.

[00:02:19] So I probably did about 36 ounces of water total. But I pre-gamed with a hydration drink. So I feel pretty good. That's good. I was a little worried. I was like, that's all the water you're taking? Because last time I did this, I ran out and I'm like, I know it's only going to be 75 degrees overnight. But the humidity. I rationed. I rationed. You did, totally. I rationed. I drank about every two miles to start.

[00:02:47] And then as we got, I opened up the Lima Tango water packs and added a few of them. And then once we got close to the end, we started breaking and hydrating every mile. Yeah. That's a good pace. That was a good idea. We got a little bit of ground to cover to get to Jones Homestead, but we're here. What I was saying though is, this is a tough deal. You know, Ben's been training. He's been running hills.

[00:03:15] He's been doing the stuff to get in shape. You guys know I'm a maniac with the fitness stuff. And we're bushed. Like, it would be a real problem if we had to go. Do this again and then again. Yeah. Like two, three, four days straight of this. Now, also, it's also 146 in the morning. So that's taking its toll as well on top of it all. We're on about hour, almost six hours. We started almost exactly at eight and it's almost two. So almost six hours.

[00:03:45] Gone pretty fast. But, I mean, we put out a lot of calories. It estimated, I don't know if this is true, but it estimated, I've spent about 4,500 calories or something. Yeah. I mean, look, it's, I think I might believe it. I mean, it's non, it was nonstop effort and we weren't walking. We were power walking. You were going pretty fast. You know what I mean? So we put a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of takeaways, you know.

[00:04:10] I think probably the biggest takeaway for me was we're carrying way too much crap for this mission, you know. Nothing wrong with the Lima Tango backpacks, but they are fundamentally just 30 pounds of weight we don't need on each of us probably. Sure. Right. I mean, there's a 72-hour bag and we're doing like a 12-hour thing. So it makes sense that we wouldn't need it. But if we were out here for two, three, four days, we would want like all this stuff in there. So we'll do a full review of what's in there. We'll use some of it.

[00:04:39] But truly, maybe just, we were talking about this. If your bug out plan is only to go like 10, 15 miles, you might not need a 40-pound pack. Yeah. I would say you definitely don't because we've relied mostly on water. Liquid IVs, dude. Oh, man. The power of the liquid IV is unmatched. Oh, and then so we come off the Appalachian Trail. This won't give too much app second way. Oh, my gosh.

[00:05:09] We go to cross 50. And it was like being in a movie. Like we're on the side of the road. This big-ass truck headlights are coming at us. And they're past the white line. Past the white line. On the shoulder. They're veering towards us. 60 miles an hour. Over the hill. Yep. And then all of a sudden, they just veer off. Like I was, we were both ready to just jump the hill to get out of the way.

[00:05:35] But I don't know what kind of jumping we'd be doing at this hour after what we've just been through. Shit. I got a nice drumming boost for a couple minutes. I was walking fast after that. I think I've come back down, but nothing to pick up your step after that. But it was one hell of an adventure. I'll tell you that much. Traveling the Appalachian Trail in the darkness. Oh, the other thing we found was a boon of wild edibles. Hell yeah. Raspberries, mayapples. We found giant polypore mushrooms.

[00:06:04] We found coral mushrooms. We found what looked like they might have been shaggy mane mushrooms. I'm not too sure. In the dark. So, yeah. I want a drink. I'm signing off. Talk to you guys soon.