More milestones

On Saturday, I went for a run during a proper blizzard; I ended up taking my jacket off, too. I had icicles built up on my eyebrow and eyelashes by the end. Worth it.

On Monday, I achieved all 100 reps of both situps and squats carrying 10 pounds. I then ran to work with a 7.5kg pack. Between adding my wind pants and jacket to the pack for the run home, it was actually 7.9kg on the run back. Both of those weights included 2 1-liter bottles of water. My right knee bothered me ever so slightly, so today I took public transportation to and from work, and took the opportunity to move a few things both ways. I took a variety of medications to work, where I achieved some success sealing them in plastic straws. I found that I could print a piece of paper with the name, dose, and expiration date of each pill, then heat seal it into a small section of a drinking straw. The font must be simple and the type very small (size 4), but it remains legible through the straw. I also bought some single-use tubes of super glue, butterfly strips, and a spool of half inch waterproof medical tape. All told, I've got just about everything for a good medical kit that should fit into a tin.

I also brought home my new cutting mat, ruler, and the patterns for the backpack I hope to make, along with my new hydroblu water filter. It filters water with much less pressure than I anticipated. There is no appreciable flow of air back through it, so the filter has to be unscrewed to allow the bottle to re-expand before more water can be squeezed through. I wonder about an intermediate attachment with a check valve. I also wonder about the wisdom of using a small piece of tube to bring the water from the outlet to the clean water bottle, to minimize the chance of dirty water leaking out from around the joint and dripping down into the clean bottle.

I've been wearing my low-drop shoes for all casual walking around, exercising my arches and toes, and running at least 100 steps per kilometer with a toe-first strike. Tomorrow, I'll run to work again, with another reasonably heavy pack.