Category: The bits that hurt

Steve: well, we’re around 2/3 of the way, with 260km to go. If we haven’t got the hang of it now then we never will…

I’m quite pleased with how this 56 year old bag of bones of mine is hanging together. Apart from the perpetual blister-fest, which I consider to be a peely-wally Scotsman-in-the-sun thing as opposed to a Steve-specific thing, my body is holding up fine. My legs are like tree trunks and I haven’t had any muscle pain since the first few days. I’ve had no backpack problems. All is surprisingly well.

Some observations.

• Make sure you read your Fitbit correctly. On day 2 or 3 I looked down to check my heart rate and it said 263. Hmm, I thought, and considered if my Will was up to date and wondered if the British Embassy would sort out returning my body. I stood still and waited for the resurrection morn. Then I realised I was actually looking at the step count. We’d only just left the albergue and I hadn’t done much that day. I tapped through to my heart rate which was a quite reasonable 85. I wonder if there have been any Fitbit related coronaries resulting from such misreading?
• I don’t think it’s possible for Brits to actually buy appropriate shoes for this sort of heat. All my local outfitters are geared up for the swamp that is Scotland. Goretex in everything. What you need for this walk is a glorified sandal with lots of support in the right places and ventilation everywhere else. Water resistance is the least of your worries.
• High tech underpants are unquestionably A Good Thing. The one drawback is that when not walking it would be nice to have something a bit less, how shall we put it?, structural. Pack a pair of knackered old y-fronts if you can. Your gentleman parts will be grateful.

I write this in Bercianos where, based on the performance in the afternoon nap stakes, I predict a night of low to mid Richter scale snoring.

Before I forget, let me tell you a tale of how appearances can be deceptive and how even the most apparently unlikely candidate can raise their game to supersnore levels.

In Los Argos we’d managed to get into a small room with only five beds. There’s three of us and we can all confirm to you and each other than we don’t snore. A fourth shows up, a 20ish Swiss German girl. Should be fine, youngish girls don’t snore (stereotypes abound here, Jen will step in any second now…). Our final resident is a very fit looking 30-something Frenchman. Excellent we think.

Oh but dear reader, we were so very wrong.

Mr Fit Frenchman turned out to be none other than Snorty Jean de Snorty, winner of last years Mr Snorty championship. I’ve never heard such a loud noise coming out of anything alive apart from a cow I once saw in labour.

We were stunned. At one point Hamish jumped down from his top bunk and sat on the floor with his head in his hands (remember, at this point in the trip none of us had managed a good night’s sleep). I feared that Snorty Jean de Snorty would fall victim to some egregious punishment that H had learned in his boarding school days.

But it seemed that H’s loud landing had interrupted Jean de Snort and he was quiet! Quick, get back to bed, shut your eyes, think happy thoughts and get to sleep before the racket starts again. Well, as we all know from the Christmas Eve’s of our childhood, lying still and hoping for sleep never works.

I can’t actually recall if any sleep was had by anyone until, finally, at 4:30 or so Snorty Jean got up, incredibly quietly (I’m sure he didn’t want to disturb us – oh, the irony!) and he was out by 5am. We finally got to sleep. For an hour. At 6am we, the hardened four, the undead, staggered into the daylight and went on our way.

I was there, I saw it, I was in the presence of greatness….