I am so glad to be back.

As mentioned in the latest video, I got a bit of an injury near the beginning of our hike. I didn’t fall down or twist my ankle, just used my feet too hard, too early. They say 'first ten under ten’. That is, your first ten days should be under ten miles. Well, we got caught up in the excitement and disregarded that sage advice. Then one day I woke up and realized that I was using my hiking poles as crutches. I couldn’t walk without them.

At that point, I was faced with a choice: tough it out and face true injury, or retreat almost before beginning. It seems like no big deal now, but in that moment it was heartbreaking. I chose to go home and recover.

In retrospect, it was clearly the right thing to do. While trying to decide whether to leave the trail, a wizened old AT hiker looked at my foot and nonchalantly said “just take a few weeks off the trail and you’ll be back”. Of course, to me that sounded like a death sentence; to fail so early on! But I should have taken a cue from the old hikers tone: it wasn’t a big deal.

So here we are, back on the AT, taking it more slowly. We have found that our new pace has not only prevented injury, but really allowed us to have the energy to look around and enjoy things a lot more. Lesson learned. There’s no rush.