today's walk

I took a 27K stroll from my place to Hanam City today (Saturday).  It was a welcome return to form after two weeks of just lazing around thanks to snowy, icy, slushy weather. I realize I could have switched to staircase work, but as I said, I was lazy. 

There are no photos from today's walk, but I do have stats:

I was walking unencumbered today (except for a liter of water in two 500-cc bottles), so the 25 kilometers to my usual stopping point took me almost exactly five hours, which is nice:  this means my normal walking speed hasn't gone down, which is something I'd feared last year.  No:  I'm still at 5 km/h, at least in cool weather (and today was more cool than cold—almost springlike).  But my walk took me past my usual stopping point, past the Hanam City Starfield department store, and almost all the way over to the local bus terminal.  That's a total of about 27 kilometers.  I could have stopped at Starfield, as it turned out:  there was a bus stop for the 9303 bus right there.  I did make a pit stop inside Starfield to go relieve myself after five hours of walking; there were public toilets all along the trail, but there were also throngs of people out today—fair-weather pussies who would never show their cowardly faces in sub-freezing temps.  So I skipped the public toilets and waited until I'd hit Starfield to go drain the dragon.

The day was warm:  it got up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10ºC), which is short-sleeve weather for me.  I often felt stupid for wearing a coat on top of a windbreaker, so for three-fourths of the walk, I took the coat off and tucked it under my left arm.  It's actually been warm-ish for the past few days, so it was surprising to see that, once I'd left Seoul, the Han River was still frozen over as I approached Hanam.  There were signs along the river warning about going onto the ice and possibly drowning, but I saw no one crazy enough to tempt fate in that way.

I was also testing out a pair of thick winter socks that my boss had gifted his employees with.  They weren't made of cotton, thank Cthulhu; only an idiot goes distance walking in cotton socks, which cause blisters and irritation.  The socks fit my feet well, but they proved to be a little too tight around the toes, which would be bad news if I were to wear them repeatedly over several days' walking.  I didn't end up with any blisters, despite being rather de-conditioned after two weeks of resting and eating poorly.

Speaking of de-conditioning, I developed an ache in the small of my back as I walked, despite having taken my usual complement of pain pills (I took more pills once I'd hit 15,000 steps).  I think this is because of the return of my gut, which pulls at the lower spine the way a gestating baby causes lower-back aches for pregnant women.  The ache went away after a while; it wasn't a major thing, but it was noticeable.

Otherwise, I simply walked without stopping, except for my pit stop inside Starfield.  When I got to the 9303 bus stop, I waited twenty or so minutes for the bus, then the ride home was around an hour thanks to slow traffic as we approached Jamshil.  Once at Jamshil, I took a cab back to my apartment, nodding off several times as I rode, and I shuffled up to my place, stiff and exhausted.  I'll be sleeping well tonight.

I always forget how many steps it takes to reach Hanam.  In my mind, it's only 25,000 steps, but in reality, it's always over 30K steps.  Days like this are good because I can eat 3,000 calories' worth of food and not worry too much about blood sugar or weight gain.

I'm still debating whether to stick to the plan and hike the east coast later this year, or to chuck that idea and hike the beautiful trails on the island of Jeju.  I'm going to plot out the rest of the east-coast trail soon, and then we'll see.