Summer Challenge

I'm a guy that is not highly self motivated.  I need to be challenged, and when you are a middle school P.E. teacher you need a little something to keep you going.  In past years I've trained for half marathons, ran 200 mile relays, tried to see how many miles I can log in 100 days, and so on and so on.  I've been getting a little stale on road running as I stated in previous posts and moved on to trail hiking/running.  So I've been putting some serious thought into this summer's personal challenge.  I need something that's out on the far reaches of my potential to really get me going.

Challenge #1:  My idea is to complete the Maryland Challenge.  In short, I'm going to hike on the Appalachian Trail from Harper's Ferry, WV to Pen-Mar on the MD/PA border.  41 miles of the over 2100 mile Appalachian Trail lie on Maryland soil and I'm going to hike every step of it this summer.  Here's the catch, I'm going to hike it in one day, hopefully in about 16 hours.  I haven't hammered out any of the logistics yet.  I'm thinking I'm going to hike North to South and finish at Harper's Ferry because Harper's Ferry is closer to home and offers better places to park.  I'm looking for fellow hikers but haven't had any takers so far.  I'm targeting mid-June for the hike because the longer days will give me longer hours of sunlight, plus I don't want it hanging over my head all summer.  I'm going light, small pack, 3-4 liters of water, portable meals I can eat while moving, water filter, no tent, no sleeping bag, head lamp, extra socks, bandannas, weather appropriate clothing, trek poles...just the basics.  In the next few weeks I'm going to check the AT guide book and map out where I want to take breaks and filter water and all that good stuff.  I'm waiting to see if I have any partners to hammer out the details on parking and shuttling.

Challenge #2:  My brother-in-law, Tim the master of the spreadsheet, loves to organize runs, relays and 100 day challenges.  The last 100 day challenge was to try to walk, run, hike, bike, row 100 miles in 100 days.  It started on January 1st and ended earlier this month.  I didn't get started until about day 40 because basketball was still in season but I finished with 143 miles at day 100.  Tim's summer challenge is a little different.  There were roughly 30-35 people that completed the first 100 day challenge.  The new challenge will be a team effort for those people to complete the east to west, north to south challenge.  Tim figured up that going from the east coast to the west coast and then from the northern border to the southern border of the U.S. is roughly 4600 miles.  The goal is for the team to run, walk, hike, bike row those miles in 100 days.  So to challenge myself I committed to cover 300 of the team's miles.  I figured that with my hikes and runs I could average 3 miles a day, plus it would be a great way to train for the Maryland Challenge.  The challenge started on the 23rd and ends on August 1st.

I like the idea of working on both of these challenges at the same time because in a way they serve each other.  I'm the kind of person that needs to be challenged and I like to make my goals very public.  Not in a bragging way, but I find that if I tell more people then I hold myself to a higher standard and don't want to let people down.  So I'm stating very publicly that this summer I will run/hike 300 miles between now and August 1st and that I will complete the Maryland Challenge in June.  I'll update as I go and if anyone reads these posts and has any comments please feel free to post your thoughts.