Day 3: Midway

This is the first real day of hiking, and the heat and humidity from yesterday continues today.

I spent a lot of time planing, and in retrospect over emphasized my concern about the colder periods of my hike in late October and through through November.

While this has lead me to bring all the gear I need, i failed to prepare mentally for the hot period in early September.  It's had been a serious shock to my system. 

Before coming here I did a little of 300km of walking and hiking in Calgary, trying to prepare physically. And to some extent it has helped.  But for any physical progress I made before the trip, the climate of Calgary is nothing like the climate of Japan and my system is struggling to acclimate.

The saving grace in all this is that I knew how punishing the would be generally, and I planned for a slow hike.  If I keep a pace of 15km per day I will finish in roughly 63 days, leaving me 27 spare for exploration and break days. 

Right now it's going to be hard to meet that target. The heat is beating the hell out of me.

Walking through the heat of Osaka yesterday I noticed I wasn't sweating, and I knew I was dehydrated.  I was too conservative with my water. I had 2L in my reservoir, and was sipping regularly, but it was barely enough.  

Today I filled my reservoir, along with my dirty bag, giving me 4L of water.  The extra weight isn't awesome, but the ability to drink freely certainly is.  

The flipside of this is that I am sweating buckets. That's a good thing, but I am visibly drenched, as there is rarely a breeze to help wick any moisture away.

I am learning all sorts of things on this first day, and despite the fact expect the next few weeks to be fucking hell until the weather cools and my body begins to catch up, I am glad I am doing this.