It’s the first time I’ve trained for a hike.

There’s something about reaching the 20-mile mark that feels like a psychological threshold. Since my 2018 PCT ride, I have found great joy in logging long miles in the backcountry. Somewhere around mile thirteen, I reached a really high point. Walking feels effortless, my body moves with rhythmic grace and my mind finally calms. At my best, I can go twenty miles without taking a real break. Early in the season, after a long, wet winter in the Pacific Northwest, that first 20-mile day usually hurts a little, but it’s a familiar kind of pain that I hope to encounter again.

As I train for my AZT hike, I knew I needed to get over that 20 mile hurdle again. My body has been in bad shape although it is constantly rebuilding itself. I’ve been walking regularly during the warm, sunny Tucson winter. My goal is to start the AZT strong and be able to complete 20+ miles a day from the start. I needed to prove to myself that my body could handle it. And I needed my brain to have tangible evidence of my ability.

It’s been over a year and a half since I covered this distance. I had spent a year in Alaska, where winter lasts a long time, and I hadn’t been able to cover the miles I normally do in the spring. Then I hurt my back so badly that some days I could barely walk to the kitchen. Would my back handle such a long walk? Was my body ready for this challenge?

excuses

The day I planned to do this hike, I woke up after working four 12-hour shifts in a row with a massive headache and sore throat. I turned around and decided to postpone it. The next day was forecast to be 76 degrees and sunny; Too hot, I told myself, especially for a trail with no shade. So, I postponed it again, hoping for a cooler, cloudier day later in the week. It turned out that my brain was very creative when it came to finding excuses.

Finally, on the third day I forced myself to get up early. I moved slowly, lingering over a big breakfast and coffee before driving to the trailhead. I started late, at 7:45 am, and promised to finish at 6 pm. There was a gate in the driveway that said closed at dusk. He was not willing to be locked up.

The Plan

I had planned a route carefully: a figure of eight with two loops of about ten miles on either side and my car parked in the middle. This would allow me to fill up on water and have lunch in my car. It is not necessary to carry 3-4 liters of water as there would be no running water on my route. It also gave me a rescue option built into the midpoint in case my body needed it. Having a solid plan calmed my mind a little.

The walk

The first few loops went smoothly. There was a 900′ climb and then a steep descent where my left knee started to hurt. I recognized it immediately as what I’ve come to call «panic pain.» This is when there is not an actual injury, but rather a pain created by my brain due to fear. My brain was worried and wanted me to stop. The pain ended up going away before I got back to the car and I completely forgot about it on the second loop.

Panic pain is a new story I started telling myself after months of incessant pain from my spinal injury. Learning to identify it and let go of it has been a crucial new coping skill I’ve had to develop this winter. It involves noticing a new sensation in my body during a walk, realizing that it is not a real injury, and consciously storing the experience as evidence to draw on when the next wave of fear appears.

The second loop began with a two-mile hike along a sand bed that I found exhausting on the way down and already dreaded it on the way back up for the last two miles of the day. Then I saw two coyotes trotting through the wash and immediately forgot about the annoyance of the soft sand.

The entire 21 kilometers of trail were developed within Saguaro National Park and the landscape was endlessly varied. He had walked up a high hill, along a rocky cliff, across rolling slopes and along sandy streams. I saw cacti of many species, including huge chollas and saguaros. The Hohokam tribe was one of several groups of people who lived on this land before colonization. Its 1,000-year-old petroglyphs are prominent along this trail and I am reminded of the long history of people who loved this land before me. The Sonoran Desert is truly a magical place.

When I returned to my car, I felt a simple, grounded satisfaction. I could still do it. I hiked 21 miles with over 2600′ of elevation gain in less than 9 hours. I had only taken a break for lunch and had forced myself to walk quickly so as not to get stuck at the end of the day.

And I felt strong through the whole damn thing. No injuries, no back pain, no blisters and no panic attacks. Now I had one more test to use against my creative and anxious mind.

I’ve never been a big believer in training before a hike. My approach has always been to start slow, listen to my body, and let the first few weeks on the trail serve as training. In 2018, all of my “training” was my physical therapy for my knee, as I had undergone ACL reconstruction ten months prior. My legs, hips and glutes were strong and stable, but my cardiovascular fitness was minimal. I didn’t even put on a full weight backpack for the year leading up to the hike. In 2021, I was drowning while finishing nursing school and working too hard to even think about training. I literally hit the road the day after taking my NCLEX exam. In 2024, I did some light gym work over the winter that included lowering body weight and doing some treadmill running. But, I repeat, it had been six months since I had a full backpack.

Physical Training

As I grew older, I discovered that my body is not as resilient as it once was. I think it takes longer to recover from the tougher days at the beginning of the season. After my back injury and my mental health deteriorating over the past year, I knew I needed to train this time. I no longer recognized myself: the weight gain, the loss of physical fitness, and the return of panic attacks and general anxiety. I needed to rebuild, deliberately and patiently. It’s part of the reason I moved to Tucson for the winter: easy access to the mountains and perfect weather.

So for this hike, I’m putting in the work ahead of time. My physical therapist and I created a plan to prepare me for AZT. He gave me specific exercises to strengthen my abdomen, hips, and glutes, something I do almost every day. I have cautiously increased the number and difficulty of hikes each week, including using a fully loaded backpack. Two months away, I feel strong. For the first time in nine months, I recently touched my toes without feeling pain. I’m thinking about adding more yoga and stretching, as well as some leg exercises to support the progress I’ve made.

Mental and emotional training

Long-distance hiking requires much more than physical endurance. It requires mental strength to wake up every day and choose discomfort, the ability to make decisions alone, and navigate complex emotions, all while being comfortable spending a lot of time with yourself.

In true millennial fashion, the idea was deeply instilled in me that if I worked hard enough, I could be successful. That belief gave me courage, motivation, and resilience, but it also led me directly to burnout with crippling anxiety. These same traits are what helped me successfully complete the PCT, CT, and AZT. There is an art to being able to use these traits in a way that helps me without hurting myself.

This time, I’m not just training my body to walk long miles. I am training my mind to move through them with presence, self-confidence, and compassion. The mental and emotional training has been equally intentional. I’ve spent a lot of time reading, journaling, and reflecting. I make observations, try to draw new conclusions, and write new stories to tell myself, constantly reminding myself of this much-needed work.

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