New longest walk

By merest happenstance, Jackie and I both had the same distance as the furthest we’d ever walked: 14 miles. She’d hiked hers at Yosemite. I’d hiked mine in the Uinta Mountains in Utah. On today’s hike, we topped that.

It’s not such a great accomplishment. Jackie had done her previous 14 mile hike carrying a full pack. My previous long effort was made with just a day pack, but was at least done in the mountains. Today’s walk was done on sidewalks, with almost no gear at all—water, sunblock, and my tablet for its GPS tracking. On the other hand, the distance this time (14.12 miles) is a lot more reliable than the distance of my previous long hike, which was probably eyeballed off a trail map—no GPS that time.

Speaking of GPS, here’s the info on today’s effort:

We walked to campus, then through the neighborhoods of southern Urbana to Meadowbrook Park, after which we headed north along Race Street and then back west along Florida. We stopped for lunch at the Yellowfin Restaurant, walked briefly through Hessel Park, along the short linear Harris Park, and then home.

It took almost exactly the same time as our last week’s shorter (12.1 mile) walk, most of the speedup due to not taking coffee breaks, but also walking a bit more briskly.

I’m feeling pretty good. After last week’s hike, my Achilles tendons felt (for a couple of hours) like I might have really injured them. This evening, although I’m pretty tired, I feel fine.