Day 33

42 miles

Alright, todays the day we’ve been waiting for. Time to see what we are made of. 42 miles with over 8k elevation gain and loss. We are up and at em at 4:30 ish because we hit the snooze button a couple times but we are packed up and hiking in the dark by 5:02 in the morning. The first 45 minutes or so we are in the dark walking with our headlamps on. It’s not that fun to night hike but we had too.

The miles are flying by. We are so jacked up on caffeine that we are hiking over 3 mph. We finish 27 miles by 2 o’clock in the afternoon along with a redbull, a 5 hour energy, 4 honey buns and half the packers of beef jerky. I’m literally buzzing down the trail with how much caffeine and sugar I’ve had. Our fastest hour was clocked in at 4.2 miles per hour. That’s pretty freaking quick how the terrain and having a pack on.

We finally pass the Tennessee/Virginia border at 38 miles into the day. We are on the final stretch. This is the toughest part. I’ve eaten all my food and I’ve drank and now am crashing from the caffeine. I’m starting to drag and Two Tone kind takes over and drags us through the end despite having a torn hamstring and a pretty gnarly nosebleed. We get into town and finish the 42 miles by 7:45 pm and we are on cloud 9. What an achievement. I’m so proud of us. We check into our hostel, order a couple pizzas, grab some beer and all is good in the hiker world.