Camino de Santiago: it’s on!

Switching gears a bit from my posts about my May trip to France, this one is about an upcoming trip to do the Camino de Santiago. I posted a while back that I was thinking about it and since then, I’ve decided to do it. So I’ve been in active planning and prep mode for the last several months.

I’m a little nervous, I won’t lie. 🙂

For my first Camino, I’m planning to do the last ~120 kilometers of the Camino Francés (French Way) later this summer instead of the full Way (~780 km) due to some time constraints.

I managed to talk my husband into doing this with me¹ and he of course does not get a 3 month sabbatical like I do, so that’s one factor. In addition, it’s coming up on the time to move our daughter back to the US from Germany so we decided to kill 2 birds with one stone (aka, trans-Atlantic flight): so we’ll do part of the Camino, catch our breaths, and then head to Germany for the move-out.

So now to the nervousness. Although we’ve been conditioning ourselves for this walk, I’m not 100% sure I’ll be able to walk this many kilometers a day for 6 consecutive days, all with a 13-14 pound (5-6kg) backpack on my back. I’ve never done that much walking for that many days in a row, for one thing. And well, I ain’t as young as I used to be. 😀 I’ve also had persistent issues off and on for a couple of years with my right foot but right now, my bigger concern is the left.

I managed to injure it in the stupidest way possible back in late March or early April and it’s still not 100% healed. It’s been overall pretty good lately until I attempted a 4 mile (~ 6.5 km) walk with 17.5 pounds (8kg) in my backpack and added hill training. We had just done 6.25 miles (10 km) a couple of days before this with about 10 pounds (4.5 kg) in my backpack and played pickleball the next day and I had no issues so I’m not sure what happened. Maybe just the combo of it all but the super-heavy bag (relatively speaking) I think was the biggest issue.

I was worried that this might have spelled the end of our trip before it started. I could barely walk on my left foot later that night and couldn’t touch it at all without pain. It even kept me from falling asleep and it was visibly swollen the next day. I iced it off and on all day, which seemed to help.

I went back to my podiatrist a couple of days later to make sure there wasn’t anything serious going on since the last thing I wanted to do was to add more stupidity to an already-stupid injury and cause myself some longer term issues. I’m happy to say that I got the all-clear to continue (which I was cautioned doesn’t mean pain won’t flare up again). But now I wonder: is this going to happen on the Camino in the middle of things and keep me from walking? If so, then what?

In addition to spiritual or contemplative aspects of the Camino, it can also be a way to see how you handle challenges and respond to adversity. Frankly, one of the reasons I want to do it is to just see if I can. There’s a saying: The Camino provides. What does it provide exactly? Many things, some tangible and some not so much. One of the things it can provide is a new perspective or sometimes it provides something perhaps you didn’t know you needed. Maybe by dealing with foot injuries before I have even started my walk, the Camino is already providing me with something. It’s on me to figure out what that is.

We resumed training again last week, and did another 4 miles with that same dang hill, only this time, my pack was down to 12 lbs (5.5kg), which is closer to what it will be for the trip. Walking with 12 lbs vs 17.5 was a massive difference.

My foot was little tender but I think it will be OK. 🤞

1. By this, I mean I was having doubts about doing it solo so I asked him “Hey do you wanna do this Camino thing with me?” and he enthusiastically and quickly said “Sure!” followed by “What exactly is it?” 😀 Bless that man for still being onboard after I explained it. ↩︎