Very sore muscles

I like to push myself hard. I guess part of it is to prove to myself that I can do something that I set my mind to and the other part is probably due to sheer stubbornness. I am not sure which was in effect this weekend, but I pushed myself to my "normal" pace, read thru-hiker pace. I knew the trail out was about 4.5 miles and so I decided to see if I could still do it in 2 hours or less. Well, I did accomplish my goal but I am almost incapable of walking today because of it. The worst pain is in my calves and quads from the almost constant downhill hike. The smaller pain is that I actually picked up a nice pair of blisters on both big toes. I was really surprised to discover them as I thought I had broken in the sandals very well at this point. Apparenly they are broken in for relatively flat terrain or pavement but not downhill at hard pacing. It could also be a flaw with the sandals. I will mention this in my report on the sandals. I am staring to compose the reports a little ahead of time and will add to them if I take any of the test items out for any more trips. Due to the move, I think this might have been the last trip. Likely it would have been the last trip until after the reports were due anyways, so I am not cutting anything out. In the mean time, I have been doing my stretches despite the pain which has been good.

On another note, I decided to walk over to the movie theater. I thought that since it was a short walk, it would be fine to break in another pair of shoes. That was a big mmistake. So not only do my muscles hurt, and my big toes have blisters, but I ended up ripping up the back of my ankles where the top of the shoe heel hits. So I will have to wait for that to heal before being a little more conservative in the breaking in period. I hope they can be broken in, I would hate to have to return them. Not only did I get them on sale, but they are Keen shoes. Since I love their sandals so much, I was hoping to use them for winter wear. Time will tell.