In football (soccer for people who are wrong) we have this sporting term for a team that you always struggle against. The bogey team. Regardless of how well your team is playing when they play their bogey team all bets are off and there is a very good chance they are going to lose.

Now I am beginning to wonder, do I have a bogey track?

I have walked the track from Cox’s river campground to Megalong Cemetery three times over the years. And three times it has totally Kicked. My. Ass.

How though? I mean look at it! It’s only 7.48 km’s (4.65 miles) and over the course of that you only climb about 300 meters. I should destroy this track, but instead it destroys me.

The first time I did this section was misery. It was in horrible weather, with the rain tumbling down, soaking into my cotton clothing and adding what felt like 10 kg to my pack weight. I was already on my way to developing mild hypothermia. It was not fun and takes up a significant portion of one of the worst days of my life.

The second time was just last year, a month before my AT hike. I took the kids on their first big hike. The plan was to walk to Cox’s river campground, hang out for an hour or two and then walk back. It was a warm day and I didn’t drink enough water. On the way back my energy dropped to near zero and I started vomiting all the water that I tried to drink. Welcome to hyperthermia (heat exhaustion). That was without a doubt one of the toughest hikes I have ever had to do, and I am pretty sure my kids thought I was going to die in the woods when I got to America.

The third time was this weekend. We were in the Blue Mountains for my brother’s birthday and thought it would be great fun to hike into Cox’s river campsite and camp, and then hike out the next morning. And it was fun, until maybe the last 1.5 km on the hike out where the trees fall away and you walk across exposed hilltops. It felt pretty damn hot, even at 10:30am and again my energy dropped away and made any slight incline a trying experience. It wasn’t like my life was in danger or anything, but it left me with some concerns 6 or so weeks out from my LASH (long ass section hike) of the A.T.

So what gives?

Well, to put it simply, I think it’s because I am an idiot.

I’m all for making mistakes, it’s how we learn. I mean if you are not making mistakes are you even alive? However making the same mistakes, over and over again. That my friend, makes you an idiot.

So a couple of things here:

• Underestimating the trail/Over estimating my fitness

I always underestimate this little trail. I need to stop doing that with ‘little’ hikes, especially when it’s warm. The sun is my kryptonite when temps get above the mid-twenties.

I also need to recognise that I am a lot fitter in my mind than I am in reality. I am working on it, but its slow going.

• EAT!

Hiking kills my hunger, so I need to force myself to eat, it’s not fun but it needs to be done. Now, do you think I had breakfast on this hike? Haha of course I didn’t, because that would mean that I learnt from my previous mistakes.

• DRINK!

I also sweat a lot when I hike which means I need to make sure I stay hydrated. Especially when the weather is trending on the warm side. The hike to camp the night before was in warm conditions as well, humid with little to no breeze. Which meant I was pretty damn thirsty, but I don’t think I drank enough. One main reason for that was that I only had the one water filter for four people, so filtering water was pretty damn time consuming. As a result, when we set out the next morning I was probably still a little dehydrated.

• Maybe…maybe stop making the same mistakes over and over?

I am always eager to get going in the morning, which combined with my lack of appetite, gives me the excuse to eat breakfast on the go. Which really translates to eating hardly anything for breakfast. I also need to ‘camel up’, by that I mean drinking a ton of water whilst at a water source and then refilling my water bottle for the trail. But I don’t do these things, and time and time again I keep making the same mistakes. So…maybe stop that? Maybe try to eat enough and drink enough? Just for once?

Otherwise it just seems that I am in an awful lot of a hurry to go painfully slow…

EDIT: Ha! So it turns out there was another reason why this little hike kicked the stuffing out of me. I had surprise open heart surgery less than a month after this hike, full story is here.

In saying that though, the things I’ve listed in this post are still totally relevant, you need to eat and drink enough to make sure you have a good hike.