When I hiked the Appalachian Trail, there were two kinds of exhaustion--mental, and psychological/spiritual. For physical exhaustion, I often found that if I just kept going, I'd break through to some other source of energy or strength--sometimes it took all my mental energy just to focus on putting one foot in front of the other. I figured no matter how slowly, at least I was still moving. Often after hitting this "wall," I'd feel a shift in my body, like it had tapped into some other source of fuel, and I'd get a second wind and be able to go much farther than I thought. This is like what marathoners feel, and they have the same experience. Your body is actually shifting over to burn its fat reserves, and when that happens, you CAN keep going.
The worst case of this I ever had was when I planned badly and ran out of food two days before I hit town. Those last two days, in the rain, were not something I'd like to repeat. Buit I made it.
Even now, when I'm doing something strenuous and feel "tired," I know I'm not, compared to times on the trail--my benchmark for "tiredness" and "exhaustion" has permanently been moved much farther out than it ever was before.
If you're walking alone, it sometimes helps to count, over and over. I knew that the word "mile" comes from the Latin words "mille passus," which means "A thousand paces," so I'd count each step, knowing that when I reached a thousand, I'd covered a good chunk of ground. Counting focuses you on each step, and helps you avoid seeing the distance you have to go as insurmountable.
If you're walking with others, save good stories for long climbs, rainy days, and other difficult times. After hiking about 1000 miles, I hooked up with a buddy, and her good humor, flexible attitude, and storytelling ability made the miles fly by. On 20-mile days, in the rain, we told each other stories of our lives back in civilization--first kiss, first job, worst job, family stories, tales of friends, and other adventures. At times, one of us would think of a good story, but we'd save it for the hard times. Stories weigh nothing, but they can make a heavy pack seem much lighter.
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