Less than 100 miles left in the calendar year’s Triple Crown

Last night I ended up staying up until one in the morning. Which wasn’t so bad considering I arrived in town at 11pm. After showering, getting situated and everything, I was probably lying in bed around midnight. Then this morning I slept until after 8 a.m. The bed at this Econolodge is ridiculously comfortable. I think it might be the most comfortable bed I’ve slept in all year. I’m so glad I had the big day yesterday and was able to enjoy one last full day off.

I finally got up and started moving around a little. Then I stayed in bed for a while longer and uploaded some things. My only goal for today is to catch up on all my editing. And that is definitely a very achievable goal. In fact, I ended up being incredibly productive during those first few hours of the day. I uploaded all my YouTube videos in real time. Then I uploaded a couple of blog posts and have a bunch of blog posts completely ready to upload at a moment’s notice.

It was a great feeling to be able to do so many things from the beginning of the day. I think usually my biggest mistake when being productive in the city is that I give myself too much leeway at the start of the day. Whereas it would probably be much better to get all the work done and then enjoy the second half of the day. After being super productive for a couple of hours, I decided to go next door and get something to eat. There is a Mexican restaurant literally right next to the hotel. I remember they had pretty good burritos.

I had to drink a couple of Yoo-hoo at continental breakfast.

I ended up ordering a bean and cheese burrito with chorizo. That has been my favorite burrito order in New Mexico. Sometimes I’m just a classic bean and cheese burrito, girl. But I liked the added flavor and protein. I grabbed that and a glass bottle of Sprite and then headed back to the room. Then I left those things in the room and went down to the continental breakfast to have a coffee. I used the hot chocolate packet to make a mocha and grabbed a couple of YooHoo that were in the fridge for breakfast. They are those little kids type YooHoo cartons. The ones you can get at Family Dollar. Then I grabbed a juice box for the road and headed back to my room with my coffee.

For the next few hours, I ate periodically and worked hard. For the first time in a long time, I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I knew it would be over at the end of the day. Although it’s really not a big deal, I like to try to stay up to date. I can say that everyone who follows me understands my mistakes when posting sometimes. Whether it’s time or service or whatever. I don’t necessarily feel pressured by that aspect. It’s much easier to maintain all of this when I do it regularly. And once this journey is over, I really want everyone to be along for the ride. That’s why it’s important for me to have it in real time.

That’s how I spent most of my day! Lying in the exceptionally comfortable bed.

At some point in the afternoon, I got hungry and decided to walk down the street and get something from McDonald’s. At first I was just going to go to the gas station. But they really didn’t have much choice. Unfortunately, they don’t even have a frozen section. So I can’t get ice cream or anything. Instead, I went to McDonald’s and ordered a large Mac bowl and a shake. I also bought chicken nuggets and a hot fudge sundae. I sat there and ate the ice cream and then took everything else back to the room.

My timing for my career at McDonald’s was pretty solid. Because I completely forgot that I had a phone interview after that. So I got back to the room just in time and then I did it. It was so fun talking about the hike and reminiscing a little about the past. I’ve just felt like I’m not accepting everything correctly. I wish I could be a little more introspective and feel more about the ending. It is very difficult to understand it. But thinking about certain questions definitely helped in some ways.

I can’t believe today is the last day of the city or day zero on the border calendar of your triple land. Where did the year go?

I remember a little bit about my injury and how I felt after that happened. When things were really bad, I remember thinking how happy I would be if I suffered again. I promised the universe that if she healed me, I would be grateful for every day along the way. Even if the weather conditions were terrible and the suffering immense. I promised her I would grin and bear it if she would let me try. And the universe did it.

I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a change after the injury. If that point of the hike wasn’t substantially notable at the top. There was before the injury and there was after the injury. And perhaps in the few weeks or months immediately following the injury, I didn’t see any significant changes. I was certainly more grateful. It felt great to be moving again and covering big miles. But the chapter that followed recovery was one of the most significant I have ever experienced. I had never traveled so many kilometers day after day. I really couldn’t even have said for sure if it was sustainable. But I tried and it turns out yes.

That two-month period where I averaged 37 miles a day changed my life. I’m not the same person I was before I did that. I will never be that person again. How could you be? The mileage on the terrain floored me. In many ways it made me tough and strong. It turned me into a machine. And it also brought me down and softened me. One of my favorite things about the triple crown of the calendar year is the way it has changed my perspective on emotions. I don’t think I ever fully understood how someone can be so strong and yet so soft. So emotionally vulnerable, so raw. And that vulnerability does not take away anything from that strength. If anything, it makes you even stronger. Because if circumstances weren’t tearing you apart, then it wouldn’t take strength to keep going. There would be nothing to move forward.

It was so nice to let my mind travel to all these places. That’s really what I’d like to do with my mind over the next few days. I want to feel all this. I want to ask the questions and think about everything. What I don’t want to do is get caught up in the moment and let everything slip through my fingers. I guess that’s my only goal for the next few days besides continuing to do my usual miles. I’d like to just take it all in and really be present. I don’t know if you could ever fully understand something like this. How could I come to terms with the end of something I can barely understand? But at least I can do my best.

How come there are only 85 miles left of this B2BCYTC?

Later that day, maybe around 3 pm, I received a text from Steam Engine. He had arrived in town and was seeing if I was around. Yesterday you probably couldn’t somewhere near the CDT junction, which would have left maybe 20 miles to go during the day. We ended up hanging out for a bit before going back into editing mode. And after a couple more hours, I was almost completely trapped. Back in real time, baby! That’s the best feeling in the world. It would be wonderful to be completely up to date and have nothing to worry about during these last few days. I can focus completely on the present moment.

The rest of the day was filled with relaxation, food, and a little more work. I had bought tons of McDonald’s, so I finished all that. Then I had some snacks because I think I’m going to buy some more snacks before I leave town. And maybe one or two more burritos to get out of town tomorrow. As of now I have about 85 more miles of the trail left. There are 85 more miles of the border with the triple crown of the border calendar year. If I do a 35 mile day tomorrow and a 35 mile day the next day, then I’ll have 15 miles to do on Friday. And because of different transfers and schedules, they can’t even pick me up on Friday, so maybe between 2:30 and 3:00 pm which, honestly, is completely fine with me. I would really like to spend some time there at the monument. Part of me would like to spend some time there alone, if that’s not crazy. I’m not really sure what it will look like. But the longer the better. It will be nice to be able to sit back and take it all in. So tomorrow I’m not in a big rush to get out of town. Even if I don’t leave until 8-8:30am, I could still get a campsite at that time of night.

I ended up staying up pretty late editing. But when I finished, there was nothing left for me to do. What an exceptional feeling. Then I stayed up a little longer and ate some snacks. Even eating much earlier that day I was already hungry again. It only takes an hour or two for it to disappear. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and have to eat something. I even do that when I’m in my store. At least from time to time. Then, finally, I did my stretches and turned around to call it a night.

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