9.5 miler in the CVNP

The overnight low was in the high 50’s last night and hiking in the woods for the 10 miler I knew I would be primarily under cover.

This would be my longest hump in a long time. I filled my 70 oz water reservoir and made sure I had Bluetooth earpieces to listen to music. I got out of bed at 0800 and after breakfast I finally hit the road at 1000.

I knew I would not be alone on some of the trail, but once I got out of the 3-mile loop it would be me and the occasional pasture puppies (horses).

I would need to share the trail with the horses. I felt good throughout the entire hump and wanted to keep my 3-mph pace.

The hump would have been 10 miles, but I did not want to traverse a large grass hill diagonally across the slope.  There was no trail that I could see so I hiked into the saddle at the toe of the slopes and continued into the woods.

My hiking speed was an average of 3.1 mph. I ascended a total of 1453 feet and descended a total of 1443 feet. This was spread out over the entire 9.5-mile loop.

At the end of hump I had less 10 ounces of water left in the reservoir!

The conditioning won’t stop, and this was a good check to see how I was progressing!

Be well folks,

Sonder