There’s a lot of conflicting information about preparing to walk the Camino, not least because there is more than one Camino. General advice is to get walking three or four months before starting the Camino, although the details of how much you should do differs. You’ll see from the stage information that stages 29-33 are graded at moderate. There are some ascents and descents, but only one stage which has any warning on it (for people with limited mobility). I am in the habit of doing 10,000 steps per day, and if I’m on holiday, I’ll regularly walk 25-30,000 steps in a day. The training, therefore, is making sure that my stamina will survive 5 days of long walks back to back.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about shoes. Again, there’s conflicting advice on what shoes to wear. However, all the advice agrees that the shoes have to be broken in. I’m going in April, so it will be spring, although there’s still a chance of rain. (I’ve got Sarria and Santiago d.C. bookmarked on my weather app and it hasn’t stopped raining in a week). I’ve decided on a pair of goretex light weight boots which I got in the sale and have already used in a 9km walk on Saturday. I’m also taking a pair of ordinary shoes which I’ve used for 30,000 step city walks, so they’re definitely broken in, and a pair of old sandals which I also know are comfy to walk in.

I’m walking every day, mostly just around home and work. I do plan on going further afield once it starts to get lighter in the evenings.

I plan to have a weekly total of steps and if I do an interesting, or different walk, a route plan.

Week beginning	total steps	maps
20/01/2020	70,852	around work Inverness
27/01/2020	81,739
03/02/2020	70,196	setback
10/02/2020	7,903	bed
17/02/2020	24,971	recuperation
24/02/2020	11,697
02/03/2020	127,281	getting my mojo back
10-14/04/2020	177,945	coronavirus
15-21/04/2020	227,241	from the beginning