The first steps of the Comeback Special, September 2022.
Wednesday Morning:
I have been in a creative funk over the past week or so, and I can’t seem to find my groove for writing or picture-taking. So, bear with me.
I do continue to lumber on through the woods, and as I write this first bit, I’m downing coffee and holding back a literal colon-based hurricane brought forth from last night’s “street tacos” 1 and 4 Giants dinner I ate at 8 PM.
In addition to enjoying the fact that it is our 26th wedding anniversary today2, my mind is also on today’s hike in the woods, which, unless I die within the first two miles, will have me cresting 1,000 miles hiked since September 19th, 2022.
The first signs of Autumn 2022.
1,000 miles is a number I passed many, many times in my cycling days, and I never thought too much about it, but foot travel hits different, and at times (looking at you, Winter 2022/23), I was running (not literally, not yet) on mental fumes, battered feet, a love being outdoors, and a deep self-loathing for the bag of flesh I’d turned into, to force myself to strap on a pair of snowshoes and slog through the snowy woods in search of miles and mental peace, to which, more often than not, I somehow managed to find.
This time last year, despite dragging myself to the gym almost daily, ongoing therapy with the O.G. Mindbender, and medication, I still had trouble breaking out of a depression that had steadily worsened over the past 6 or 7 years.
Last winter broke me, and then made me stronger.
I spent many a morning lying in bed staring at the ceiling fan, wishing I was somewhere, anywhere else, and that I was someone, ANYONE, else. I no longer enjoyed riding my bike; my “hikes” were more of what I now call “photo creeps,” rarely even hit 3 miles and were done at a snail’s pace; I was eating homemade turkey subs or pizza every night for dinner and washing it down with a six-pack of IPA. I hated myself, you, and everyone else. I was throwing gasoline on the fire and enjoying burning myself down. And I still do, just in different ways!
Then last August and September, a few things happened.
- I saw the phrase “morbidly obese” beside my BMI on my medical chart. Fuck that shit.
- I stumbled upon some YouTube channels dedicated to the world of ultra-running and fast-packing.
- And as strange as it sounds, I saw an episode of Your Mom’s House that reminded me why I loved pushing myself physically outdoors. It reminded me that sometimes, “fun” hurts. It also made me laugh.
While all that was motivating, I had no desire to keep going to the gym. While I felt “stronger” picking Jake (the dog) up to get outside, I just could NOT get lifting heavy things for the sole purpose of “looking” good, especially during the 4 months of good weather we get in Michigan.
I also knew I had no real desire to climb back on my bike, and despite all my viewing, at 51 years old and never being a legit runner, a life of ultra-running is never going to happen.
I always love this section of trail.
However, I know how to hike, I love being in the woods, and I’m fortunate to live in an area with accessible hiking trails minutes from our home. Given my past, I also knew it had to be something I could do almost daily for years, if necessary, to achieve whatever goal I was setting out to achieve. And I should be able to have my camera with me, something they frown upon at the gym.
After a few false starts in late July and August that ended in sore feet, blisters, and back spasms, for once in my life, I decided to look at the problems; rather than give up, and I systematically tried to correct them whether through equipment upgrades, stretching, or hydrating.
All that took a while, and then for no special reason, on September 19th, 2022, I took off to the woods for a hike. Those were the first steps.
BACK TO THE PRESENT, POST-WEDNESDAY HIKE
After I made Wifey a pre-work 26th-Anniversary Breakfast of eggs, potatoes, (fake) sausage, toast, and eggs, I enjoyed a 5.5-mile lumber, sweat out those El Cul-De-Sacos Tacos, and hit the 1,000+ miles hiked, snowshoed, lumbered, and, ran mark.
I love seeing and getting images of critters.
Current progress on the 2022 Not Dead Yet Comeback Special
and 2023 Soil The Woods Tour from 9/19/22 – 7/12/23
Total Hikes: 226
Total Distance: 1,003.96 woodsy miles
Average Distance: 4.44 miles per hike
Average Time: 1:19:29 per hike
Weight: – 34 lbs. 3
I’m pretty stoked at those numbers and happy to be feeling normal-ish in my own skin again. You know, the one that finds just the right balance of passion and self-loathing to get my ass out of The Bed of Torment and push myself to “do stuff,” so as not to become a soon-to-be 52-year-old lump of vapid human flesh who thinks there’s a sizing conspiracy against him from clothing manufacturers.
I’m looking forward to taking a brief break before I put together some more ambitious hikes and locations in the near future. I also MIGHT even get out for an easy mountain bike ride or two for the first time in two years to let my heel recover a bit; we’ll see.
Later.
NOTE: Photos in this post were over the past 10 months of hiking.
- The sort made by me, a white guy living in a rural Michigan middle-class cul-de-sac shack, not from that taco truck on South La Brea Avenue in L.A., or a vendor in Mexico City
- Shout out to Wifey! Love you, girl!
- According to my last visit to Doctor Bob. I have not weighed myself at home in over a year because I find that for me, no good can come from it.