Except for a twinge in my left knee toward the end of tonight's walk (the twinge went away), I felt rather light on my feet when I did my 14-staircase creekside trek with a pack on my back. I had the hip belt cinched all the way to the ninth hole, which of course made me think of golf. I managed 24K steps, and in looking at my step count versus elapsed time, I saw that my step rate was over 100 steps per minute after several hours' walking. In other words, my pace didn't flag on level ground. Yay, me.
The other night, when I was out with the backpack on, I noticed that I had to keep cinching the hip belt tighter as I walked. Tonight, cinching to the ninth hole at the outset proved to be sufficient. (I think I tightened the belt down to the ninth hole on that previous walk.) The backpack rode on my hips, with minimal pressure from the shoulder straps. Having repaired my chest strap, I used that as well tonight, and it did seem to improve the shoulder-strap situation slightly. When I used the chest strap in 2008, it caused me to feel as if I were about to have a heart attack. Tonight, when I used the strap, I deliberately slid it so high that it didn't touch my chest at all: it was level with the bottom of my throat, barely touching the inner edges of my clavicle. No chest pain or weirdness at all, thank Cthulhu. The chest strap had popped off during the walk in 2008; I repaired it a day ago, which took a bit of noodling and wrestling. I'm afraid the strap will pop off again; the way it's moored to the shoulder strap isn't ideal, in my opinion; it really ought to be attached more securely.
Wednesday is upon us, and I'm beginning to despair of getting my MREs this week, in time for my buddy JW and his son to try them on Sunday. I'm also becoming a bit paranoid that the MREs won't show up by the time I leave for my walk on the morning of April 22. According to Amazon's package-tracking page, the MREs are supposed to arrive by (i.e., on or before) April 21, which is cutting it very fucking close. If I don't have any MREs on my departure date, I'll leave without them, and will have my on-base contact, Abel Magwitch, get in touch with Brian Dean, who has said he'd like to meet me out on the trail. Abel can give Brian maybe five or six MREs to ferry down to me, wherever I'll be. (I'm expecting two large boxes with 24 MREs in total. MREs are heavy and bulky, so I won't be carrying many with me.)
Please forgive me if I don't repost my leg-by-leg itinerary right away; I do need to take the time to look much more closely at each segment of the walk to determine whether I'll really need to camp: there might be some hidden yeogwans or actual hotels that I missed in my initial scan of each area. In the meantime, here's a tentative food schedule:
Day 1: fasting
Day 2: Mountain House
Day 3: Soylent
Day 4: Survival Tabs
Day 5: MRE
Day 6: Mountain House
Day 7: Soylent
Day 8: Survival Tabs
Day 9: MRE
Day 10: fasting
Day 11: Mountain House
Day 12: Soylent
Day 13: Survival Tabs
Day 14: MRE
Day 15: Mountain House
Day 16: Soylent
Day 17: Survival Tabs
Day 18: MRE
Day 19: fasting
Day 20: Mountain House
Day 21: Soylent
Day 22: probably a meal with whoever happens to be at the endpoint to greet me
Sounds like a plan, eh?
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