Mapping Trails in the Heat

A Slow Start

My steps were slow and thick, and I didn’t like it—even though this was the result of my own choice and action.

Activity has always been important to me, and it matters even more as I age. Now, in my early seventies, I understand just how quickly a few days of sitting still can affect my body.

With temperatures heading into the 90s, with equally uncomfortable humidity, I agreed to assist my daughter in mapping specific trails at a very densely wooded park. She’s an amateur cartographer and had been asked to supply a map for a local orienteering club.

Mapping

To get the basic outline of the topography and trail system, she turned on Strava  – one of a few mapping tools available on phones – which, along with specific software, can create into a decent map of the trails.

For the first hour, I enjoyed the trails, which were new to me, but as the heat bore down on us, my legs began their jelly move of exhaustion, and we were a long way from the car.

Unprepared

At first, I told myself what I have always told myself: I was fit enough to finish. I knew how to push through fatigue, how to keep moving when my legs complained, how to talk my body into doing what needed to be done. As an older athlete, that kind of determination has served me well. It has carried me through races, long walks, hard workouts, and the ordinary stubbornness required to keep a body strong as the years add up. But that day, on that long trail in the heat, determination met its limit. The water I had brought was nearly gone, and the “protein” I found in my supplies was a single measly gum drop. I was unprepared for the length of the trail system and admitting that was humbling—especially because I am usually prepared like a Girl Scout.

My daughter was also having a struggle as we neared the car but finally, parched and drained, we spotted the parking lot and found our legs on automatic, rushing ahead, into the outhouse, then the pump, drinking in and splashing on the delightfully cold water.

As we drove away down the bumpy, rutted and dusty dirt road, I realized it had been a beautiful day in the wilderness. We accomplished the mapping goal – and was reminded to always be prepared.