la balade continue

Not finishing my InYang walk (Incheon to Yangpyeong) during my break bothered me, so...

I'm doing a crazy walk!

Yes, despite the shifting forecast for rain, I'm walking almost 60 km from my apartment to Yangpyeong, starting tonight at 9 p.m. I'll walk all through the night, and about 20 km from the end, I'll be meeting up with Korean buddy JW to walk the final stretch. I warned JW, who is much more athletic than I am, that I'll be shambling along pretty slowly by the time I meet him, and that those final 20 kilometers will probably take us five hours at my flagging pace. He didn't seem to care; given the stresses in his life, I think he's just looking for a reason to be out and about. He happens to have chosen an awesome stretch of the Four Rivers path to walk along. I hope it's as much a treat for him as it always is for me.

I'll be starting a bit earlier than I did last year. Last year, I began my crazy walk at almost 10:30 p.m. and walked until exactly 3 p.m. the following day—a bit more than 16.5 hours. I think I'm starting tonight's walk from a somewhat weaker position, fitness-wise, so I'm leaving at 9 p.m. to give myself a bit of extra time: I can take more rest breaks and still meet JW at Yangsu Station, 20 km from the end of the trek, at our scheduled 10 a.m. And if I surprise myself by arriving at Yangsu Station an hour or more earlier, well... more resting time for me!

I probably won't take many—or any—pictures during the nighttime portion of the walk, but I'll be taking pics once it's light enough to do so. So expect a photo essay sometime soon.

ADDENDUM: a quick note about footwear: I've been wearing my spanking-new pair of size 13s for the past week, and they've been working fine. I think the trick was to tighten the laces a bit more, thereby preventing the shoes' "tongues" from slipping down and applying painful pressure on the tops of my feet. Since these shoes have un-worn soles and larger toe boxes, I think I ought to be fine in terms of blistering and other sundry foot pain. But as with all things: we'll see.