In a previous chapter, I briefly discussed the back problems that are the main reason I got started planning this trip five years sooner than I originally intended to go to Africa.  The pain I go through can be pretty bad sometimes.  Once, last year during the turkey season on a beautiful morning for hunting I parked my truck, got my gear together, and began to make my way up a logging road into the woods.  I didn't get 200 yards.  The pain overcame me, and I had no choice but to make my way back to the truck and go home. 

Even then, the safari was in the back of my mind.  If, I thought, I can't walk a quarter of a mile on a turkey hunt, how am I going to manage ten miles a day in Africa?  Last year I talked to a neurosurgeon about my problems.  He told me that with my scoliosis, the only thing that he could do to help was spinal fusion surgery.  They would have to fuse five vertebrae, and I could expect to spend about six months in bed recovering.  This might fix the problem, or it might lock the pain in forever.  Great choice.  The surgeon recommended against having it done.  I concurred.

Knowing I had to do something to prepare for Africa, I decided that the best thing I could do was start doing some serious hiking.  If I could start slow and work my up to five to ten miles per hike, I should be able to handle whatever Africa had to throw at me.  I'm fortunate enough to have a great hiking trail not 20 minutes from my house...  King's Mountain National Park, site of the famous Revolutionary War battle, has a one mile nature trail, a sixteen mile loop, and a paved one and a half mile trail around the battle ground. 

One January afternoon after work, I made the short drive over to the park to get my first look at the trail.  Stopping in at the ranger's station, I found out that the park closes at 6:00pm during the winter.  I get off of work at 4:00, and by the time I could get my gear together and make the drive over I'd have about an hour and a half to walk each day.  Not bad, but I'd have to be careful to make it out before they shut the gates.  I went ahead and bought a season's pass to the park, then went and found the parking area.

Since I obviously was not in shape for a sixteen mile walk, nor would I have had time to go that far in an hour and a half, I decided that the best thing to do would be to do would be to try out the nature trail.  I found the trailhead, stretched out my leg muscles, and began walking.  In a scant fifteen minutes I had finished the trail, ending up right back where I started.  That's almost too easy, I thought.  Maybe I ought to do it again.  And so I did.  I did two laps around the trail and went home feeling good about myself.  This is going to be easy.

I went back to the nature trail twice more before realizing that it wasn't going to work.  The trail was just too short and easy to be beneficial.  The day after my third walk was a Saturday, and since I had plenty of time available I decided to give the battleground trail a try.  As I mentioned earlier, this is a paved 1.5 mile loop around the site of the battle, and it's quite hilly.  I made it around the trail ok, but I was hurting more than I ever did on my previous walks.  Pavement is something my back just can't handle.

The only thing left to do was to give the sixteen mile loop a try.  On my next visit I found the trailhead, which is actually where the trail splits to form the loop.  Following the signs, I went to the left and walked about a mile before turning around and heading back to my truck.  Although I got a lot more exercise than I had on my previous walks, I wasn't sure I was going to like this trail.  There were downed trees everywhere, and much of the path was overgrown with vegetation, even in the winter.

I decided to give the other side of the path a chance before giving up on King's Mountain, and this time I found it much more to my liking.  Although I again only went a total of two miles, I found the path to the right to be much more inviting.  It was quite free of obstructions, and I could see that if I had gone much further I might end up walking beside a beautiful creek for a bit. 

And so began a ritual for me.  Two to four times a week I would head over to the park and walk on the long sixteen mile trail.  Sometimes friends accompanied me; sometimes my wife did, but mostly I went alone.  My goal was to walk a total of five hundred miles before the safari.  By the one year to go mark, I had only walked about a hundred and ten miles, so I knew I would have to increase my efforts and walk more frequently than ever.  In the six months leading up to the one year mark, I walked 38 times.  Thirty-eight times in six months.  Once every four days. 

Once every four days.

Not enough, I told myself.  Not enough.  I was not losing the weight I that I had hoped, having only dropped five pounds in those six months.  With one year to go, I made a commitment to myself to walk an average of once every two days.  If I walked four days in a row then took three off, that would be fine, as long as the average was that I was walking every other day.

A bit later on in this journal we'll check back in on the walking and talk a bit more about my progress.  Although this chapter is dated January of 2006, it was actually written in July.  Around the end of December, I've decided that I'll need to take a checkpoint and see where I am on getting in shape for Africa.