Hitting My Stride

March 27, 2022 by libertatemamo 23 Comments

Three weeks to go now.

As my trip approaches I’m getting both more confident and more nervous. I’m making progress in my gear and my fitness levels which is a good thing overall, but I’m also more nervous about all those many (many, many, many) km ahead of me. It’s a daunting thing to contemplate ~800km of walk, no matter how ready you might feel for it.

I also realize all this stuff may be becoming a smidgen boring for my readers. The Camino seems to be all I’m writing about these days, but it’s hard to get past it when it’s just about all that’s on my mind. And of course it won’t be done anytime soon. You’ll get to enjoy 6 weeks more of this stuff once I actually get on the trail! Mamma mia!

That said other things are happening in our lives, although it may not seem that way.

The wind stopped momentarily, but then came back again just as we were all about to breathe a collective sigh of relief. I chatted about it to some of the older folks in the village and they all agreed it’s the longest stretch of wind anyone can remember in the area. That and it was definitely making us all crazy.

Perhaps our winds here are becoming like the famous Mistral just to the south that blows almost constantly throughout Spring? A wind so persistent and piercing they say even murder is forgiven after a week of such mental torture? After a week of our own, I can almost see why.

And of course Spring has sprung both literally and date-wise. Daffodils are blooming, tulips are out in multi-colored delight and the light green colors of new leaves are starting to spread along the valley. In the markets, the first white asparagus of the season is on sale and chocolate bunnies are lining the supermarket shelves, ready for Easter just around the corner. It’s all very quiet and normal and oh-so-bizarre against the backdrop of war and yet another exponentially-rising COVID wave. But such is life in March of 2022, or so it seems.

So today I take you through a win, talk about towels (which any hitchhiker should be keen to learn about), touch on some of the latest news and share the story of how I maybe (just maybe) might actually, finally be hitting my stride.

I’ve Dialed In My Backpack!

Perhaps the biggest “gear-news” of the week for me is that I finally found my new backpack!

After months of searching, over 50 different packs tried and lots of hemming and hawing I decided to try a Gregory Zulu 40 (#affiliatelink) and there it was.

It’s a men’s pack which seems to work well for my broad shoulders (the result of years of competitive swimming as a kiddo, thank you very much), it comes in a large size for my over-elongated back, it’s light (1.34 kg/2.95 lbs) and it actually has real hip and lower-back support that hugs my mutant curves. Plus it’s got all kinds of new-fangled features that my old 20+ year-old pack doesn’t have such as {{gasp}} side pockets, {{ooooo}} random hooks/ties/bands and {{swoon}} the ability to completely zip open in the middle like like a piece of luggage.

It’s all rather exciting.

The only draw-back that I can find is the “free-floating back” design which is great for ventilation, but can cause the pack to feel like it’s pulling you backwards if you load it up too much. Personally I think that’s fine as I plan to keep my pack weight pretty light (in fact it’s good incentive to do so!), but I think it could be an issue for anyone looking to do more serious backpacking with heavier loads. Besides this, there are honestly zero cons to this thing.

I’ve walked over 40km with it now loaded up to “Camino weight” and it’s felt pretty good. I’m so darn happy.

I’ve Also Found My Towel

As any Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fan knows the key to multi-universal-travel and life-crises-of-any-sort is a good towel.

I don’t plan on hitching a ride on a spacecraft equipped with an Infinite Improbability Drive (although the probably is infinitesimally small, and thus actually quite likely), but I have learned a thing or two from Paul and his dad who lamented that the one item they desperately wished they’d bought on their 2019 Camino trip was a decent towel. Day after day of living with a pitiful fist of microfiber that absorbed water about as well as wet rag had Paul dreaming of white towels and fluffy dryness. Oh, the decadent luxury….

So my hunt for the perfect towel has been intense, months-long and sincere.

Now I pride myself in my research capabilities and the ability to dive ridiculously deep into any topic, so much so that I rarely meet anyone that exceeds my nuttiness in this area.

But let me tell you this right now folks.

Whatever you think you might know, or might want to know, or think you might think you want to know about camping towels, this lady (Camping Guidance on YouTube) has literally answered it all. I was overjoyed to find her channel, absolutely blown away by her diligence (absorbency? wringing ability? dry time? odor control? sand and grass repellency? skin stickiness? hoop attachment quality? She covered it all!) and so happy with her research that I literally decided need go no further. Just watch the video, my fellow gear geeks…

In the end I decided that the Packtowel Personal “Body-size” (#affiliatelink) was my own perfect balance of comfort, weight, odor and drying capabilities and I’m darn happy to have settled on it. Should Earth be eliminated by Vogons during my Camino, I’ll be ready.

I’m Watching That New COVID Wave

The BA.2 omicron subvariant is here, and within weeks it’ll be peaking those COVID numbers again in France and beyond.

What does that mean?

Well, it’s been interesting to read about it, mostly because there’s been so little news about it. Also we’re at the first cross-roads in two years where cases are spiking exponentially while pretty much all restrictions are being lifted at the same time. An unprecedented combo. Here in France the last remaining curbs were vaccine passes (for restaurants, bars etc.) and masks, both of which have now been entirely dropped except for medical/hospital visits and public transport. And with the Presidential elections coming up in April, they’re not likely to be reinstated anytime soon.

The same is happening in Germany, Italy, and other places where most restrictions will be gone by the end of this month. Europe has nary been more COVID-relaxed in years.

Personally I’m not toooo worried, mostly because BA.2 has not caused a big spike in serious hospitalizations in places like Denmark (where it was first spotted) despite very high numbers of cases. It’s definitely more virulent (=more infectious) than the original Omicron, but it seems no more deadly and at this stage in the Pandemic (with high vaccination levels, high prior infections levels etc.) I think that allows us to more or less “live with it”. Or at least that’s my current take on it.

I’ll personally continue to mask and I’ll keep watching it (I expect case numbers to explode over the next weeks!), but for now it doesn’t alter my course and I don’t think it should yours.

I’m Hitting My Stride

Yesterday I went for my fourth “loaded” walk.

By that I mean full Camino gear, walking poles, my towel (of course) and my backpack filled with 6 kg of dog food. That’s right about where I expect to end up for my “Camino” weight. Plus with food on board, the long-lasting crunchy kind, I figure I have an emergency stash on hand should I end up lost in the wilds of rural France or say, hunted by a pack of hungry mountain beasts. I can already see myself running away at Olympic speeds (because naturally you hit such strides in the midst of an adrenalin spike) and flinging the bag of dog food behind me like a decoy. Should work right? Of course I happen to be walking on asphalt, and the wildest beast I’ve seen in the past month has been a fat hare that bounced lazily through the next-door farmers fields,  but all that is rather unimportant. The key thing is that you never can be too prepared…

The walk went better than expected too.

I started off achy and tired and annoyed at the wind, fully planning to do a shorter walk to just get it over with. My knees hurt, my back was twinging, my hat was blowing into my face and my skin was starting to feel like the Sahara desert. I walked begrudgingly, mumbling curses, shifting the backpack uncomfortably, head down, fighting the whole way. It was 6 km of solid irritation and then it happened…..the magic that is.

Half way through the walk I suddenly gave in to it all.

I’m not sure exactly what triggered it, but I think crazily enough it was actually the wind. I remember being laser-focused on the asphalt and suddenly getting distracted by snow or what I realized (when I looked up) was a rain of white flowers that was drifting across the road. They cascaded and twirled in a most beautiful show and they drew my eye to the field of grass next door that continued the dance with ripples and waves that flowed to the horizon. The whole thing was a quite mesmerizing and I had to stop to take it all in. Then I realized the wind was howling with a hollow edge that sounded rather like a cave, so I looked the other way and there was a church with a hollow steeple that acted like a musical instrument to alter the wind’s voice. That’s gotta be a good sign, I thought.

I decided on a whim to keep walking and moments later I discovered a trail I hadn’t noticed before. It led me through the woods into a hidden pathway, across a field and through a narrow muddy backroad where I became thoroughly caked and totally lost track of time. I was there for at least an hour or two, on an adventure somewhere else. And I completely forgot I was tired, or that my knees hurt, that I was carrying a backpack or that any of me was really there at all. My body clicked into some long-forgotten zone, as if an old file opened from many years ago when Paul and I used to go on extended backpacking trips. I remember that feeling, and I remember it was fabulous…

I was on a hike and I had finally hit my stride.

Hours later I came home, energized and refreshed despite a long and grueling walk. I was caked in mud, sweaty and disheveled, but I’d walked further than I ever had before and it really felt OK. For first time since I started training I saw what my Camino could become, and I have to say.

Now that I know that, I really can’t wait to get there.

So, my dear blog readers tell me about your Spring. Has it sprung in your area? Or is Winter still at large? What are you doing in these months leading up to the warmer weather? DO share and comment below!