The Mental Battle Begins

I slept really well Fri night and when I woke up and got moving a bit, I felt pretty good, physically. My battle on the morning of Day 2 was a mental one. The thought of walking 22 miles in less than 12 hours was extremely overwhelming to me. It was at least 8 miles more than I had ever walked in a day and based on what I’d learned on Fri, I was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it. I was literally overwhelmed to the point of immobility.

This was the point at which I gave myself a stern talkin’ to. I applied a philosophy that has kept me sober for the last 17 years and smokefree for 5. I told myself that all I had to do was take it one pit stop at a time. I gave myself an out – if I got to the next pit stop and I wanted to stop, I could take the van and go back to camp. If I wanted to go on, I could do that too and gave myself the same option to take the van when I got to the next pit. It worked, just like it has all of those years. With each pit stop, with each gain of 3 miles or so, my determination grew. As the miles added up, I told myself I’d come to far to give up. And I kept moving on.