2000 miles with infinite MPG

[Xist]

I stayed with my sister for the first two months after I came home from Germany and I enjoyed waking up early, spending time with my nephew before school, and taking the dogs for a run.

Unfortunately, I let my then-girlfriend persuade me to stay up ridiculously late every night chatting on Skype. She was also a large contributor of me buying the Forester. I regret dating her more than most of the crazies I have taken out.

[RedDevil]

A new record today: 30 kilometer in one go!
That's about 18 miles and more feet than fit in all the shoes I own.

Colijnsplaat - Oosterscheldekering v.v. (the map is an approximation as it does not display 100% of the walking trails in the route); starting entirely along the coast and mostly inland on the back end.

I took my time at a leisurely 5.8 - 6 km/h so it took over 5 hours. But I could have kept on walking way past that, despite the wind picking up to gale force and some rain in the last few miles. Then, as the wind was dead south, I 'hid' behind the sea dike again on that stretch.

It was my second big walk this mini holiday, as the day before yesterday while my kids, wife and mother-in-law were having fun in Mini Mundi, a big indoor playground, I walked 25 km from Middelburg via Arnemuiden and Veere back to Middelburg. Though shorter than today it was much harder, with several bouts of hail and rain and strong wind all the time. I had an umbrella with me and it was very hard to keep on to it.
Hail precedes rain, then there's a couple of minutes with just wind. Hail Pluvius, rinse and repeat. No wonder thet for the whole 8 km of the unpaved walking stretch along the Canal through Walcheren (from Veere to Middelburg) the only oncoming 'traffic' was a hare!

Yesterday I was out for an hour only, but this time the wind was so strong that I could open nor close my umbrella, so when I finally got it open I left it like that. Two of the beams collapsed though allowing the edges to flap wildly, tearing holes in the fabric and spraying drip water around ... my gloves were soaked and at 3 degrees above freezing one hour was really the limit I could endure.

So today was a walk in the park really. Ah well, I now know I can do 30 km and still have adequate reserves. I may indeed do a commute on foot one day

[MetroMPG]

RedDevil - congrats on your healthy changes. (How did you know when you're having a mini stroke? Symptoms?)

A couple of summers ago I was on a bike ride and met a guy pulling a little wagon with a sign on it: "Walking the full length of the St. Lawrence River". 1197 km. We chatted for a while - recently retired civil servant, doing the walk in 3 or 4 'chunks' as his summer holiday/adventures. Very interesting guy.

One of my favourite blogs (not really a blog) is by Paul Salopek, an American journalist walking around the world, along the route of pre/historic human migration out of Africa all the way to South America. He's in year 6 or 7 now, and has been documenting it for National Geographic:
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/p...-of-eden-walk/ Really good writer.

[RedDevil]

Thank you!
I take my hat off (if I had one) to those great adventurers! I am fully aware my 30 km are nothing special, but I'm happy I can do this now. A year ago even 10 km would have been a stretch.

I got my first recent stroke roughly one year back while driving to one of our offices on the other side of the country for a meeting.
I had something similar 10-15 year ago, usually when working in the garden. It vanished and we thought it was an allergy. Now I'm not sure it was...

Anyway, I had a pressing pain on my chess but it was the middle of nowhere. I was in the slow lane (go figure!) and ready to pull over and hit the hazards if I would start feeling worse for it, but it was unchanging for 3 minutes and then suddenly disappeared in seconds.
I went to the meeting and drove home in the afternoon without trouble.

The next day at work it happened 4 times in a row with 10 minute intervals or so. I went to the doctor who started a ping-pong game with the cardiologist using me as the ball. At last an angiograph revealed the blockage and a stent was inserted that ended the attacks and colored the skin around the artery in my lower right arm in rainbow style for no less than 3 months. It was so pleasant that I vowed to do anything to prevent ever needing another stent.

So here I am, putting one foot ahead of the other and reversing it time and again.

The app with my Mi Band 4 step counter says I've taken 38012 steps today and adds 'Ahead of 100% of users'... You bet