Walking the Camino de Santiago
Getting ready physically for the Camino.
My new book, Practical Pilgrimage, is now available for purchase. Subtitled “Useful Rules for Walking the Camino de Santiago”, it’s a deeper exploration and expansion of a blog post that appeared back in 2023, Thom’s Practical Rules for the Camino. Purchase from Powell’s Books (preferred) Purchase on Amazon (affiliate link) This short book (about a hundred pages) is chock-full of […]
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Today we walked our last 8km together before Thom heads to France. For the next two weeks my mind will now focus on the me portion of this adventure. Focus will be on Increasing my speaking of Spanish and rudimentary Portuguese. I am pretty confident with listening of both at my levels but cannot get over the speaking shyness. Me? Shy? […]
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Kit for the Via Podiensis We’ve come to that part of the pre-Camino countdown where for every two or three items I’m checking off my list, I seem to be adding one more. Today my very last piece of kit arrived – a new windbreaker/rain shell to replace my old one. The new one is about a third the weight […]
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After a delay prompted by my injury, we are back to training in earnest! This week, I’ve added some weight back to my pack, taking me up to about 16.4 pounds (without water). The only things I haven’t added back in yet are my breviary and prayerbook bundle, my “strawberry troll” poncho, and my journal. We are continuing our daily […]
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Early this morning, I had my follow-up visit with the podiatrist. He was extremely pleased and somewhat amazed with my rapid progress. We discussed a Cortizone shot, but given the level of improvement, he wasn’t too enthusiastic about it. So that’s off the table. Most importantly, he cleared me for my Camino. I am convinced that my rapid recovery is […]
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This morning I met with a podiatrist. My left heel has been in a considerable amount of pain since we did a training hike to the waterfront back on May 17. My shoes were nearing end of life, and my inserts were well past their prime. We were hiking with full Camino packs, mostly over concrete. A perfect storm. It […]
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Ten years ago today, I posted here about my “nervousness, elation, and even fear” as I got ready to fly to Spain to walk our first Camino. To my great surprise, 137 days from today I will fly to Lyon, France for another adventure. From there, I’ll take light rail from the delightfully named Aéroport de Saint-Exupéry to the train […]
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After last year’s short, sharp Camino Primitivo, we’re already planning for what I am calling “the long Camino” in the spring of 2024. Like our original 2013 Camino, Francine is planning to only walk part of the route, most likely the first ten or so days and the last week or two. I’m planning to begin in the French city […]
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This morning, halfway up a hill in downtown Tacoma, we arrived in virtual Oviedo. We have been walking our virtual Camino del Norte for months, and we have now arrived at the place where it transitions into the Camino Primitivo. Of course, in a little over three weeks we will fly to the real city of Oviedo to walk the […]
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Yesterday, Francine and I reached a crossroads on our continuing virtual Camino del Norte. I should explain that we have been recording the distance of our daily hikes into a tracking sheet – one square for every kilometer on the Camino del Norte, which begins in the Basque city of Irún. By my count, we’re at 478km. This was a […]
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