Huh. The autumnal equinox was this past Sunday. I'm normally better at remembering these things, but I guess this is what happens when your mind is slowly fraying and fragmenting.
Gonna go practice on some creekside stairs now. Easier than the huge staircase in my building. But I'll have to switch to the building eventually if I want to see whether I meet my new personal standard for going on the walk: getting up to the 14th floor from B1. That's not the full B1 to 26 I'd been advocating, I realize, but if I can do B1 to 14 without suffering another heart attack (by, say, October 9: I'm only beginning with the stairs training right now), that'll mean I'm good enough to handle big hills on the trail (because I'll divide each hill into small chunks, and there are only three truly big hills along the entire Nakdong route—one of which (by Mushim-sa) I avoid routinely by taking a detour, and another of which commenter Paul/Daeguowl told me can be bypassed via a tunnel—a tunnel whose exit I've seen every time I've come down that particular mountain, so I know right where to go. That leaves only one must-do hill on the Nakdong path, and I'm kind of dreading it because I think it's longer on the northbound side than on the southbound side... but I'm pretty sure it's doable as long as I don't push myself to try to tackle it in one go. And as I've said: I've never done any of these big hills without resting. So no worries: I won't blindly push myself to exhaustion. I never have.
Happy post-equinox.
Dont forget the big hill as you leave Andong!
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about continuing alongside Andong Lake or something? Because I won't be doing that. Once I reach Andong Dam from Sangju, I'm grabbing a bus or train and going home, so I'm guessing I'll be missing any more big hills. I do remember there being something of a hill on the approach to Andong (coming from Sangju), but it wasn't huge at all.
DeleteAh, I forgot you're going South to North this time. There's a fsirly sharp hill (for cyclists) on the outskirts of Andong when you head towards Sangju.
DeleteYou know what? I think I do remember that one, but it didn't register prominently because I was going down it, not up it. (You'll recall I did Sangju to Andong a few years back, right after having completed Jeju.)
DeleteI think I found the hill you're talking about (2022 walk blog). Sure enough, it's on the outskirts of Andong, and here's the order of my encounter: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I'm looking the wrong way, but if you run that sequence backwards, I think it's the hill you're talking about. When I was going up, I saw signs for a "7% grade," but it didn't feel horrible. The other side, though, was relatively easy to descend, so I can only imagine how hard it was to bike up.
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