The Best Laid Plans

After looking at the distances I will be walking for 30 some-odd days, I decided it might be good to train for this. Maybe there are people who don't... people who can, on a whim and a prayer, knock out 12 or more miles, day after day... but I'm not one of them. I will turn 71 on this trip and my muscles and joints are starting to rebel against anything remotely related to exertion. I try to avoid situations where I would have to explain myself to my kids while waiting to be seen in some emergency room somewhere.

But c'mon... this is walking... how strenuous could it be? Pretty darn... I started with 5 flat miles and kept bumping up the mileage until I was walking 10 miles without too much discomfort. I had to add orthotics and wrap toes with tape to manage that, otherwise I dealt with blisters. Because I have booked train tickets and flights home, I have no room for days off, and I would rather prevent blisters than treat them. It took me weeks of trial and error before my feet were happy for 10 miles of walking. I am committed to stopping and dealing with any hint of a hotspot on my feet. I found that slowing my pace just a little, made a significant difference in my level of fatigue at the end of the day. I added my fully packed Osprey Finesse to my walks. Then, just for fun, I added hills once a week. The first day on the Camino, between St. Jean Pied de Port and Roncevalles, there are grades of as much as 15%. Baptism by fire. By the end of March, I was just trying to maintain my fitness level and was more concerned about getting lost in Paris. I watched the weather, and continued tweaking my gear.

The train tickets were tricky, ranging in price from just over $218 to the $143 I ended up spending for a ticket from the Gare Montparnasse station to Saint Jean Pied de Port. I needed to leave Paris on the 22nd, in the morning, so I hopped on Rail Europe's website and kept track of the price of the tickets from April 18th through the 24th. I could not figure out why the prices fluctuated, even though I watched for nearly a month. On March 23rd, when I checked ticket prices, there were no tickets available for April 22nd. Yikes! When I had looked yesterday, the morning train I needed was priced at $218. I got nervous... and last night, in the middle of the night when I woke up for no reason that I can remember, I decided to check Rail Europe's site. There was a ticket available for the morning train I needed...$143+fees... and I rubbed bleary eyes while I booked it. I have checked the site a couple of times since... no tickets found. I'm calling it my first Camino miracle.