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Conditioning

Seven weeks to go...

I have been contemplating writing the blog in English and Spanish but after checking out the excellent job that Google Translate does with Spanish I have decided not to do it. Instead, I've added Google Translate directly to the blog. Less work!

On January 12, three of us walked 12 miles from the First Street Coffee shop in Gilroy to the Five Guys Hamburger and Fries joint in Morgan Hill. If you've eaten at Five Guys you'll understand why we didn't mind walking all that way. We departed at 8AM, stopped for a coffee in San Martin for some 20 minutes and proceeded to our destination where we arrived at 12:05. The total time walking was 3 hours and 45 minutes. Two other friends were waiting for us there and we all had a great and guiltless lunch at Five Guys. While I wasn't really tired from the walk, I ended up with a blister the size of a dime on my right foot. Since then, I've learned about the virtues of Vaseline and Mole Skin as they pertain to foot care. The blister took a while to go away since I've kept on walking everyday since then but I'm glad it has finally gone.

We are planning to do another long walk once Larry, the latest member of the group, breaks in his new hiking shoes and gets a bit in shape. This time we will do 14 miles. More about this on another post...

The Genesis

The idea for this journey originated with Ed who was the first one to see the movie "The Way." He told us about it and we all ended up seeing the movie over the ensuing months. The moment we saw the movie we were hooked.

I've been walking with a group of friends for over five years now and for the last three years we walk everyday from Monday to Saturday for at least an hour. So, the idea of doing the Camino was not totally out of the ordinary. One may argue that there is a big difference between walking four miles everyday and walking an average of fifteen miles per day during nineteen consecutive days. In fact, when I met with my cardiologist two days ago and told her what we were planning she said "You're crazy."( She is going to put me on a treadmill stress test to ensure that that I'm fit for the trek...) This was the same reaction my family doctor had when I told her and referred me to the cardiologist.

Since we first agreed to go on this adventure we've been refining exactly what it will entail. There are many caminos that pilgrims take to get to Santiago de Compostela. We settled on taking the Camimo Frances which, besides being the original and the one featured in the movie, starts in France just north of the border with Spain. Doing the entire Camino Frances entails walking nearly 500 miles in 31 days.
While a couple of guys wanted to walk the entire camino, we finally settled on a 300 mile journey from Burgos to Santiago. A good compromise for a bunch of guys who have never done anything remotely similar to this...

Initial Entry

A few friends and I have been planning to walk the Camino de Santiago for over a year. In October 2012 we finally decided to do it right after Easter 2013. Since then, we've been busy acquiring the equipment we'll need, learning about the camino, and getting in shape for what will be a 300 mile walk from Burgos to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. None of the five of us who are going to be doing it have ever done anything remotely close to this. Truly a totally new adventure.

T minus 8 weeks. We depart on April 2 which is exactly 8 weeks from today. The preparations continue... We have most of the equipment, and continue to train and gain strength day by day.