Miles walked today: 4.75
Total training miles to date: 41.35
Days left til I leave: 50

I got an email from Carol today with the subject line, “Okay. I have to ask.” I haven’t updated in a week, but I’m okay!

Truthfully, I’ve had a few holy sh*t moments in the last week. While they haven’t dissuaded me from going to Spain (I have tickets, after all), my eyes are opening.

Health: I went walking with Mark in Portland and about halfway through the walk, I was doubled over in pain. Of course, Mark was an EMT in a past life, picked me up in his car, and 5 minutes later I was fine. But still. I’m going to the doc this week (Mark made me promise) to get checked out.

Stuff: I also went back to Salem Summit Co because the 24L backpack was ambitiously small. Now I’m backpackless and determined to get all my gear together before I commit to a pack so I know it’s the right size. My goal to do this is no more than 2 weeks because I want to start hiking with it.

Distance: The reality of just HOW FAR this pilgrimage is has finally hit me. It’s about 550 miles to the Atlantic Ocean from St Jean, I knew that. But the daily distance was what got me. Marissa helped me calculate it and I nearly fell over when I realized realized I’ll be doing 12 miles a day.

With this, suddenly my gradual training started to seem meager. Adding a tenth of a mile here and there won’t get me to Santiago. So today, I plowed in. I spent an hour and a half on the treadmill and got to 4.75 miles. Pretty good — for me!

Encouragement: While I was tromping on the treadmill, one of the gym staff stopped by and said, “I heard you were walking across Spain?!” I’m not sure if I’m a minor celebrity at the gym or what, but it was a pleasant distraction.

I leave in 7 weeks — which is how long I’ll be gone. Staggering. What seemed like years away is starting to come faster and become more real!