Friday 23 March 2018

30 km plus. Nowhere near my summer target, but not bad for the first long walk of the season ...

Ye, I dreamt I was angry. Chronically so. Because I could be home, but I was wasting my time in some foreign school. In the dream a school councillor suggested my private life is not much to fight for either, insinuating my lack of sex. (It's been 8 days since the infection. We tried fooling around but it feels unpleasant to go down that road.) Fuck her.

I dressed up nicely, layers, caps and shawls and all that jazz - it's still around zero unless the sun comes up, from time to time even bits of puffy icy rain falls - and kept to a level ground, so I don't sweat up, then descend and up again and down ... I wanted to see how far I can get before starting to feel uncomfortable. There's the hang (hung?) bridge first, then a close-by village, then the cleaning (river purification) station, then a large natural reserve pond (puddle). Two more bridges further on, before you get to a town that I usually got to halfway to my 50km destination. But today I wanted to mark the 40.000 steps count - 30 km or so, so the third bridge was the turning point. 

I know I am too heavy. Not for a moment was a tired or queasy, except for the horrific, almost unbearable hurting of my feet. However, I was trying out a new step. It's less stable (the ground was this thick creamy muddy ordeal, so you either walked very slowly or ran very ninja-like (not me).) and more using the front of the foot. In this shoe, the winter shoe, fingers have nowhere to spread, otherwise the burning sensation of the sole would have had more room to distribute. It uses more arms, this step, it's almost a bounce, like you're JUST about to start jogging. It's fast and the steps are longer, so instead of 20.000 steps back, I was missing 200. But for a while the soles burnt less agonisingly. 'Course then the ankles start to feel it. 

While Instagraming, it occurred to me that road, one I used to consider an almost mythological journey, is quite banal by now. There was no grass to speak of yet and no foliage, so finding a shrubbery to pee was annoying, because of course of the one hiker per hour two will pass by at that exact moment. Barky was lovely, too tired to really engage in any savage duels with other tiny dogs or swans.. It was a neat hike, listening to audio books and First Aid Kit sing their bizzare perky depressing songs. The river was lovely mint green variations, still parts icicles, parts raving spring whitewater.

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