My previous posts describe my first, brief, Camino de Santiago (Te Ara Tapu Hemi, The Way of S James, Chemin de Saint-Jacques) from 28 June to 2 July 2010. Nothing remarkable, some wonderful memories and an understanding I needed better, lighter equipment.
Some eighteen months later, January 2012, my wife Cathy was diagnosed with Mutiple Myeloma (cancer of the bone marrow, a blood disorder) to add to her diagnosis some 12 year earlier of Multiple Sclerosis (MS). By 2012 the MS had slowly but surely stopped her mobility. The Myeloma consultants gave her between four and six years life expectancy. Despite her illnesses she always had a smile and continued to encourage me. It helped that Cathy had been allocated five hours care a day and to give us both a bit of occassional space I decided to do day trips: start about sunrise, walk there, public transport back and be home by mid afternoon if not earlier. (And I had stopped work about three years previously.)
It didn't help that I was considerably over-weight (body mass index of 32 against a target of 25 for my height) at 92 kg. My first trip was under 4 km downhill and took about an hour and my feet were very sore. But before long I was doing longer trips
The first trip I made notes of was 26 March 2012 - 24 km from home to Wellington Station. My first 25 trips averaged 27 km each but significantly less than 5 km per hour each time. I was not learning about hydration. And after a while I was regularly getting pain of varying severity in a little toe. So, off to a podiatrist. He provided a trithotic and recommended a different style of shoe. Slowly my speed increased just beyond 5 km per hour but my average trip length dropped as the pain became a little more regular. In 2012 I noted 34 trips at an average of around 25 km each at almost 5 km/h for a total of 860 km. So I had done more than a Camino Frances: but spread over 9 months and I had slept in my own bed each night.
I was carrying quite a heavy pack: my notes indicate 7.4 kg but no sleeping bag, just a heavy polyester sleeping bag liner I had used before and a heavy fleece cover (ex airline). So still had a lot to learn about equipment also.
The toe pain was diagnosed as osteo arthritis early in 2013. By this stage severe pain was setting after 15 km and then 10km. My last trip for 2013 was 1 June. In those five months I had travelled 460 km over 27 trips for an average of 17 km each and 5.3 km overall. Surgery to correct the osteo arthritis was in early November and I was ready to go again on 1 January 2014 with some new shoes.
To start with shorter distances after surgery. But I quickly noted my speed was increasing towards 6 km/h, and some trips even exceeded that mark. In September I had a different surgical procedure that put things on hold for a while. The year saw over 25 trips for a total of 530 km for an average of 15 km each at more than 5.6 km/h on average.
I was also reguallary reviewing what I wore and what I carried. Not only were a great variety of merino wool tops available but also in breathable polyester that were both light weight, easily washes and very quick drying. I had started in 2012 with long sox (a hangover from my tramping in the southern Tararuas) and had migrated past crew length to ankle length sox in merino wool and now to micro length with sock inserts. And I had refined (reduced) down the equipment I had thought was essential. And I had tried three different packs. One of the troubles of getting equipment is often not being able to get the weight on-line: so what seems lighter in-store than the present item often turns out to be heavier when I get home. My big luxury is a 10 inch tablet with a dockable keyboard (and extra battery). It is heavy at 1.1kg. On the other hand off-line maps and email are easily readable and emails much more easily composed. And, with an excellent MS Office look alike, I can maintain my trips notes in the field. More on equipment in a later post. My pack now is about 6kg with the pack itself, sleeping bag and silk liner, stuff bag for clothes, stuff bag for gadgets (chargers, toothpaste, cables etc), flip-flops (for shower), 2 x 500 ml water bottles full and my tablet. And I can see how to reduce the weight of the pack and the sleeping bag by about 1 kg.
And by now my weight was hovering around 70 kg: the exercise aided and abetted by a reduction in volume of food with a simplified, easy cooked meal at night with always porridge for breakfast. The latter I would cook the night before a trip and eat at the first major stop.
2014 ended in great sadness as Cathy succumbed to her many illnesses in November.
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