the -8ºC, 9K walk

I took my first walk along the Tan Creek in a while: the old 9K route out to the Han River confluence and back. There's a ton of construction going on there now, not just that silly off-ramp that they've been building for over a year. It seems they're adding some kind of short access road at about creek level, plus another car/truck bridge across the creek (with space for the creek's water to flow through beneath). The whole thing is ugly, and by the time it's done, traffic will have built up to the point where whatever problem they'd been trying to solve is no longer solved. Just like in the DC area when they try to widen, say, Route 495 by adding one lane in each direction: traffic is constricted for years, and the pressure continues to build. Then one day, the new lanes are opened, and there's a momentary sigh of relief... until people realize that, with ever more cars on the road, the extra lanes don't do anything to improve circulation. If there were some magical way to—poof—create new lanes in an instant, our problems would be solved. But that's only in my dreams.

Anyway, there's a lot of ugly construction along the Tan Creek, but I like the new biking/walking path they've set up for people going east along the Han toward Hanam City. Not much has changed for people going left and west along the Han, toward Yeouido and eventually the Gayang Bridge, then just past that to the Ara Canal, which leads one to Incheon.

No angina tonight. Not a twinge. It helps that I've been sort-of fasting for the past few days (smoothie + a spoonful of almond butter, and nothing else all day), and I'll be continuing right up until my appointment this coming Friday. The hospital sent me their automatic patient-history questionnaire about my recent BP and pulse, which is the first in a series of text messages they'll be sending over the next few days to prep me for the hospital visit. I'll get reminders of what appointments I have, where they are, and at what time they'll be; I'll also get a QR code so I can enter the hospital on the day of my appointment. 

I don't expect my A1c to be very good; I was 5.9 last time, four months ago, but I may be over 7.0 right now since I went a little off the chain both during my walk and between the walk's halves (Thanksgiving). I've been tracking my numbers on a Google spreadsheet, using a formula that takes daily glucose numbers and converts them into A1c results, but I wonder how accurate the formula is (as well as how accurate all of my home equipment is—BP, blood sugar, etc.). I'm going to ask the docs whether I can get scanned for blockages again, and I'll also ask them a somewhat unrelated question about coming in for a colonoscopy—something you're supposed to do when you turn 50, which makes me five years late.

It was about -8ºC (18ºF) tonight, which turned out not to be terribly cold, but I'd bundled up, anyway, wearing my winter vest under my down coat, plus two layers of gloves, a scarf, and two layers of hats: a beanie with a balaclava over it (here's a pic of a balaclava... better that than a dickie). I was cozy the entire time, probably because I kept my hands in my coat pockets, and probably because the cold wasn't really that extreme.

As long as this weather holds, there will be many more winter walks to come.