As southbound thru-hiking season approaches we’re starting to get antsy. Shaking our fists at the cold spells on the weekend and staring longingly out our work windows. After Kirk was sick in January and February came with overtime at work we fell off our training schedule. Now that we’re starting to see the trees budding we’re taking training more seriously.

With COVID-19’s arrival we’re less interested in going to the gym. Our biggest concerns regarding the trail and our fitness level, however, are related to injuries. Both of us had some reoccurring pains during our last running season so we’re trying to focus on strengthening our bodies. For us this has involved doing yoga and ab work. This makes the most sense for our lives at the moment because we can do both in our apartment (yay, social distancing!) and it doesn’t require us to take a shower immediately afterwards so we have more flexibility to fit these exercises into our day.

We’re hoping that we’ll be done with overtime at the end of March. At that time we’ll start running after work, weather dependent. As the weather starts warming up and the sun rises earlier we’re also planning on biking to work. Our free weekends we’ll be doing training hikes and kayaking. We’ll still be doing yoga and ab work as we start loading our training with more cardio and hopefully we’ll be able to avoid injuries on trail!

As the COVID-19 situation evolves we will be reassessing our traveling plans, including our thru-hike. It would be a heartbreaking decision to cancel our hike but the safety and health of EVERYONE is a priority through this situation. We have several other trips currently planned that we are also reevaluating in light of COVID-19. We hope that everyone stays healthy and takes the necessary steps they need to to be safe.