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Every Journey Begins with the First Step

January 22, 2016 •

cahors_pont_valentre

Le Pont de Valen­tré, a vista along the Chemin du Puy, or Via Podi­en­sis, an ancient pil­grim­age route

My friend Jane is plan­ning another self-guided walk­ing tour in south­west­ern France, and wants me to join her on a two-week trek along the Chemin du Puy-en-Velay, a branch of the Camino San­ti­ago (or the Way of St. James). This has been a beloved pil­grim­age route for more than a thou­sand years.

Jane hiked the Chemin du Puy for two weeks last fall, and plans to walk a com­pa­ra­ble 150-mile seg­ment this Sep­tem­ber, con­tin­u­ing in the foot­steps of long ago pil­grims.

Undertaking this Journey

Should I join her on the trek this year? Can I? And if not, why not?

It’s a big under­tak­ing, both phys­i­cally and finan­cially.

For­tu­nately, we’ve both trav­eled in France before, includ­ing self-guided tours off the beaten track, so we’re not intim­i­dated by the travel logis­tics of get­ting to our start­ing point.

And then there are the cul­tural aspects of prepar­ing for the jour­ney. To truly appre­ci­ate these out-of-the-way places means brush­ing up on French lan­guage skills, reac­quaint­ing myself with high­lights of France’s medieval art and his­tory, and the sto­ried his­tory of the region we’d be vis­it­ing.

The over­all jour­ney, as it unfolds, is more reward­ing than any spe­cific des­ti­na­tion, so under­tak­ing this tour with some appre­ci­a­tion of its his­tory and cul­tural con­text is by far the best way to savor its delights.

The jour­ney is costly. Even with a 2‑week self-guided walk­ing tour (one that does­n’t require us to com­pen­sate pro­fes­sional guides or a tour­ing com­pany), the price tag is higher than a mon­th’s mort­gage for many peo­ple.

These hiking boots will need to become my new best friends

Hik­ing boots will need to become my new best friends

Train­ing for the long walk will require a sig­nif­i­cant time com­mit­ment, hun­dreds of hours of aer­o­bic exer­cise between now and then.

Despite being a reg­u­lar walker, one who can do 10,000 steps on a rou­tine basis, prepar­ing for this trek will require me to dou­ble or triple my usual walk­ing reg­i­men.

Regain­ing my French speak­ing and com­pre­hen­sion skills will require another big time com­mit­ment. Hun­dreds of hours again.

But these are things I love to do, and exer­cis­ing these skills will lead to indi­rect ben­e­fits and last­ing value in their own right, such as improved health and well being.

The Journey Is the Reward

My yoga prac­tice sug­gests set­ting an inten­tion for this under­tak­ing. So what should the theme be?

At Apple, I first learned that the jour­ney is the reward. For lots of rea­sons, that will be my theme for this walk­ing tour — the jour­ney of the trek itself, and the multi-month jour­ney to get ready for it.

I look for­ward to the indi­rect con­se­quences of prepar­ing for the jour­ney: a stronger and health­ier body, a nim­bler mind, thanks to the men­tal stim­u­la­tion of relearn­ing French, and a qui­eter mind, thanks to the med­i­ta­tive aspects of the jour­ney­ing.

The Training Régime

We’ll be hik­ing 10–18 miles each day, across some rugged or hilly ter­rain, so the trek requires a level of phys­i­cal fit­ness and sta­mina that is well beyond my cur­rent capa­bil­i­ties.

Before start­ing a seri­ous train­ing régime, I’ll need to recover from a knee injury. That said, with a dis­ci­plined effort, there’s plenty of time to build up the nec­es­sary strength and sta­mina for those chal­leng­ing day hikes between now and Sep­tem­ber.

Jane rec­om­mends at least 2–3 months of dis­ci­plined train­ing before we leave for France. That means a long walk every day, plus one or two hikes up hilly ter­rain every week­end. Those long hikes should tar­get ≥5–8 miles total dis­tance, includ­ing ele­va­tion gains.

Rain or shine. Given Seat­tle’s typ­i­cal rainy weather between now and early July, that’s no small com­mit­ment…

Parlez-vous français?

We’ll be pass­ing through small ham­lets, stay­ing in tiny inns or guest rooms out in the coun­try — places that lack sophis­ti­cated tourist ser­vices or large num­bers of Eng­lish speak­ers. We’ll need to be self-suf­fi­cient en français.

Because we will make the book­ings and man­age the walk­ing tour on our own, with­out any pro­fes­sional guides, French lan­guage pro­fi­ciency will be every bit as help­ful as our walk­ing sticks.

After pok­ing around at online resources about le Chemin du Puy, it’s clear that I will need to brush up on my French just to make sense of what those web­sites and blogs have to offer.

Today’s First Steps

So here’s what I’ve done today, in tak­ing the first steps on this jour­ney:

  • Ordered some French-lan­guage learn­ing resources
  • Ordered a Miche­lin guide for GR65, le Chemin de Com­postelle
  • Browsed a few pages of a 15-year-old travel guide for south­west­ern France, and read about a few of the places we might visit
  • Ordered some sum­mer-weight hik­ing shoes, with enough sup­port for long day hikes, but with­out the extra weight of my trusty hik­ing boots
  • Had a long con­ver­sa­tion with Jane, to agree on start­ing prin­ci­ples, expec­ta­tions and val­ues — and some early con­cepts for a plan
  • Began a tour of online resources to learn what’s in store
  • Went out for an hour’s walk, up some hills, about 7000 steps total — and am happy to report it did not harm my knee
  • Joined a closed Face­book group of past and future walk­ers whose feet have trod­den the Chemin du Puy

May the jour­ney begin.

Trackbacks

  1. Training for the Trek Begins says:
    February 17, 2016 at 2:54 pm

    […] month I wrote about plans to walk a 150-mile stretch of Le Chemin du Puy, a French pil­grimage trail, later this year. It won’t be an ardu­ous […]

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Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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