Advice on Preparing for the Camino - Fitness

There are many things to consider in planning to walk the Camino de Santiago. I thought I would share a few of the things that I learned through the months of preparation that might be helpful to others.

Preparation falls into several categories:
- Fitness training
- Foot care
- Travel planning
- What to wear and how to pack
- How to manage yourself along the way

Fitness training, while necessary and very important in no way really prepares one for the daily and constant wear and tear on your body. I worked for 6 months, walking outdoors, at the gym with the treadmill elevated to simulate the anticipate hills I was worried about, did weight training (especially on my legs to strengthen them for mountains) and finally just long long walks along a variety of surfaces and elevations. I started off slowly and in the beginning walked for 30 minutes briskly and then advanced to walking 8 kms at a pace of around 6 kms per hour. By the time I left, I was walking 8 kms every morning before work and then at least 20 kms or more on the weekend. I started to jog part of this morning route as a way of building up aerobic stamina thinking that it would help with my endurance and it did.

Nothing really prepared me for the extreme variation of surface that is the camino however, nor was I prepared for the elevations that seemed to be constant. There are paved roads, soft pathways, small gravel surfaces and worst of all there are roads with such large stones that you have to keep you head down to place your feet carefully with each step. Some of the down hill sections are positively dangerous with large boulders and loose gravel and at one point there is actually a dash across a major highway that includes a climb over the meridian.

In the end it really felt that the entire walk was all uphill, which by the mid and end phases was thoroughly enjoyable - but in the beginning quite daunting. In fact when I got to the top of O Cebreiro, which I had been dreading all the way along, I really felt like I wanted to go back down and climb it again as I so enjoyed the atmosphere and the effort of just being able to walk upwards. So training, by walking, running, hill climbing and building strength in your legs and aerobic capacity of heart and lungs makes a really big difference. You do increase your capacity within the first week of the Camino and it becomes much easier after the first 5 or 6 days to manage the daily effort of walking 25 - 30 kms each day. However nothing can prepare you for the daily grind of just getting up and facing 25 or so kms every morning for weeks at a time. There was a lot of pain, mostly in my feet as the bones just seemed to ache with the constant pounding of each footfall day after day.

The ache in my feet was relentless throughout the entire trip and I would suggest that orthotics be considered for such a long walk. I would not hike again without them. Many people seem to find that orthotics make a remarkable difference so I would highly recommend this to anyone thinking of such a long walk.

Of course fitness needs to be accompanied by good eating habits and I was very careful to watch my diet, eating more healthy foods for the energy required for such an exercise program, limiting alcohol and non nutritional foods - not that I ate that badly, I just paid more attention to my daily intake.

I also want to say that I did all this around the time that I turned 60. I have been healthy and always worked at my fitness so probably had a pretty good base to build my capacity from. However I was very worried about whether I could really do what I had set out to do and so was very conscientious about my training program.

I also learned that age makes little difference, as many young people were in pretty bad shape while those of us in the older category just plodded on. My favourite couple from Ireland, Frank and Kathleen were two people that always inspired us - just when we though we had left them behind, they would show up ahead of us. It was not until half was through the walk that we discovered that they were both 70!! Amazing eh!

As the months wore on, I walked with a back pack to get used to the weight I would be carrying. While this was good to know that I could carry weight and walk, I learned along the way - just how far and for how long I could walk before I needed a break. I had set out a plan to walk for 2 hours and then rest - however this was not what my body needed. I found that I had to listen to my body and stop for a rest when my feet ached or I just needed food or something to drink. Sometimes, just stopping for an energy bar and some water makes a real difference. I also found that a short rest completely stopped the ache in my feet for awhile. This is one of the greatest learning on the Camino which is to listen to what your body is saying to you and let that be your guide, not the map or someone else's agenda.

About the back pack - nothing really prepares you for carrying weight and almost everyone except for my friend Kirsten from Denmark, arrived with far too much in their pack. Kirsten carried 7 kg and most of the rest of us carried about 8 - 10 kgs. The first week is a constant complaint about how heavy it is and a search for ways to lighten it by discarding items. Most important, I found that so many people did not know the first thing about how to wear their pack, many looked too big for their build, many were positioned so that all the weight was on their shoulders and many just carried far too much in the pack. When you buy your back pack, it should be fitted to your height and should have several adjustments for the shoulders, a strong waist strap and and be balanced with how you pack it - heavier items in the middle, not at the bottom. The benefit of training with a pack was in learning how to pack it effectively and to vary the adjustments so that I could learn how to make it more comfortable. By the end of the second week, the back pack was not a problem and by the time I arrived in Santiago, my back pack was a great friend and something that just seemed to be part of me.

Bottom line about fitness is - do not get on a plane with no fitness preparation. People who did that ended up in pretty serious trouble with feet or joints or simply fatigue.

With the way that I prepared, I never felt that I should have done more. What I might have considered however was taking it more slowly throughout the walk. I did not take break days and some days were very hard. I would have planned for a longer trip to slow it down, stay over in a few interesting places and stop perhaps more often than I did with more short days. the environment is stunning and interesting all along the way - so you are very tempted to just stop and savour it while having this compulsion to press on to the next day's stop.

Maggee