Urban "Hiking" Adventure

So going back to my goals post (here) I had started talking about a lot of the things that I had started to think of as goals were just cool physical activities that I would like to do. Some of the things I'm thinking of now:

• Long bike-ride (Possibly from Raleigh to Wilmington)
• Week-long + hike (Something like hiking from Georgia to Virginia on the Appalachian Trail)
• Compete in a challenging duathlon (eventually triathlons when I can get my swimming more respectable)
• Complete a half-marathon (maybe eventually a full)

More long-term:

• Do a section hike of the full AT.
• Do the same with the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in NC
• Finish an Iron Man Triathlon (see above, swimming 2.2 miles is not happening any time soon)

What does this have to do with today? Thinking of cool things that I would like to do, I had the bright idea to "hike" from where I live in east-Raleigh to where my parents live in Apex. I had been thinking of it for a few weeks now. I had looked at and printed out a route from Google Maps, using and modifying their pedestrian route function. It was about an 18-20 mile track and I knew that my normal pace would put me between 3.5-4 mph, so I planned on it taking me a little over 5 hours. Given my work schedule recently, I haven't had a chance to think about attempting it yet...until today.

So work is slow today and I get off early, the weather is perfect; I figure, "What the hell? Let's do it." I came home from work, ate lunch (black beans and eggs) and started to get ready. Packed my backpack with water and some peanuts as a snack and a long sleeve shirt for when the sun went down (I was starting at 2 pm, so it would be getting dark by my hypothetical finish time). I called my mom to make sure she could take me home afterwards and then I just set off walking.

At first I was alternating running and walking but, to be honest, my legs never felt great probably from playing soccer and a good bike-ride yesterday, so eventually I settled in at a good walking pace and was feeling okay. Some observations from the trip:

• Hiking alone is boring. Especially when you are "exploring" scenery that you see almost daily.
• This 5 hours was going to go by slow.
• Hard pavement is not the best thing to walk on for hours on end.
• Nice shoes are important. My shoes are nice but they are not the newest, so maybe they have too many miles on them or maybe my feet just aren't in the shape they needed to be in.

Things I saw other than totally normal things that I see all the time:

• An actual professional-wrestling match going on behind Sadlacks on Hillsborough St. complete with ring, crowd, referee, everything.
• The State Fair; I think I saw what I needed to see of it by just walking by it. (Addendum: I like the fair but maybe I like the idea of it better than I actually like going. I'm certainly not a fair-snob; maybe next year...)
• Pretty much everything else was normal...and that was a problem.

Maybe you can tell, but I wasn't having too much fun on the trip. The only thing keeping me going was wanting to finish; and since this was pretty much done on a whim, that wasn't that strong either. About mile 12-13ish, I was pulling into the heart of Cary and decided to give my mom a call and see what her situation was and she happened to be up the street so that pretty much settled it. I walked to where she was and we drove.

So definitely didn't make it but I'm okay with that. I felt like I was developing blisters on the entire balls of my feet and I have to work/be active for the rest of the week. My legs didn't feel that great and this wasn't really a big goal of mine in the first place. That being said, I will definitely have to work on my endurance a lot to meet my bigger goals. I knew it wasn't going to be easy but I didn't think it would hurt as much; I mean, I run 3.5 miles in one stretch every Wednesday night and run at least a mile almost every other day. Whatever, it's a starting point and I got in a very good workout. It also feels good to have just gone out and done it. So good day overall even though my feet and legs still hurt.


 Other Things I've Seen
That section on stuff I saw made me think of the weird things I've seen running around my house:

• The other night I'm running late-night and come within 30 feet of Bambi's dad, who is staring me down and looking like one big 200 lb., 8-point, fur-covered muscle. Needless to say it startled me, there is usually nothing else out moving.
• I say usually but that's not totally true: I saw his wife a couple of weeks ago. She passed 20 feet in front of me going about 30. She was trying to turn me into this guy. 
• About a month ago, I almost stepped on one of their poisonous nature-buddies. A copperhead had come out on the road and, as the sun had been going down, I came inches from stepping on his midsection.
• Probably the craziest thing was a giant owl just standing on the edge of the road at the end of my street. The thing looked to be about 2 feet tall and it didn't even move as I went by and I must have passed within 10 feet of it. I didn't see it until the last minute and it scared the crap out of me (I'm jumpy anyways).

So no need for any Ohio "zoo-owners" to make things more interesting around. Crazy what you can see within a mile of the Interstate.