I haven’t done much training for the Camino other than my regular routine of hiking, biking around town, and running a few miles a couple times per week. My understanding is any reasonably healthy person can walk the Camino, but extra training will make the first week less painful while the body acclimates to walking 12-15 miles per day. I’m in Durham for a few days before my flight to Paris on the 27th, which is one of my homebases in my increasingly decentralized sense of “home”.

The Eno river runs across the north side of Durham and has been one of my spiritual sources since I arrived in North Carolina in 2016. I decided I’d pay homage to several of my favorite spots and do a bit of a training walk along the way. I chose a route that starts at the access trail for the rock quarry and follows the Laurel Bluffs trail up to Turtle Hole. I considered starting at Cox Mountain and doing a point-to-point walk up to West Point but didn’t want to have to deal with transportation back to my car, so stuck with the out-and-back option.

I was on the trail by 8 a.m. feeling underslept and undercaffeinated, which is how I’ll probably feel for the first several days of the Camino. It was a beautiful cool morning and the turtles were out to soak up the first sun rays of the day. The walk was peaceful and took about 6.5 hours including a couple of breaks. I was feeling the drag at around mile 10 and put on some music for a little reinvigoration, which worked well. I’m grateful to know music can serve as substance-free pick-me-up when energy is low, but I do want to be careful about when and how often I have headphones in on my trip, which does tune out certain qualities of the environment and sends an “unavailable for socializing” message to other pilgrims (which I know I might want at times).

All in all, it was a good challenging 15 mile walk with 1,200 ft of elevation gain. I think this will be a little more than the average Camino day and it’s reassuring to know my body can handle it as-is. My legs and hips will are feeling it today and I’m reminded that stretching at the end of the day should be a regular routine.

Today I’ll be relaxing and making some other important Durham pilgrimages (Cocoa Cinnamon for a cortado, The Parlour for soft serve, Maplewood cemetery for mortality contemplation) to nourish my soul before taking flight in a couple days.