12 week training program! Your journey begins now!
Training for 'The Way of St James' is a strategy for looking after your body, finishing your pilgrimage and reducing the inevitable pain that will come from walking day after day and carrying your backpack. It is imperative that your footwear will make the distance. Wear in your boots and ensure your socks are comfortable. We both decided to purchase new boots after a couple of weeks training and never looked back. By wearing your well fitted backpack whilst training, you are also preparing your neck, shoulders, back and legs for the endurance ahead. We knew that we would hurt, no matter how much training we did, but we wanted to be fit enough to enjoy the challenge.
The general rule of our training was to walk everyday and then slowly build up mileage.
We started with a goal of an hour walk on a week day and then on the weekends a 10 km hill walk followed by a longer flat recovery the next day.
After a month we had built up to 20 km per day on weekends but usually still walked a hill followed by a recovery flat. Adding the pack was next. Starting off with about 3 kgs and working up to 10% of our body weight.
A couple of weeks to D day and we were walking at least an hour every weekday and hill walking over 20 km both Saturday and Sunday, always with full pack.
Just do your best Darling!
Buen Camino!
