One of my favorite websites for all things concerning the Camino de Santiago is mundicamino.com, not only for the practical advice they offer but also for their quirky translations in several languages. Take this one from the section called Advices and Tricks.
“It is important that you train before beginning the walk. At least three weeks before. It begins to reason of 5 kilometres day and it concludes the period of training with 15 or 20 daily kilometres. You will avoid the feared tendonitis and muscular flight attendants.”
In less than a month, we begin our 750 kilometer walk from somewhere near the French border to Santiago de Compostela. If we can leave Viterbo in early June, we will begin in France and cross the Pyrenees into Spain; if we can’t leave that early, we’ll begin somewhere in Spain. Every sensible thought says to begin training last week, last month. So today, we took an amble around the outside of Viterbo’s walls, maybe a 5 kilometer walk, just to see what it was like. It was a very pretty walk. The poppies and thistles are blooming now, and the grasses are lush after the six months of steady rain we’ve had here. The fig trees are loaded with fruit. No packs and no boots today; but so far, so good. We dodged the traffic, didn’t complain on the uphill slopes, and we saw no flight attendants, muscular or otherwise.
Yeah Mom! Way to get started.