And then there's the weight.....

I think sometimes as humans we're delusional. Actually, for me it seems to happen often, where I get an image in my mind of how some situation will be, and then there's reality. I had an idea in my mind about how I'd feel carrying 17 lbs on my back. I know I said before about my backpack weighing a bit over 14, but that was because I was also delusional about the weight of water. I thought "how hard can it be to carry 17 lbs?" I remember carrying babies around for hours that must have weighed at least that. I guess that's why the universe doesn't typically permit women over 50 to have babies, because as shocking as this may seem, I am not as strong now as I was when I was 30.

Today I walked for 12 km carrying 17 lbs on my back. I hope that I'm not being delusional thinking that when I'm overlooking the beautiful scenery in Spain and trying to speak Spanish to locals alone the road that, while that back might feel as heavy, I will at least be having more fun. It is really hard to be enthusiastic about trying to train for distance and weight by walking in my own home town. And surely after a few days I'll start to get stronger (secretly wishing I'd been a bit more serious about those core strength exercises when I went to the gym).

12 days to go before I leave. Fun or not, I will put some effort into this training, in the hopes that it will decrease the suffering going over that mountain.

The Preparations Continue...

.... And the results are in! The backpack weighs 14.6 lbs. with no water. I’m not sure this is too good, but it’s not too bad either and will have to do for now. I may end up leaving stuff behind in hotel rooms and pouring shampoo down the sink out of desperation to lighten the load!

The other part of preparing for my Camino is the physical training. If anyone in my hometown sees a lady in hiking boots, backpack, a Tilley-knockoff hat and using hiking poles walking down Richmond, it is probably me. It may appear obvious that the best way to prepare for a long walk is to just walk, but we’re talking about very serious walking here. So I joined up with a group a very serious walkers; the Running Room’s half-marathon walking group.

I have learned that there is a difference between hiking (what I’m doing) and marathon walking. These wonderful people walk fast. For them it is as much about time as it is distance and I am finding it challenging to keep up, but so far I’m doing pretty well. We walk three times per week and this morning did 16 km.  And there I was, bring up the rear, trying not to complain too much about the fact that it was pouring rain and my backpack was so soaked that it was getting heavier by the minute. But despite the rain and the heat and my hips seizing up regularly, this is just the greatest group of people. It’s been so much fun getting to know them as we walk and talk and walk and talk. Looking forward to doing 18 km next Sunday!

I would like to say a bit on the value of hiking poles. Mine are called ‘Pacer Poles’ and they really make a big difference, especially going up and down hills. Almost everything I’ve learned about how to walk the Camino has been from the Camino de Santiago Forum (Link on the right of this page) and almost everyone there says that hiking poles are a must. Going up hill they give you four legs instead of two and when going down steep hills give you stability and balance. In some areas it could be dangerous to not have them, especially on trails that are close to a drop-off.

For the next three weeks my challenge will be to focus on work and to not constantly be thinking about getting on that plane! Yes, only 3 weeks from today I will be in St Jean Pied de Port, France, ready to embark on my 5-week journey!

How Much Does Your Life Weigh?

In the movie Up in the Air, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man whose job is to travel around firing people. On top of that, he gives “motivational” speeches to other companies called ‘The Backpack Speech’.

“How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second you are carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff you have in your life.”

In about a month from now (Sept 3rd) I’ll be boarding a plane and on my way for my Camino de Santiago adventure. I’ll be walking 800 km from a small town in France called Saint Jean de Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela, near the north-west coast of Spain. The Camino consists of pre-defined hiking routes that pilgrims have travelled for over 1000 years. The route that I will be taking is the most popular, called Camino Francis and I will need to walk about 25 km per day in order to complete my adventure in 32 days. I will be staying at hostels along the route that have been set up specifically to accommodate pilgrims. Some of these are public and some private and many have volunteers working at them. I’ve been told that most cost about 7 euros per night (your only allowed to stay one night) and the ‘pilgrim’s fare’ evening meal is available for purchase.

People from all over the world are walking the Camino everyday. They carry a credential or pilgrim passport, which gets stamped at each town that is passed through. Upon reaching the Cathedral in Santiago the Compostela is received (certificate from the church to say you’ve done it)! Of course by that time I’m sure any true reward will have already been received, otherwise the whole point would have been lost.

My first day of walking will be 25 km UPHILL over the Pyrenees. Needless to say, this is the day that worries me the most, but I have a few other worries too;

• What if I get blisters and can’t walk?
• What if I get sick?
• What if I get lost?
• What if I snore? – I will be staying in special Hostels for the pilgrims along the route.
• What if my pack is too heavy?

Packing is an important consideration for anyone walking 800 km! I literally have to ask myself the question “How much does my life weigh?” And another very important question I must ask, “Are the things I’m putting into my pack, things that I’m really going to want to carry on my back for roughly 35 days?

When I first started thinking about this trip, there was much technology I was going to take with me. On my list were my Kindle, a camera, and iPod Touch, as well as chargers for all these devices. I thought it would be a good idea to take a couple of pairs of shoes besides my hiking boots and what about my tea mug? What was I going to do about my hair? And after all….. there are certain things that we should not have to live without like makeup and anti-wrinkle face cream.

After reading that the total suggested weight a person carry should be no more that 10% of their body weight I began to be concerned. How can this be accomplished? According to my calculations I can only carry 13 lb including pack, sleeping bag and water!
It was time to re-assess! I have just made my list and I can’t imagine how all this stuff will only weigh 13 lbs!

Things I DON’T have to carry on my back:
• Pacer Poles
• Hiking Boots
• Hat
• Passport, Driver’s License, Credit Card, Debit Card, Money, Pen (worn on body)

Things I DO have to carry on my back:
• Ultra lite Back pack
• Ultra lite Sleeping bag
• Platypus water bag - Did you know that one liter of water weighs 2 lbs?!
• 2 pairs of ultra lite Columbia zip off pants
• 2 dry wick t-shirts
• 1 dry wick long sleeve shirt
• 1 lite water repellent hooded jacket
• 3 pairs of non-cotton underwear
• 2 sports bras
• Headband
• 3 pairs of wool hiking socks

Toiletries
• Toilet Paper (who knew?)
• Toothbrush
• Travel size Toothpaste
• Small bottle 2 in 1 shampoo & conditioner
• 2 in 1 soap for body wash and laundry
• Hairbrush
• Deodorant
• Chapstick
• Sunscreen
• Toiletry bag
• Ultra lite travel chamois-like bath towel
• First Aid Kit – needle and thread for blisters, Band-Aids, a couple of homeopathic remedies like Arnica (for injury) Ruta (for joint pain) Nux Vomica (for travel sickness), Tylenol (just in case)

Extras
• 1 small water bottle with clip (for extra supply)
• Back pack rain cover
• Rain poncho
• Pillow case (to stuff with clothes for pillow)
• Ear plugs (for snorers)
• Nail clippers
• 6 diaper pins (for hanging wet clothes)

Non-essentials
• iPod Touch for blogging (with charger)
• Spork (spoon and fork in one)
• Notebook
• Guidebook

Things I DON’T HAVE in my backpack are
• makeup
• hairdryer or flat-iron
• THE REST OF MY LIFE!

I do believe that all my preparations are almost in order and I have purchased everything on my list except a couple of minor items. I’ll let you know the results of the final weigh in, but I suspect all of this together is more than the recommended weight.

The other VERY important part of all this is the physical preparation required. I have read accounts of people who do nothing prior to walking and most say they suffer a great deal for the 1st two weeks until their body becomes conditioned. Hopefully some of the measures I’ve taken will cut down on suffering time and I’ll be able to enjoy my experience as pain free as possible. I’ve taken all kinds of advice about what kind of footwear, raingear, clothing and backpack to get. I’ve even taken Spanish lessons, but I’m afraid I will be performing a lot of hand gestures and my lifesaver will be an app on my iPod Touch called iSpeak Spanish. The #1 thing I’ve been doing is walking. For a year I’ve been walking, walking, walking and recently joined the Running Room’s Half Marathon Walking Group; a great bunch who teach and motivate and cheer you on. Tuesday night we did hills and last night another 6 km.

My plan is to be blogging along my journey so please check in and follow me on http://becomingawalker.blogspot.com/ . OK I’ll admit it…. I’m getting a little excited now that the time for leaving is so near!

Cool iPhone / Touch app!

Since I'm planning on blogging when I go to Spain for the Camino, I figured I'd better find a way to do it from my iPod Touch. I need practice to get faster with this crazy keyboard!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch

Acupuncture!

At a recent visit to my family physician for pain in my left hand I was given a diagnosed of ‘nerve entrapment’ and the good doctor offered to put me on anti-depressants. I kid you not. At first he called them anti-spasmodic, then said, “Actually they are a form of anti-depressant and will take the nerve pain away”. I said no thank-you and walked out of there feeling both shock and anger. Ok I won’t go on a rant about my views on allopathic medicine right now. I immediately went home and made an appointment with the Chinese Acupuncture Institute.

I have been treated with acupuncture a couple of times in the past by a slightly inexperienced naturopath and those treatments had actually helped so thought it would be a great idea to visit London’s most renown acupuncture expert Professor Cheung. Today I had my consultation and 1st treatment with Professor Cheung and it is this experience that I wish to share with you.

When I walked into the updated century old building I was immediately asked to remove my shoes and offered slippers. I was then explained the fee schedule and the expectations should Professor Cheung accept me as a patient. (I assume Professor means Dr., but everyone calls him Professor). It was explained that Professor Cheung would probably ask me to come in for 5 days in a row and the amount that I’d have to pay each day. He would also create a mixture of Chinese herbs and these would be purchased separately as part of my treatment. I know you’re doing the math and thinking that this might be getting expensive and you would be right, but I felt compelled to meet the Professor and hear what he had to say.

I would not want to guess how old Professor Cheung is but I will just say that he is older than me and he has a gazillion certificates from all over the world, many of which are in Chinese. He wears a large jade ring and on his wooden desk sits a 2 foot jade eagle with wings expanded. I explained my pain to him and threw in a couple of extra complaints for good measure. From across his desk he placed his fingers on my wrists. I thought he was taking my pulse, but then realized he wasn’t timing and appeared to be only feeling my blood pulsating through my body. Fredrick, a young Chinese man, came into the room wearing a mask and pushing the blood pressure machine. Frederick took my temperature and blood pressure and since I’ve never learned what those numbers mean, I have no clue whether it was high or low. Whatever the results, they were written down in Chinese by Professor Cheung, as was everything else on my chart.

The next part of my consultation made me a bit nervous because it felt kind of Frankensteinish, but I think I did a good job of not placing judgement or saying, “what the hell are you doing?” He asked me to hold a metal prong with a wire attached to it and a metal probe at the other end of this wire. Yes, you would have been nervous at that point too right? He started probing my ear and said, “tell me when it is sensitive”, which I immediately translated to mean painful! At any second I expected to be zapped, but happy to report no zapping. As he probed my ear all of a sudden it hurt, sort of like a bad bruise was being jabbed at and I said OUCH! The first ouch produced laughter from Professor Cheung, as did every ouch that followed. In fact he seemed to grow more and more pleased with my ouches and I was beginning to think that he was enjoying himself a bit too much.

Professor Cheung sat back at his desk and proceeded to confirm with me everything else that he suspected might be wrong. Things that I had not told him…. Crazy little stupid things that I had lived with for years. The first thing he said was, “you drink a lot of hot drinks don’t you?” Anyone who knows me know that I am a tea-aholic so I was a bit surprised by his statement and wondered how he knew. He knew my hands were cold, he knew my feet were cold, he knew about my lung condition and he knew about other things that I will not share publicly. It’s all in the ear apparently. Who knew? Professor Cheung told me that the pain in my hand is due to the problem with my lungs and that he would be treating me holistically. Fredrick then escorted me to the treatment room.


Now here is where the real fun started. I lay on my back with my pants and shirtsleeves rolled up and three 2 inch needles were inserted into each hand. There was mild discomfort but nothing too bad. Then Professor Cheung began inserting the needles into my ankle area. The 1st needle goes in…. Ouch (Prof. Cheung laughs). The 2nd needle goes in ….. not bad ….. I can do this. Then the 3rd needle is inserted just below my ankle bone and the weirdest indescribable pain \ shock went through the centre of my foot. I mean the pain was not even near where the needle was inserted. I yelled rather loudly, “HOLY SHIT”, which are not words I would normally use in professional company, and Prof. Cheung laughed even louder. I was starting to realize that he was not laughing at me exactly, but was pleased with each success. He said, “That’s your kidney”. I replied, “well my kidney did not like that!”. He started on the other leg and I kept asking, “is that going to happen again?” because I was quite concerned there was no way I could prepare myself for this sensation a second time. I braced myself as he inserted a needle in the same spot on the other foot…….. no pain. “Only one good kidney”, Prof. Cheung said. And here I didn’t even know that one of my kidneys was so unhappy.

But the best is yet to come. The next thing that happened was Frederick attaching electrode type clips to the needles on my hands. I could see they were attached to a machine beside the stretcher. I had no clue what would become of this situation and kept asking myself if I should trust these people. Frederick said, “tell me when you feel a pulsating in your right hand.” My right thumb started to twitch. I’m talking about involuntary electrical jolts causing my right thumb to twitch every second. I looked down and saw my veins pulsating just as quickly. “I’m not sure this is right, it’s very fast”, I said. Frederick replied, “it’s good, tell me when you feel the pulsating in your left hand.” This time my whole left hand started jumping and all my fingers were twitching. “We’ve got it too strong here Frederick”, I know I was sounding slightly frantic, but he assured me that this was good too. He said, “It’s like your 1st day of school because you don’t know what to expect but next time will be easier”. Now I can’t remember my 1st day of school, but I am fairly certain that it was nothing quite like this. I laid there for 30 minutes trying to not focus too much on my twitching hands and thinking that headphones with Bach’s Toccata and Fugues would make this a happier experience. I was alone in this room for the 30 minutes with nothing but a shelf full of Chinese medical books to stare at and feeling like I was in a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

As I was pulling myself together after the treatment I noticed a giant picture of an ear on the wall. Within each area of the ear there was a picture of an organ or area of the body. Sure enough within the area that was sensitive in my own ear was a picture of a kidney and next to it were lungs. Our eyes may be the window to our souls, but it is most definitely our ears that tell the story of our bodies.

I cannot tell you yet that acupuncture has worked or even made anything better, but I have appointments with Professor Cheung for the next four days and I am apprehensively embracing my acupuncture experience extraordinaire.

Priorities

Time has passed since I last wrote. It’s all about priorities and when you have many of them…well something has to suffer. Christmas has come and gone, a trip to Cuba, joined a gym, joined Toastmasters, started a Spanish class, reading War & Peace, reading book on Buddhism, tried knitting socks (but quit), and lost a good friend to cancer. Some sad, some challenging, and some peaceful times all mixed together as my life. As I approach my 55th birthday I start to ponder about this life I’ve been given that can either count for something or for nothing and it is totally up to me to decide which it’s going to be.

As I read War & Peace the message that hits me hardest is that these people lived 200 years ago and they weren’t so different from the way we are today. Some are hungry for power and want to rule the world and many people are killed needlessly in the name of justice; but the main thing is they are all dead…..just like 100 years from now we will be dead and how will the people then look back on our decisions? Will it count for anything?

My beautiful friend who died was loved by many and really lived life. I am now happy for her legacy and memories that her friends will cherish. Here again, when death comes to a friend, it forces us to look at our own lives and the decisions we make. Please don’t think I am being morbid or thinking too deeply. No, I see all this as a simple fact and happy to have clarity enough to make healthy decisions for myself. I suppose this may be part of the reason I joined the gym. And Toastmasters? I have not actually had to get up and speak yet so will have to send an update on this later.

I have not been walking all winter because the cold weather just got to my lungs and illness prevented me from getting out there. That’s OK, I’m on the right path again which is all that matters. I have postponed my trip to walk the Camino de Santiago until Sept\Oct and know that I’ll be in better physical condition at that time. All any of us can do is keep moving forward.

Life is a gift.

Goodbye Old Friend

Last night I was at the theatre with my Mom, Sister and good friend Judy. For years I have told myself that one day I would get season's tickets to The Grand. Well check that one off my bucket list! First show of the season was Side by Side by Sondheim and we loved it :) We went out for dinner to Garlic's beforehand and although I'm not an official reviewer of restaurants I know what I like...... I doubt that any of us will be going back there. The food was VERY salty. My dinner probably tasted the best of the 4 and I ordered the scallops. But the after affect? Whoa! My body did not agree that I should have consumed it at all... enough said.

The Grand is a venue where you can get dressed up if you want or wear your jeans if you want and nobody cares either way. I chose to dress up a little bit and wore dress pants with my brown leather heals. Now since I have become 'a walker' my heals have been gathering dust in my closet for sometime. I blew them off and carefully walked to the car when my mother picked me up. For those of you who have been to The Grand you know about the stairs and the potential for dizziness when you are finding your seat in the balcony. I will tell you that I did not feel safe wearing these high heals in the balcony. I kept envisioning myself toppling over the edge. Once seated we enjoyed the show immensely and I climbed out of there in one piece.

Walking to the car afterwards was another matter. I'm sure you're all aware of the infamous grates in the sidewalk of downtown London. I kept telling myself, "don't step on the grates", but well, we got talking and boom.... heal stuck in a grate. It was not just a little bit 'wiggle out of here' stuck. I had to remove my foot and pry the shoe out, which now has much of the leather destroyed on the heal. I really do look and feel like a crazy person wearing these things and I have vowed to myself that our relationship is over! All those heals in my closet will find a new home once I take them to Goodwill.... including my very sexy orange boots :(

Goodbye old friend.