How to begin a 1500km Journey

How do you begin a 1500km journey? With a single step.
Or in my case, tube to London Bridge and then 20km to Richmond. Lacking the mood for another gallery or museum, yesterday I goaded myself into getting a part of my route ticked off. Though I didn't start til early afternoon I managed to get in 5 hours of walking, and cover ~20km of the Thames Path to Richmond, before having a light pub meal (and a pint of Guinness!) and then tubing back to Shoreditch.

Much of this section is along the edge of the Thames, past Bankside buskers, through busy commercial lots with people already knocking off for a pint (at 3:30!), or past residential properties. However it does also pass by some lovely parks, especially the section alongside the Wetlands, where the gravel path passes under trees and rowers sculled past on the water.

This foray highlighted an unfortunate problem. My boots press on my recently injured achilles, and retrospectively have been hurting it before, without me realising what a major issue I was ignoring. I had hardly got out the door when I turned back and reverted to my casual lace ups (with very hard soles). So today's main task was buying hiking shoes that don't come so high up the ankle. Hopefully these will go the distance.