It has been between 90 - 95 degrees for the last 18 days (there were only 4 last year) here in North Carolina and it isn't even summer yet. Joy.
I have been out walking 3 days a week doing 5 to 8 miles. I have tried to go to the pool on off days but I am frequently in recovery stage and don't make it. Last week I made it one day and was able to swim 30 laps. Yeaaaaaaaa
Now all I have to do is build till I can walk 15 miles a day going up and down. I hope a year is enough time.
I have been reading as many Camino and AT books that I can find. Lacking anyone to hike with or a group to interact with I am using the immersion into the printed word as my source of encouragement and support.
I have wanted to really know what it will be like to walk over the Pyrenees from the French side to the Spanish side. It is the first day on the trail. It is 25km, with adjustment for the hill it is 30km. Now I figure that is about 20 miles with climb adjustment.
I have been looking for people's responses to this experience but they have been on the lines of exhaustion, sore, tired as forms of description. This doesn't tell me much as I am all of these when I return from my present walks.
I found this book written by Jane Christmas with a unique title "What The Psychic Told The Pilgrim" that intrigued me. The title alone would have me read it just because I wanted to know what a psychic would tell her about a pilgrimage across Spain. I loved the book. She is so straight forward, tells it like it is, lets you know how she feels, type of person. I love this because there is never any question what it is about when you are around her. Life is so much easier this way.
She wrote an account of her trip up the Pyrenees that hit home. It told me all I needed to know. She gave just the right intensity so a person like me got the picture. I could see her doing it as I read it. I wish I could draw here as I would put in a pic of what I see in my minds eye. Her description goes like this:
After reading this I realized I better get this big butt out the door and I better start pushing now if I am ever going to make it over the Pyrenees next year.
The end to one more day of movement designed to look like hiking, walking a real outdoorsy person.
It's June 13, 2011 and I have walked 40.15 miles so far this month - my goal is 70 a week before I leave for St Jean Pied de Port, France; my starting point.
Buen Camino
b
I have been out walking 3 days a week doing 5 to 8 miles. I have tried to go to the pool on off days but I am frequently in recovery stage and don't make it. Last week I made it one day and was able to swim 30 laps. Yeaaaaaaaa
Now all I have to do is build till I can walk 15 miles a day going up and down. I hope a year is enough time.
I have been reading as many Camino and AT books that I can find. Lacking anyone to hike with or a group to interact with I am using the immersion into the printed word as my source of encouragement and support.
I have wanted to really know what it will be like to walk over the Pyrenees from the French side to the Spanish side. It is the first day on the trail. It is 25km, with adjustment for the hill it is 30km. Now I figure that is about 20 miles with climb adjustment.
I have been looking for people's responses to this experience but they have been on the lines of exhaustion, sore, tired as forms of description. This doesn't tell me much as I am all of these when I return from my present walks.
I found this book written by Jane Christmas with a unique title "What The Psychic Told The Pilgrim" that intrigued me. The title alone would have me read it just because I wanted to know what a psychic would tell her about a pilgrimage across Spain. I loved the book. She is so straight forward, tells it like it is, lets you know how she feels, type of person. I love this because there is never any question what it is about when you are around her. Life is so much easier this way.
She wrote an account of her trip up the Pyrenees that hit home. It told me all I needed to know. She gave just the right intensity so a person like me got the picture. I could see her doing it as I read it. I wish I could draw here as I would put in a pic of what I see in my minds eye. Her description goes like this:
"Gather round boys and girls, while I tell you in the clearest, bluntest language what it's really like. Crossing the Pyrenees is torture; imagine Hell under sunny skies.
"Unbearable, brutal, wicked, hideous" doesn't describe it by half. Never has my body or my spirit been pushed or crushed so hard. It was the sort of pain that makes you weep, except that you cannot weep, because crying requires energy and you have to conserve every drop for the next step. At some point you're practically begging Death to wave his scythe over you and end the suffering.
The Camino is often described as a metaphorical journey through your lifetime. If that's the case, then the section form Saint-Jean, over the Pyrenees, and into Roncesvalles is a metaphor for one's struggle through the birth canal. No wonder we all emerge screaming.
The Pyrenees were a staggering challenge to our little group. Had one of us perished, it would not have surprised me. We were in over our heads. Several times during the climb I contemplated curling up into the fetal position by the side of the path just to rest........"
After reading this I realized I better get this big butt out the door and I better start pushing now if I am ever going to make it over the Pyrenees next year.
The end to one more day of movement designed to look like hiking, walking a real outdoorsy person.
It's June 13, 2011 and I have walked 40.15 miles so far this month - my goal is 70 a week before I leave for St Jean Pied de Port, France; my starting point.
Buen Camino
b
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