Wrapping my head around a 2,000+ mile walk in the woods

It was a great weekend!  Not much on the physical preparation side of things.  I did get a couple of 4+ mile walks in around town.  My youngest brother made an unexpected visit from Southwest Florida for the long weekend.  On Saturday we traveled three hours North into Virginia for a concert and live music at Pocohontas State Park.  The venue was a beautiful outdoor amphitheater with lawn seating.  We enjoyed a very relaxing afternoon and evening.  

 While listening to great music from Peter Rowan, Jeff Austin & Friends and Dark Star Orchestra, I was able to read most of Appalachian Trials: A psychological and emotional guide to successfully thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail by Zach Davis (Badger), a 2011 thru-hiker   Twitter: @zrdavis Web: www.theGoodBadger.com  email: theGoodBadger@gmail.com

Zach provides good insight into what it takes from a mental/psychological perspective to endure six months of extremes in physical exertion and provides practical advice, humor, and a real sense of the struggles ahead. My take-away from this book:  answering several questions concerning my reasons for attempting something this crazy and having the answers memorized or somewhere written and handy in my pack for the day, somewhere along the trail when at a very low mental/psychological state I will need be able to answer the question, 'Why I am doing this?'.  Without a strong reason and compelling, convincing arguments for doing it, 3 in 4 thru-hikers will choose at some point along the way to leave their thru-hike and abandon their quest to finish what they started.  I want to be one of the 25% that succeed!

I will be working on compiling the answers to these questions and sharing the answers to each in a future post.

Questions:

• I am thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail because ...
• When I thru-hike the Appalachian Trail I will ...
• If I give up on the Appalachian Trail I will ...