Knocked out another 22 miles today. Didn’t feel like I was in peak form when I woke up so I was pretty pleased with that showing. There was a nice long hot stretch of 15 miles between water today and I’m glad I carried the full 5 liters I did.
One note about water – it weighs a lot! One liter is 2.2 pounds, so I started that stretch (naturally, going uphill) with a pack that weighed 11 pounds more than when I finished. Actually it ended up even less than that since I had a peanut butter Nutella tortilla and some gummy worms for a second lunch.
It’s funny how much I notice these changes in weight now. My pack feels totally different now that I’ve eaten a few days of food – it’s a lot easier to carry, meaning I can go farther and faster. My base packweight is around 20 pounds, so ideally by the time I reach a resupply point I’m carrying just a bit more food and water than that. A 20 pound pack? I can fly with that on. I think with some of the big water carries I’ve done over the past few days plus my huge bag of food for a full week I’ve probably pushed mid-40 pounds of packweight.
While I’m thinking of food – I actually tried tuna in ramen for the first time today. I cold soaked a chicken flavored top ramen for first lunch today, and added a lemon pepper flavored tuna packed. Honestly, not bad at all and got me a decent amount of calories and protein! I’ve been doing what I think is a good job eating more but I know there’s no chance it’s enough to cover the deficit of hiking all day. I’m carrying too many extra calories with me every step of the way at it is, so I don’t mind it for now. But sooner or later that’s a resource that’ll run out and I’ll have to develop stronger jaw muscles to get through the Michael Phelps-sized fuel needs of my body.
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