How it's done

I think there is a big difference between the first and second half of a through hike.

I'm going to write this in second person but be aware this is a generalization from my experiences.

During the first half of a thru hike your body is falling apart in a different way each week. Your feet are sore each morning, afternoon and night, and each step is sharp with the pain of agitated blisters. Breaks are needed each hour due to pain and exhaustion. In this way, 20 miles feels like a very very long day in the office.

Let's fast forward 14 hundred miles or so -- to this morning. I woke up at 5:30 am, which was typical at the beginning but is now somewhat early as I have become more lazy in some ways. I left camp by 6 am determined to reach my daily goal of 10 miles by 10 am. From 6 until 10 I did not stop walking. At 10 I took a break to rest my feet and eat some foods not easily eaten while walking. I do everything while walking if I can. With my first goal of 10 by 10 met I moved on to the second goal of 15 by noon. This was accomplished and I had 20 miles done by 2 pm where I stopped at dead fall lake for a swim and lunch break. From here the day felt a little monotonous. I don't have a lot of pain each day anymore. 

Today I fought boredom more than pain. It was the monotony of needing to attain a certain number of miles in order to reach a goal as I have been doing every single day for the last three months. 

I hope this will fade. I read somewhere before my hike that a thru-hike is 90% mental and 10% physical. At the beginning it was 90% mental because you had to use that much mental power to overcome your physical pain. Now it is a mental struggle of perseverance; the miles come easily enough.