I went on a 13.9 mile walk (with only a light backpack) yesterday, from the Branch Ave Metro Station to Judiciary Square. About 3/4 of the way through, the back of my knee started feeling weird, almost twinging, like it did during some of my "long walks" in 2011, and my feet hurt in a way they didn't during either of the last two hikes I did. I'm unclear exactly why this is, but it could be because of one or a combination of: long distance on concrete; rapid pace (3.7 mi/h); or no appreciable breaks (both hikes included one or two instances where I stopped for 10 minutes or more, but today's walk included very little time stopped).
While walking on the side of a road, my foot sunk into probably six inches of incredibly loose wet dirt, and had I not been wearing hiking boots, I probably would have lost that shoe. As it was, I had to shake a little dirt out of one boot, but a regular shoe would have been completely covered in dirt and would have been a hideous mess to clean out.
Normally, I'd say more experimentation is in order, but I don't really have a whole lot of time for that, and I'd rather do more hikes than more sidewalks.
Received a package from Amazon with more toys for the trail:
- PowerFilm USB+AA Solar Charger, as recommended by co-worker Mike
- RAVPower 20100 mAh portable charger
- RAVPower 30W wall charger to charge the 20k mAh battery pack; picked these two specifically because of the combination of high power-to-weight density, and the promise of rapid charge times, so as to get the most power as quickly as possible from potentially limited time in town)
- Sunix 120 lumen headlamp
- 1000g x 0.1g jewlery scale (weigh all the things!; or at least, all the things weighing less than 2.2 pounds)