Everything is great, but for the ankles. Most of the day I could jog slowly and we ended up with 40.4 miles on today (now at 299.3 miles overall)....so not bad. We are now 26 miles behind schedule, but I will not try to catch up on this. In essence any miles lost will need to be made up at the end. Still hoping to get back on schedule and get in 45-55 per day depending on the road vs trail percentage. Unfortunately the gravel roads today proved to be the hardest on the ankles. If that holds true then the long road days could be tough. One time today I thought I was done...the left ankle tendons began to have a knife piercing pain in them. I walked for 1/2 mile and decided to try running. As the pain stayed high I got misrouted for about 1/8 of a mile before my mind came back to reality and told me I'd better start paying attention to the yellow blazes. Since it hurt as much to run as to walk I continued to run where the trail was level or slightly downhill. After about another hour the pain subsided to the steady pain, but allowed me a decent day.
The last part of the day we had a mile section of clearcut where we had to step around all the branches and stumps. it was worse than the two earlier river crossings where i had to take my socks off to keep my feet as dry as possible. The cold felt good, but tightened the legs up so it was hard to get going again.
We ended on Burma road and tomorrow will have 4.9 miles to Cty E before we cross the WI river north of Merrill and Grandfather dam.
thanks for all the support and have a great weekend. I figure you will enjoy the 75 degree days while I will swelter.
