Pushing Our Limits - Walking the Camino in Spain!

This afternoon, we heard a radio show on CBC discussing people who pushed their limits and achieved something of which they felt very proud.

This reminds me of our own episode of pushing our limits and it brings a huge smile to my face. A few years ago, reaching an important milestone in my life, I wanted to do something memorable to celebrate my special birthday that year.

I was inspired by reading an article in a magazine picked up while on a Christmas skiing holiday in Collingwood. A thirty something Canadian woman, newly divorced and laid off from her work was facing a crisis in her life. She decided to walk the Camino in Spain to refocus her life and afterwards, wrote a very interesting article on her solo journey.  

Walking the Camino  - what an interesting and exhilarating idea was that!  With the support of my dear husband, we decided to walk the Camino De Santiago in Spain the following summer. Knowing it would be an exhausting and physically taxing  journey for us as we were not athletic people, we made the new year resolution to improve our physical condition and be ready for our very first walking journey. 

We pushed our limits by walking the Camino in Spain!     

We started our training on the first day of the new year. After parking our car at the York Mills subway station, we walked south on Yonge Street towards the downtown area. Walking on the first day of January, we were dressed for the sub zero temperature with layers of clothing, mittens, scarves and hats to keep out the cold.

We started our walk at around 10a.m. and reached Danforth Ave. at about 4p.m.That was our first day of training and it was not as bad as I had thought! Over the next three months, we walked every week and gradually increasing our speed. To learn more about the Camino and be better prepared, we also attended meetings and presentations by the Little Pilgrims of Canada in Toronto.

Hostel in Ponferrada, Spain - starting point of our Camino journey

After the snow melt in March that year and being aware of the demand of carrying everything needed for our Camino trip, we began practise walking with a knapsack each on our back. We were told that a person should not carry a knapsack with contents more than 15% of his/ her body weight. We each got a good quality backpack and kept walking with our supplies on our back and slowly increasing the weight a little more each week.

By the end of June, we were ready! I was more ready than ever as I just finished the first year as a school principal in Toronto. I was mentally exhausted and stressed out with all the heavy responsibilities of running a busy school. As a new school administrator, there were so much to learn and the learning curve was steep.

I worked everyday from 7:30am until 8:30pm, hardly had any time to myself or did anything outside of school.  I looked forward to walking with the wind blowing on my face, being outside and breathing fresh air while basking in sunshine and be in touch with nature again!   

We flew to Paris, took a train to Irun, a border town in Spain, and started our walking adventure. 

It was exciting being one  of the Camino piligrims!

The Camino spans from the border of France  across the northern part of Spain, a total distance of more than 800 kms. It would take about 30-40 days to walk the entire journey. Unlike me,  my husband did not work in the school system, therefore he did not have two months holidays annually. He only had two weeks in Spain, therefore, we could only walk for that amount of time.

One can start walking the Camino at any point, but in order to get the certificate at Santiago - the destination of the Camino, one must walk a certain minimum distance.

From Irun, a border town of Spain and France, we took another train and travelled to Ponferrada where we started our Camino walk!

R.T.
Toronto
Reminiscing our own episode of Pushing the Limits in Spain