Day 327

Day 327 (BT 1): Failure

I’m done. I’m really done. After 8,292 miles, my year of adventure is over.

I started the buckeye trail yesterday and quit it in the same day. Leading up to it, I would say I was uneasy to say the least. All year while doing the calendar year triple crown my heart was 100% in it. The thought of quitting, or not finishing, never crossed my mind. I was gonna get there or die trying, 50 cent style. But after I finished the triple crown that changed. Initially I thought I’d keep that drive alive, and I did for a bit. But after a few hundred miles on the Arizona Trail my drive started to waver and my heart wasn’t all in it anymore. After I finished it, it was really out. But I thought that might change once I got going on the buckeye trail again. It didn’t. After a half hour on the buckeye trail all I could think about was how much I didn’t want to be there. My heart just wasn’t in it anymore.

It was still hard to let go and accept defeat, which is funny because one of the main reasons I decided to go for 10,000 miles after the triple crown was because I wanted to fail at something. I knew it would be near impossible to make the remaining miles in time but I at least wanted to go for it and accept the failure when it came. It still feels weird quitting something though.

Before the calendar year triple crown I had never thru hiked before but was determined to finish it no matter what. I still believe that anybody can achieve anything with the right amount of preparation and if they are 100% bought in, but my heart just wasn’t in this one anymore. My final day on trail was 18 miles of all road walking with snow and biting wind that just whipped over the plains. I traveled the whole country to get my ass kicked back home. So I guess by default, the buckeye trail must be the hardest. I couldn’t even last one day.

As always, stay hard