For those already signed up and receiving updates, don’t worry, we won’t be posting every day for the next few months until we leave. Just every once in a while to practice the vlog apps and work out any bugs.

So what do we do to prepare for an adventure like this?

We are well into those pre-pilgrimage routines. Some of these are necessary, some beneficial and some merely tradition. This will be the 5th of what was originally a “once in a lifetime” feat. So we are somewhat veterans at this point.

Every Camino we have used the Psalms as a countdown of sorts to track the days. Today we all read Psalm 87 and tomorrow Psalm 86 for example. These help me keep a focus on the Pilgrimage aspect of the adventure.

Every Camino we also do some physical training. It’s not that you really need it – there is a Camino truism that the Camino itself will train you – but training adds to your confidence and makes those first several days easier as you sink into the routine of daily distances. Our tradition has been to hike progressively longer hikes with more and more realistic backpack weights over the period of 9months to a year before our departure. The last 6 months we try to hike every weekend.

The last three hikes are “proof” hikes with 100% real gear and some significant elevation and distance. I chose them when preparing for our first Camino in 2014. For that Camino, so much was new and unknown to us. But, my research told me that if we could survive those last three preparation hikes, we could manage anything that the Camino would throw at us.

I think over the next few weeks I’ll write up some of our other preparation routines. But this entry is already getting long so… That is all for now.