Endurance is the Key!

I learned this past weekend that my training has been instrumental in giving me added endurance.

Some of the Behe family went camping from Friday to Sunday at French Creek State Park. It is a lovely park with over 35 miles of hiking trails, an amazing swimming pool, playgrounds, campsites and a huge lake for boating and fishing. We had a great time enjoying the lovely outdoors that God has created!

On Saturday, I asked Josh and his brother, Jeremy, if they would like to go hiking with me so that I could get my training walk of 4 miles in. They were both up for it, so they picked a moderate trail that was 3.6 miles long. We picked up the trail about a half mile away, which upped the mileage to 4.6 miles.

As we followed the somewhat sparse markings on the trees that were supposed to guide us, we enjoyed the mix of easy and challenging sections of the trail. However, at a certain point we realized that something must have gone wrong. None of us had a watch on, but we were convinced that we should have been close to the end for a while...but, it just kept going and going! Although we were having fun laughing about it and making plenty of jokes, we all admitted later that we were not certain how or when we would find the end of the trail.

Finally, when we came to our familiar turnoff, we were all relieved. And very hungry! What we thought would take about an hour and a half, had taken 3 hours or more! I'm still not sure what happened. Josh seemed to figure it out since he predicted the location of the turnoff. We estimated that we ended up hiking around 7 miles or so.

I have to say that I was proud of myself on that hike. I know it wasn't an overly amazing achievement. It wasn't even close to the 60 miles I will walk in October. But, I did the hike. And, I wasn't even exhausted! Yes, tired. And yes, in need of some more water and definitely some food afterwards. But overall, I didn't feel any more worse for the wear after a 7+ mile hike. This assured me that my training over the past 7 weeks has been well worth the effort.

I was so pumped after that hike that I couldn't wait to get out the next day for another hike. Although I was disappointed that Josh would not take another hike with me, I can't say I was not surprised! And even after being proud of myself the day before, I wasn't about to get too cocky and get lost in the woods by myself for who knows how long! So, I opted for some extra time in the pool and look forward to more endurance training this week.