ODH Training Hike #2 – C&O Canal at Pennyfield Lock

Hike Summary

It was very cold. So cold that the friends I made at the previous hike didn’t go.

I kinda don’t blame them, in retrospect.

Still, there was a pretty good handful of people there, and I managed to get 19.12 miles under my belt.

Lessons learned:

• Either the new socks I got worked great, or the dirt/gravel surface was kinder. Possibly both!
• Make sure, when it is cold, to keep one’s chin covered. I got frost nip or wind burn on my chin and a lot of peeling a couple of days later.
• I was in this odd nowhere zone of being too slow compared to one group, and too fast compared to another, so I spent a majority of my hike on my own, which was a little bit lonely. I am glad I packed my headset though, and listened to a good chunk of audiobook. At the end of the time my headset was on low, so if I need to use it on the ODH, I’ll have to keep that in mind.
• I drank almost all of my water, even though it was cold.
• There’s always pretty things to see on the C&O. It’s much harder to stop and take pictures when you’re trying to get miles, though.

I hope the snow that we had all melts by next Saturday!

The One-Day Hike, again!

So, a little news.

I successfully registered for the Sierra Potomac One Day Hike again this year. If you look back through my archives, you can find out how well that went before. (Spoiler: not so awesome as I would have liked.)

The plan this year is to participate in more Sierra Potomac training hikes, and get some new shoes … wearing hiking boots and not walking shoes last year was my biggest mistake, one I do not intend to repeat. I’m hoping of course that the weather cooperates as well. It has been pretty uncooperative so far this year.

I’ll keep things updated here with training hike progress!