Highs and Lows

The first three hundred miles of the second thousand have been a battle. From a week of milestones – 1,000 miles and the half way point – we went into a few weeks of slow progress. From the peak of physical condition and endorphin highs we now suddenly find ourselves battling shin splints, tendonitis and a pinched nerve.
I have been the last five days moping in dive motels nursing my ankle. After twenty pain free years, the site of old tendon surgery has been getting inflamed lately, eventually flaring up into crippling tendonitis across the top of my left foot, ankle and lower leg. Sam, too, has been struggling – painful shin splints having come and gone for a few hundred miles. When my ankle slowed me to one mile an hour, trekking poles working together as crutches, I decided it was time to give the ankle a longer break. I caught a ride to the next town and Sam planned her first solo section, 60 miles that would give me an extra three or four days to rest my foot.
It was a good plan, but just a few minutes into her solo section – after waving goodbye to the car – Sam pinched a nerve in her lower back. Without a phone and afraid that stopping would leave her unable to start again, Sam covered 60 of the toughest miles so far hunched, in pain, and in under 36 hours.
So now we are moping together, bandaged, hopped up on ibuprofen and waiting for the chiropractor to open on Monday in Wind Gap, Pennsylvania. Both injuries have the potential to end our hike, so we are crossing everything and hoping to heal quickly, and dreading the decisions we will have to make in the next few days.