Calves and kittens – The walk

An involuntary zero. I’m sad. Yesterday walking around town I made a misstep and got what I thought was a cramp in my calf. It hurt the rest of the day and again this morning. I tried my best to ignore it and fight the pain, but after reaching the trail and walking about a mile, the pain was overwhelming. I thought about the climb ahead and told Rascal and Jug how I felt. Fighting through tears, they agreed that it was probably something worth checking out.

We turned around and they took us back to town. The tracking angel we stayed with last night was full tonight so he directed us to go to tracking angel Mike. Mike was very kind to meet us at the last minute. She is also fostering kittens at the moment. They were the highlight of my day.

Rascal, Jug and I went to lunch and met Turtle at the bar. We played pool and cards and I finally stopped being depressed and enjoyed another day in the city as much as I could.

There is a physio, Blaze, well known in the hiking world, who travels in her van to the towns next to the hiking bubble. It just so happens that Blaze will be in Tehachapi for the next while, and he happens to park his truck outside Mike’s house every night. She didn’t have any appointments available for the next 4 days, but she was very kind to let me spend tomorrow at Mike’s house after hours.

I’m really sad. I know this doesn’t seem like a hike that will end in injury, but my mind wants to keep going. I really want to take some ibuprofen and get over the pain, but I still feel like this is something I should get checked out. I have to remind myself that I have felt strong for over 500 miles, but I still have over 2000 left. I need to get ahead of this before it becomes something serious. My mind is fighting my body right now and my body is winning. I’m so sad.

So tomorrow I have to spend another day in the city to meet up with Blaze. I’m not sure where I’ll go from there, but maybe it’ll be something that will resolve itself tomorrow. I will trust the process.

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