An Almost Empty Backpack

206 Days to Prepare. North-Holland, The Netherlands.
  Quick Overview

Today I tried walking with an almost empty backpack, I’ve walked an approximate 4 km, I only installed a pedometer on my phone during the hike.

According to my pedometer I walked 4 km;
with an average walking-speed of 4.5 to 4.7 km/h;
and I walked for about 45 minutes.
I packed some water and a dumbbell weighing 3 kg, so my packweight was around 4 kg. (I still need to weigh my backpack on its own!)

Thoughts

I’m quite happy with my findings and I will update my prep and gear lists accordingly. One thing I quickly discovered is that I need some form of easy-accessible pouches & water. Having to stop, take off my backpack and search inside it, everytime I want a sip of water is not very practical. Luckily I do have some pouches and a military bidon, these are easy to clip onto my backpack! Also a few reflectors or lights on my backpack would be useful if I continue training / walking after dark. Visibility is quite important, mainly for other road-users.

Next is comfort, I found that my back got quite warm and sweaty, this may be due to the fact that I clothed myself warmy (due to it still being Januari), this is something I need to try and sort out. My left boot seems to have a damaged heel and my socks were not thick enough to pad this. So I started to feel a blister coming, this is obviously not good! The straps (and there are many) on my backpack are also not adjusted correctly, this could also have caused my sweaty back and is something I need to adjust in my next training-session.

So yeah, overall a good first hike with my backpack. But there are still a lot of things I need to prepare for!

Don’t be a fool Mr. Baggins if you can help it.”
_{Gandalf speaking to Bilbo who called the skin-changer Beorn a Furrier.
~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit}

Technical Update

I’m still working on this page as a whole, making the content but also improving the overall usefulness and “feel”. At the moment I use the simple Github-Pages setup, which takes a lot of the work out of my hands. But to get the page to the functionality I want, I will need to migrate to a HTML page. Things like working timers, visual progress-bars and GPS-tracker etc.

So in the daytime I train and do more of the physical stuff. And in the nighttime I program and write this page. I really like this workflow, it keeps me thinking about my Pilgrimage and keeps me motivated!

Cheers,
I-Jun  
Github.com   Reddit page   iJun.Pilgrimage@gmail.com