Training for the Trek Begins

Wood­land trail in Pio­neer Park — train­ing begins

Last 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 jour­ney, but each day’s trek will entail 10–15 miles of walk­ing across some­what hilly ter­rain in south cen­tral France. It takes train­ing.

I’ve now begun train­ing for the trek, cau­tiously, after sev­eral weeks’ delay for med­ical con­sul­ta­tion about a lin­ger­ing knee injury. Thanks to pro­fes­sional treat­ment, heal­ing is now under­way, and a knee brace will be deliv­ered soon.

I’ve bought some Mer­rell hik­ing shoes that are well suited to our hik­ing con­di­tions, as long as it’s not rain­ing hard. My early impres­sions sug­gest they’ll be adept at han­dling a mix of walk­ing con­di­tions, includ­ing rough ter­rain along the ancient pil­grim­age trails in France. So far they’ve been very com­fort­able, with just the right amount of sup­port on steep trails. They grip well and keep me from falling on my face in the muddy sec­tions.

The woods are very muddy

Sun breaks have enticed me out­side for the past 2 morn­ings, with just enough time to enjoy 3‑mile walks on nearby for­est trails. We’ve had twice as much rain as usual for the past 4 months, so the trails are very muddy.

One of the nearby parks includes a ravine; the trail sys­tem fea­tures a steep climb down the ravine to a fast-run­ning stream and then back up again. Hik­ing in this sec­tion of Pio­neer Park can be aer­o­bic, espe­cially if you go fast (which I’m not ready to do), or repeat some of the trails to increase the total num­ber of miles walked.

Oddly enough, I’ve tended to ignore this park, but am now find­ing it offers a lovely place to start the train­ing régime to get strong and fit for the trek in France. Best of all, it’s only a quar­ter mile from my front door.

Train­ing has begun, but fre­quent knee twinges are remind­ing me not to overdo these early walks; not to get attached too soon to achiev­ing spe­cific, quan­tifi­able dis­tance goals. Start­ing is the essen­tial thing.

Every­thing is green and lush

Right now this is a prac­tice of mind­ful­ness, pay­ing atten­tion to how my knee is per­form­ing; remind­ing myself to slow down, lis­ten to the birds, smell the ver­dant wood­land, and enjoy the priv­i­lege of walk­ing dur­ing the late morn­ings in mid-Feb­ru­ary.

It’s time to heal, feast on the beauty, rel­ish out­door exer­cise, and begin a multi-month jour­ney of prepa­ra­tion.