Sunday, April 7, 2013

Day Five - Achilles tendons bruised, swollen feet..."what´s the problem?"

Day Five - Friday - March 29, 2013 /// Estelle to Torres del Rio /// 20.8 miles

Strava data: http://app.strava.com/activities/46326033

This day we took on 35kms and we walked it all together with the two Joe´s (Ireland and Germany) and "Sunshine" from Denmark.  My feet and achilles tendons were still quite sore.  "What´s the problem?!", I was thinking to myself.  I was certain it had to be that I did not buy a size larger in my shoe to compensate for the swelling that would occur from back to back days of this kind of distance on foot.  The swelling around my feet and ankles were causing the backs of my shoes to dig into my achilles tendons with every step and my toes began to become crammed together causing blisters to begin.  I was a ticking time bomb and it was only a matter of time before I would have to purchase different shoes in order to continue.

With the swelling down from resting overnight I was able to walk with the group in the first half of the day with little pain.  As the day and kilometers ticked away my feet and achilles tendons were more and more sore.  We made a brief rest stop along an open field and small wooded area that a small creek separated where a few wooden benches had been installed along the Camino.  German Joe had a few San Miguel beers and invited us all to them.  Beer, oranges and dried cashews were the snacks of choice as we all sat a moment and rested our feet.

Continuing along the path and could feel my feet growing warmer and warmer which just meant more blood and swelling was occurring in my feet.  It was going to be a tough final 10kms walk into Torres del Rio.  Apparently this day there was a small running the bulls scheduled for 2:00pm.  We were moving quickly in the morning to see if we would arrive in time.  Sadly we arrived at 3:30pm and missed the running of the bulls.  Nonetheless we settled into the Muni for the night, dried some of our wet clothes and rain ponches from the earlier rains we had this day and began discussing plans for tomorrow and how many kilometers we wanted to complete.

Next up was Navarette.  40kms down the path with some rain and wind in the forecast.  Not so cold yet, but some gusty winds ahead.

It´s like the scene in Forrest Gump when he is describing the rain, "We´ve been through every kind of rain there is.  Little bitty stinging rain...and big old fat rain.  Rain that flew in sideways.  And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath."  The wind blew the rain every which way including us pilgrims on the path braving the weather conditions.

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