48 State Virtual Hike

[GershonSurge]

Congratulations! You are starting on a virtual hike of the lower 48 states. This is a difficult challenge, and with any difficult challenge, it helps to break it into small pieces. The hike is divided into 14 parts. Each part has 10 segments except for the last one which has 8 segments. Each segment has 8 legs. With few exceptions, the legs are 10 miles or less.

Thaller, Gary. 48 State Virtual Hike: The Ultimate 10,000 Step Challenge (Kindle Locations 115-117). Shanti Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Here an overview of the route.

It starts in Pueblo, Colorado and goes clockwise. Part one highlighted in yellow goes to southeastern Utah and is 478.4 miles. Each circle is one of the eight legs.

Click on the link for the legs to get an animated street view.

Segment 1:  0 to 63.2 miles
Length of Segment:  63.2 miles
Total miles:  63.2
Segment Map
Click leg for street view			Completed
leg 1:  0 to 9.3 miles	RAD	FCST	10/25/2016
leg 2:  9.3 to 17.8 miles	RAD	FCST	10/26/16
leg 3:  17.8 to 24.1 miles	RAD	FCST	10/26/16
leg 4:  24.1 to 34 miles	RAD	FCST	10/27/16
leg 5: 34 to 35.8 miles	RAD	FCST	10/27/16
leg 6: 35.8 to 45.8 miles	RAD	FCST
leg 7: 45.8 to 54.8 miles	RAD	FCST
leg 8: 54.8 to 63.2 miles	RAD	FCST

[GershonSurge]

Day 38: Thursday, Dec 1, 2016

Walking/Running
Total Miles Goal: 456
Miles today: 2.35	Constraint
Total Miles:  448.61	None
Average Daily Miles:	11.81

Animated street views for legs completed today

leg 5: 438.4 to 448.4 miles

RAD

FCST

Weather on virtual hike route

Comments

My pulse was a slightly higher than normal this morning, so I decided to take a rest day.

[GershonSurge]

Day 39: Friday, Dec 2, 2016

Walking/Running
Total Miles Goal: 468
Miles today: 2.46	Constraint
Total Miles:  451.07	None
Average Daily Miles: 11.57

Animated street views for legs completed today

None

Weather on virtual hike route

The weather has been better than expected. The small storms passed around the virtual hike route. Now the area is dominated by two high pressure systems and should be clear for about a week to ten days. That's good news as the route ahead is isolated and could be blocked by a snowstorm.

Comments

I didn’t take my morning walk because my son was sick, and I stayed home in case he needed anything.

I met Greg Hindy who is walking from Dead Horse, Alaska to Austin, Texas. He is no stranger to road walking. He completed a 9,000-mile trek of the United States in which he crossed the country twice. Google his name for the incredible story. He averages about 25 miles a day. In one of the news articles about him, he said he lives off the kindness of strangers. He didn’t ask for money or even look like he needed it, but I gave him a few bucks to feel I contributed to his journey. He is detouring west a bit and following some of the virtual hike route.

One thing we have in common is we like to walk at night.

I wish he’d write some books about his trips. We talked about journaling, and he said it was difficult to get the time each day. It is time consuming.

[FujiNguyen]

From the webcam, look like there is snow on the ground in Utah.   Did you know Google has image recognition software Tensorflow that can regcongize object from images in real time?  We might be able to see people on your 48 state hike trail in realtime someday.

Question:  in your reading/research, have you come accrossed any study or publication describing  relationship of data such as step, sleep, heart rate, weight?  

Have a great day.

[GershonSurge]

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@FujiNguyen wrote:

From the webcam, look like there is snow on the ground in Utah.   Did you know Google has image recognition software Tensorflow that can regcongize object from images in real time?  We might be able to see people on your 48 state hike trail in realtime someday.

Question:  in your reading/research, have you come accrossed any study or publication describing  relationship of data such as step, sleep, heart rate, weight?  

Have a great day.

---

The nearest webcam to the route was Blending. It's actually northwest of the route. The recent small storm didn't pass over the route, so it should be fine. There probably is snow farther north near Salt Lake, but I'm not going that way. Without being there, it's hard to be certain the roads are clear. I'm not familiar with the weather in that are, but I think it's dry. Eventually, we will probably have live animated street views. Maybe some trucking companies will start livestreaming as they drive. Maybe they already are.

I think many of the problems I anticipate would disappear if I took some training road trips and learned how to deal with them, but I'm not going to do that.

The only thing I've read about heart rate is an increased rate first thing in the morning can be a symptom of overtraining. I consider a day off if my low heart rate while sleeping is a bit high. I feel it means some system needs to recover, but I have no scientific data to back this up.

[GershonSurge]

Day 40: Saturday, Dec 3, 2016

Audio book completed: As a Man Thinketh by James Allen

Walking/Running
Total Miles Goal: 480
Miles today: 12.27	Constraint
Total Miles:  463.34	None
Average Daily Miles: 111.58

Animated street views for legs completed today

leg 6: 448.4 to 458.4 miles

RAD

FCST

Weather on virtual hike route

I’ve been watching the radar carefully, and the route for the next few hundred miles has been continuously clear. Storms have been spawning in Washington and Oregon and moving across the United States towards the Southeast. Fortunately, the jet stream hasn’t moved south yet for the winter. Hopefully, it takes another month or so.

Comments

Thanks to two short days, I’m about 17 miles behind the goal. I’ll work on catching up slowly while being careful not to induce some injury.

Today, I mixed walking and jogging. From now on, I’ll jog the whole time except for about 25 minutes at the beginning. This should get me nine miles in 2 ½ hours. I can pick up the other three during the day. Since the morning temperatures are dropping below 20 degrees, walking doesn’t generate enough heat to stay warm.

[GershonSurge]

Day 41: Sunday, Dec 4, 2016

Audio book completed: Workers and Idlers by Merritt H. Dement

Walking/Running
Total Miles Goal: 492
Miles today: 12.28	Constraint
Total Miles:  475.62	None
Average Daily Miles: 11.69

Animated street views for legs completed today

leg 7: 458.4 to 468.4 miles

FCST

Weather on virtual hike route

Comments

I jogged most of the route this morning. There were no physical constraints that would have prevented me from going farther. I did 9 miles for my morning walk/jog. I had to do a couple little extra walks during the day to get over 12 miles.

Using the Nike Running app on my phone is working out well. I start a metronome app in the background to control my pace. The Nike app gives me verbal cues. I set it to give cues every half mile. The app’s GPS gives me an excellent plot of the miles and the splits for each mile. It can auto-pause if I stop, but I prefer it not to. It gives me the cumulative miles since I started using the app. I can look at the map as I travel. It also plays the audio book playlist that I set up each day.

If I were to start this virtual hike again, I’d use only GPS measured miles during my morning walk and ignore lifestyle steps. This would keep the activity relegated to one part of the day.

The geese are starting to fly around again.

[Rich_Laue]

I still don't understand,  where do i log my miles walked, or do i connect my Fitbit account, so the street view reflects the virtuwl distance ive gone.

[GershonSurge]

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@Rich_Laue wrote:

I still don't understand,  where do i log my miles walked, or do i connect my Fitbit account, so the street view reflects the virtuwl distance ive gone.

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If you are good at using spreadsheets, log your miles walked each day and compute a total. As you pass the ending distance for each leg, click on the link in to see the street view. 

You could copy the segment summaries into a personal spreadsheet to get the full spreadsheet over time. 

I'm going to be real simplistic as I'm either not understanding your question or not explaining it well. Perhaps @FujiNguyen can help.

Click this link and see what happens. Then let me know.  

leg 7: 458.4 to 468.4 miles

FCST

[Rich_Laue]

I see a walk down a street, but i hsve not walked that far. have I? 

A virtual walk is, lets say i walked 5 miles today,  i then mine my marker on a map 5 miles, all I'm asking if how do i get my distance mark onto the map so the street view relates virtually to the distance i activate physically walked. This is why i don't understand. 

[GershonSurge]

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@Rich_Laue wrote:

I see a walk down a street, but i hsve not walked that far. have I? 

A virtual walk is, lets say i walked 5 miles today,  i then mine my marker on a map 5 miles, all I'm asking if how do i get my distance mark onto the map so the street view relates virtually to the distance i activate physically walked. This is why i don't understand. 

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Ok, I think I see what you want. Let's look at Segment 11 since I have it handy. You won't be able to put a starting marker and an ending marker for each day at the exact locations. When you get to 488.4 total miles or above you can mark leg 1 complete and look at the street view for that leg. 

Segment 11:  478.4 to 558.4 miles
Length of Segment:  80 miles
Total miles:  558.4
Segment Map
Click leg for street view
leg 1:  478.4 to  488.4 miles		FCST
leg 2: 488.4 to 498.4 miles		FCST
leg 3: 498.4 to 508.3 miles		FCST
leg 4: 508.3 to 518.4 miles		FCST
leg 5: 518.4 to 528.4 miles		FCST
leg 6: 528.4 to 538.4 miles		FCST
leg 7: 538.4 to 548.4 miles		FCST
leg 8: 548.4 to 558.4 miles		FCST

[GershonSurge]

Day 42: Monday, Dec 5, 2016

Walking/Running
Total Miles Goal: 504
Miles today: 12.03	Constraint
Total Miles:  487.65	None
Average Daily Miles: 11.61

Animated street views for legs completed today

leg 8: 468.4 to 478.4 miles

FCST

Completed Segment 10:  420.7 to 478.4 miles of the 48 State Virtual Hike.

This is the most problematical leg of the route because it could be blocked by snow. There are two or three miles of dirt road over a pass with few places to safely turn around. If I was real hiking this, I’d check it out by foot and then come back for the car and camper. If the vehicles couldn’t make it and I could, I’d drive a long way around to the other side and resume walking from there.

There is a longer route (by about 250 miles) through Tuba City, Arizona, but I haven’t mapped it.

Fortunately, there is good weather in the area and has been for some time. I don’t think it would have much snow.

Weather on virtual hike route

 

Comments

Luckily, I took my walk/jog early in the morning. The temperature was about 30 and the winds were essentially calm. Now the winds are gusting to 39 mph.

[GershonSurge]

Part 2: Southeastern Utah to Northwestern Nevada

478.4 miles to 2179.0 miles

There are 14 parts in the virtual hike with each part having 10 segments. Each segment has 8 legs.

The reason for so many divisions is it gives the hiker many reasons to celebrate. It also gives clear divisions as goals for those who want to do parts of the hike.

Segment 11 Data

Segment 11:  478.4 to 558.4 miles
Length of Segment:  80 miles
Total miles:  558.4
Segment Map
Click leg for street view
leg 1:  478.4 to  488.4 miles		FCST
leg 2: 488.4 to 498.4 miles		FCST
leg 3: 498.4 to 508.3 miles		FCST
leg 4: 508.3 to 518.4 miles		FCST
leg 5: 518.4 to 528.4 miles		FCST
leg 6: 528.4 to 538.4 miles		FCST
leg 7: 538.4 to 548.4 miles		FCST
leg 8: 548.4 to 558.4 miles		FCST

[FujiNguyen]

---

@GershonSurge wrote:

---

@Rich_Laue wrote:

I still don't understand,  where do i log my miles walked, or do i connect my Fitbit account, so the street view reflects the virtuwl distance ive gone

I'm going to be real simplistic as I'm either not understanding your question or not explaining it well. Perhaps @FujiNguyen can help.

---

I had similar question as how to track my progress on the trail when I first started.  There is no fancy app to automate tracking and reporting.   So I developed a spreadsheet using free Google sheet to help me track.  I shated it online so anyone can download and use it as starting point if you like.  

It has been working for me.  I can log my steps to self-eval progress and interesting enoug check out landscape along the trail via Google Street links provided by GershonSurge. Google Sheet software is free so anyone can sign up and creates your own sheet.   The direct link to my example spreadsheet is below

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ew4-JQf9_vCW4DC9X-Xl96GzjT8NoT98fnGlt0BHdLE/edit?usp=sharing

What does it take to update the spreadsheet?  

1. Look at the step/distance in the Fitbit app
2. Update the daily log in the spreadsheet
3. Cross-check the distance total with the leg running total and enter completion date

Below is an example of daily log

Day #	Date	Steps	Steps SubTotal	Miles	Miles SubTotal
1	10/26	13,760	13,760	6.17	6.17
2	10/27	7,060	20,820	3.13	9.3
3	10/28	11,384	32,204	5	14.3
4	10/29	10,744	42,948	4.72	19.02
5	10/30	5,530	48,478	2.43	21.45
6	10/31	7,669	56,147	3.4	24.85
7	11/1	6,924	63,071	3.07	27.92
8	11/2	7,852	70,923	3.48	31.4
9	11/3	13,465	84,388	5.92	37.32
10	11/4	14,425	98,813	6.34	43.66
11	11/5	7,082	105,895	3.11	46.77
12	11/6	8,183	114,078	3.59	50.36

Below is an example of completion date for each leg.  On 11/5, the distance subtotal is 46.77.  So I enter the completion date 11/5 on Segment 1, leg 6

Segment Map	Leg Map	Segment	Leg	Miles (subtotal)	Completed Date
Segment 1	leg 1: 0 to 9.3 miles	1	1	9.3	10/27
	leg 2: 9.3 to 17.8 miles	1	2	17.8	10/29
	leg 3: 17.8 to 24.1 miles	1	3	24.1	10/31
	leg 4: 24.1 to 34 miles	1	4	34	11/3
	leg 5: 34 to 35.8 miles	1	5	35.8	11/3
	leg 6: 35.8 to 45.8 miles	1	6	45.8	11/5
	leg 7: 45.8 to 54.8 miles	1	7	54.8	11/8

[FujiNguyen]

---

GershonSurge wrote: 

The only thing I've read about heart rate is an increased rate first thing in the morning can be a symptom of overtraining. I consider a day off if my low heart rate while sleeping is a bit high. I feel it means some system needs to recover, but I have no scientific data to back this up.

---

I think the heart works like a smoke alarm.  It sounds off when detecting imbalance between steps, sleep, weight, etc.  The brain is like a thermostat - on or off activities such as eating/drinking.  

[GershonSurge]

Day 43: Tuesday, Dec 6, 2016

Audio Book Completed: Self-Discipline: How to Develop Spartan Discipline, Unbreakable Mental Toughness, and Relentless Willpower (Spartan Self-Control, Self-Confidence, and Self-Awareness) Dominic Mann

Walking/Running
Total Miles Goal: 516
Miles today: 13.2	Constraint
Total Miles: 500.85	None
Average Daily Miles: 11.65

Animated street views for legs completed today

leg 1:  478.4 to  488.4 miles		FCST
leg 2: 488.4 to 498.4 miles		FCST

Weather on virtual hike route

 

I’m hoping there won’t be any snow along the route for about a week. After that, I’ll be able to easily drive to a safe area if a snowstorm develops. I looked ahead to Highway 50 in Utah and Nevada. Although it often gets to single digits at night, it is generally in the 40’s during the day. There is seldom much snow.

Locally, it was 13 degrees when I walked/jogged today. I took another two-mile walk after the temperature had dropped to 9 degrees. I dressed warmly, so I didn’t notice the cold.

Comments

I’m considering gradually increasing my miles by about .033 miles a day. This is only about 67 steps a day. The reason is I’d like to get to the southern tip of Maine by October 1, 2017 to avoid the severe winter weather.

I know it’s only a virtual hike, and I can continue during bad weather, but I’d like to make it as realistic as possible to test my ability to quickly cover long distances in case opportunity for a real hike comes along.

[Rich_Laue]

Thisvirtual hike has no relation to the amount of walking i do, i simlpy do not understand the purpose, and how it encourages a person to walk. If anything i would call it a guided tour.

[GershonSurge]

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@Rich_Laue wrote:

Thisvirtual hike has no relation to the amount of walking i do, i simlpy do not understand the purpose, and how it encourages a person to walk. If anything i would call it a guided tour.

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@Rich_Laue

You are correct in that you can't put in a starting and ending point for your day. However, all you have to do is wait until the end of the leg and watch the animated street view for the leg. I don't see this as a big limitation considering all the program does. 

I gathered from your posts on other threads you may be a computer programmer. If you think you can improve the program, I'll give you the coordinates for the first 50 or so legs so you can do testing. If you succeed, I'll give you the rest of the waypoints.

Meanwhile, I've been motivated to walk over 500 miles along the route since October 25th. 

[GershonSurge]

@Rich_Laue,

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@Rich_Laue wrote:

Thisvirtual hike has no relation to the amount of walking i do, i simlpy do not understand the purpose, and how it encourages a person to walk. If anything i would call it a guided tour.

---

A couple of my posts disappeared. Spurious electrons, I guess.  

I understand why you'd like to be able to enter your starting and stopping distance each day. It would be a programming nightmare and wouldn't add anything to the ability to complete a virtual or a real hike. I doubt if many people would complete the hike even if this feature was added.

I haven't found a virtual hike online that allows a person to both enter starting and stopping distance on the route and see an animated street view. If you see one, please let me know.

Thanks for your suggestion.

[GershonSurge]

Day 44: Wednesday, 12/7/16 – Changing goals

Walking/Running	Constraint
Daily Goal: 12.07	None
Miles today: 14.90
Total Miles Goal: 512
Total Miles: 515.75
Average Daily Miles: 11.72

Changing goals

I decided to try to reach Kittery, Maine by October 1, 2017. I figure if I’m out of southern Maine by then, the weather for the rest of the route will work out. This means I’ll need to increase my daily mileage goal by .033 a day up to about 17.77 miles/day. I’ll have to be at 17.77 miles a day by about March 6, 2017 to make this work. If I don’t get there, then on October 1, 2017, I’ll skip ahead to Kittery, Maine and continue walking from there. I’ll come back in about April to pick up the section I missed.

Animated street views for legs completed today

leg 3: 498.4 to 508.3 miles

FCST

Weather on virtual hike route

Comments

 

I took this picture as a reminder there were light snow flurries this morning. When I turned to the left to continue walking, there were three deer about 50 feet away. They were looking at me like they wanted to play. I walked towards them, and they would move about 50 feet farther from me. We played this game of tag for about a third of a mile. Then, they had enough and ran off into an area where I couldn’t follow.

[GershonSurge]

 Day 45: Thursday, 12/8/16 (Snow)

Walking/Running	Constraint
Daily Goal: 12.1	None
Miles today: 12.12
Total Miles Goal: 524.1
Total Miles: 527.87
Average Daily Miles: 11.71

Animated street views for legs completed today

leg 4: 508.3 to 518.4 miles

FCST

Weather on virtual hike route

 

Comments

 

It was 13 degrees this morning, and snowing. I dressed warmly, so the temperature wasn’t a challenge. I couldn’t jog much because of the snow.