50 Miler

Back when I was in the Boy Scouts of America, there was a major patch you could get for well, ... something major.  It was the 50 Miler award.  You had to go 50 miles in one week by foot or afloat.  I earned mine with a combination of canoeing and backpacking 50 miles with my troop over spring break. 

Here's the old version of the patch I earned.

In real life that patch is huge.  It's the biggest patch I own.  And you know, it should be.  It's a hard patch to get. 

So this brings me to this past week.  I have been performing maintenance at an apartment complex in Clearwater.  Mainly, they have me do the things they don't want to do.  That means I deal with a lot of garbage.  They had me walking all over the property picking up liter, and taking care of the trash cans. 

After each day my feet were killing me.  So I got to thinking...  There was one morning when I walked non-stop the first half of the day.  So even if I walked only two miles per hour, I knocked out eight miles just before lunch.  And then I went out and walked some more.  I figured each day I walked between ten and fifteen miles.  So at the end of the working week I easily had walked fifty miles. 

Buy alas, there is no 50 Miler patch for life.  But sometimes I think there should be.  At least in my heart I am glad to know that I was able to walk that much in one week.  Some of the other maintenance men at that complex said they just couldn't do what I did. 

The funny thing?  I might have to do it again this week.