How long does it take you to recover from a hike?

[Wyoming]

Wow at the responses.

I may just be lucky but in my 60's I still average in the low 20's per day and last year had a 35 mile day. With no pain or aftereffects.

If one is going out hiking and is sore the next day then you exceeded your level of conditioning. The same applies to a week hike in that if it takes you days to recover you were not in good enough shape to do what you did. You hurt yourself.

Other than my formerly badly broken back I have no issues of pain from hiking even after hundreds of miles and don't think in general that anyone should. I don't take vitamin I even for the back unless it hurts too bad to go to sleep..let alone any pills during the day. If you have to do that something is being done wrong.

If you are in full hiking condition when you start a hike - as you should be then you will not likely have any issues at all. Full condition means you have steadily worked up to your thru hike daily distance in a training mode where at least a couple of weeks before your thru starts you have done a 100+ mile week with a pack in the mountains. If you are not doing this then you are starting in partial shape and asking for injuries - as you are all describing and have witnessed. Feet and knees take a lot longer to get ready for this than muscles do. Your ligaments and tendons need to get used to the stresses you are putting on them. Almost all problems like plantar fasciitis, tendonitis, shin splints are due to doing too much too soon too fast. When they start you MUST stop and heal or they will almost always get worse - especially plantar fasciitis as it is a hike ender. Gradually building up your conditioning eliminates all most all of these types of problems. Buying a new kind of shoe and just taking off and doing big miles is another big cause as well.

Hiking poles reduce the incidence of knee problems significantly as you can use them to stabilize your walking and reduce impact on the downhills.

Re hiker gimp and foot pain. If your feet are getting really sore then your shoes don't work for your body. There is no reason to have really sore feet other than the shoes have too soft of soles. I hike here in AZ which has much worse rocks than any part of the AT and I never have sore feet. Stiff in the morning yes - I am old and all of me is stiff in the morning - except the part I might want to be. If your feet are getting really sore then you likely need a harder soled shoe. Some of us are tougher than the others. I need hard soled shoes as I discovered a long time ago on the AT as I hobbled up the trail with really painful feet. But the outfitter at Harpers Ferry put me into a hard soled shoe and I have never looked back.

Now if you are pushing really hard on purpose the story is different of course. Anish talks about how much pain she is in when doing an FKT. But that makes sense. If you are pushing your limits to see what you can do then pain comes with the territory and injury is a distinct possibility.

[Seatbelt]

{I hike here in AZ which has much worse rocks than any part of the AT and I never have sore feet.}

This is amazing to me. Where in AZ are the rocks worse than PA or NY? Got any pics? I'm not doubting you, just curious since I have never hiked in AZ.
As a side note, I have hiked extensively in the mountains of PA where rock and boulder fields are commonplace and I find that after a whole day of hiking my feet are somewhat sore. By comparison, I can hike for days on other portions of the AT with no foot problems of any kind.