Author: Rachael

I never know whether to laugh or cry when I hear my kids sharing their examples of Girl Math – they are funny, but I really don’t want them to be actually living by them.
You haven’t come across Girl Math? Allow me to enlighten you:
“This $80 Thing is on sale for half price, so if I buy it I am saving myself $40.”
“I bought – and paid upfront for – this event (perhaps a concert or trip) so long ago that now that it is finally happening, I have forgotten about the payment and so it is essentially free.”
“If something costs under $5 it is such a small amount it doesn’t count, which obviously makes it free.”
“If you pay cash, it’s free.” (Now I really don’t get this one, because when I hand over actual money from my wallet I feel the payment way more than if I swipe a card).

I’m always up for some new learning, and so I have embraced Girl Math and applied it to my own life.
“I bought an air ticket to Almeria last year, but now I am not going to Almeria. I have not lost that money because I spent it last year and the trip is this year. So now I have bought a train ticket to Pamplona, which is a third of the price, so I have saved money by going to the cheaper location.”
My daughters will be so proud of me.

Grandpa is proud of me too. Not because of the maths, but because I have made the sensible decision to take the easier route.
Having got over the disappointment of realising my dream plan is out of my Capability Zone at the moment, I have a sense of relief at choosing the wise path.
And it even saved me money 😉

PS….new plan

I will arrive at Madrid airport and take the train to Atocha Station – from there it is a short walk to a Tienda Orange to buy a SIM card, a supermercado to grab some essential supplies…and if there is time, the Museo Thyssen is free - as in literally free, no euros required – on Mondays, which happens to be the day I will be there, so if I am not completely jetlagged, I’ll nip up for a look at some Beautiful Paintings before heading to Pamplona.

When I booked my tickets I did not know if I would be capable of completing this walk. While I may have walked much longer distances in days gone by than I’m expecting to this time, back then I had not sustained a significant Achilles injury and I was walking fit. I may have felt invincible…..which is not unreasonable when you have walked day after day of over 30km – and even 100km in one sitting. This time I had not been walking at all for far far far too long…and when I re-started I could not even manage a kilometer before the Achilles protested. But slow steady progress convinced me it might be possible to consider a slow steady camino of meagre daily distances. It was refreshment and reflection that I was seeking, not lots of walking.
And then – before you could say “Santiago-de-Compostela” I was contemplating the longest continuous route in Spain. Ambitious? Ridiculous? Downright Stupid? Probably. When I booked, I had not yet even walked 10km a day every day for a week. Come to think of it, I may not have even walked seven days in a row. But I’m pleased to say that changed. Whew. My distances crept up and the frequency improved the day I decided I was going to walk every day for the rest of my life (as far as it was within my power to do so). That conviction grew to encompass the idea that a distance of under 5km didn’t count. So far, so good.
In the past I had walked as far as I wanted and had never given it another thought.
This time I started wondering if the increased miles were responsible for tight ankles/heels every morning, and eventually whether I had been premature in booking a connecting flight from Madrid to Almería – would it have been more prudent to keep my options open and be able to zip up to the Camino Francés, which provides much more frequent accommodations and the possibility of short days? Most likely!
Worst-case-scenario, I figured, I could still do that and count the flight as a sunk cost. But there was little appeal in that. I started looking for alternative not-quite-so-bad-case scenarios. I now have options. I won’t know for certain how the walk is going to pan out until I am doing it….will I manage the 36km days? Will I manage 20km+ days every day for a week? Whatever happens (short of breaking a leg), I should be able to find a way to make it work…..although, sadly, it will mean chopping out a section or two or three….

Right now I’m pretending to be a Bona Fide Athlete. After an ultrasound confirmed bilateral Achilles tendinopathy with low grade neovascularisation and reduced echogenicity, I saw a sports bio-mechanist, who put me on the path to recovery. While he’s used to working with the likes of Olympic gold medalist and World Champion kayaker Dame Lisa Carrington and the Elite Women’s Squad and the NZ Men’s squad, he was also willing to see little ol’ out-of-shape me. He put me in completely different shoes, prescribed a programme of strengthening muscles that I didn’t even realise you could use when walking and showed me a new way of using my poles. He knows his stuff and knows how to impart the knowledge so that you are empowered to understand your movement patterns and take control of your biomechanical journey (or so his website says). Who knew! I’m learning.

Having the goal of being long-distance-camino-ready was certainly a useful motivator to get me walking again. I hope to do it for the rest of my life.

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P.S. I actually wrote this post a month ago. Since then I have come very close to reaching the conclusion that I will not be able to complete the route I had my heart set on. If my Achilles rehab continues at the rate of no more than 10% increase in distance per week (which is the recommended practice to prevent flare ups) then it will quite simply be impossible. I have turned my attention to the Camino Francés, where, with some careful planning, I should be able to continue rehabbing my way across a smaller bit of Spain. If I start in Pamplona I might make it to Samos…..then there would be a week and a half left to either spend in the Sobrado monastery or increase distances a bit more and make it to Santiago de Compostela in time to catch my flight home. I just might have gone full circle back to my original plan! Within that journey before even taking the first step there have been curiosity, concern, excitement, hope, frustration, disappointment, uncertainty, wondering, gratitude, anticipation….

La semana pasada caminé por la ciudad donde vivo con un hombre que sabe todo sobre historia. Decidí intentar contarme una historia sobre esto en español.
I had got stuck on “Last week”. I could remember “this week” and “next week”, pero no pude encontrar “last week”. ¡Pobre de mí!

Le pregunté a mi hija menor – y ¡sorpresa! – ella recordó. Fantástico.

Ahora estaba lista para decirla that I had worked out how to say “Do you know how many times a horse defecates every day?”

¿Sabes cuántas veces defeca un caballo al día?

The history man had asked that!

Before you think I’m getting pretty posh at this Spanish business, let me explain. I only know the word for horse because it’s written as an option on your credencial, which means you get to see it every day. Besides, we met a man doing the Via de la Plata on his horse and that was pretty good reinforcement.

As for defecate….actually, I’d have preferred to say “poop”, but I didn’t know how to do that (well, actualmente I do know how to DO it, but I don’t know how to say it en español). Another thing I know is that most words ending -tion in English can be turned into Spanish easily….defecation > defecación, in this case. Then you can take the -ción ending off and turn it into a verb and you’re away laughing. At least, I was.

There’s so much fun in going away and trying to communicate with limited language….and now I have another verb to add to my repertoire, although I am unlikely to use it after “I need to” or “I have to” or “I want to” or “I know how to”. Luckily I know, “May I use the toilet?”

PARAGRAPH ONE TRANSLATION (or what I was trying to say): Last week I went for a walk in the city where I live with a man who knows everything about history (stated in this way because I didn’t know how to say I went on an historical walking tour!)
I decided to try to tell myself a story about it in Spanish.

PARAGRAPH TWO: I got stuck on “Last week”. I could remember “this week” and “next week”, but I could not find “last week”. Poor me!

PARAGRAPH THREE: I asked my youngest daughter – and surprise! – she remembered. Fantastic!

PARAGRAPH FOUR: Now I was ready to tell her that I had worked out how to say “Do you know how many times a horse defecates every day?”

La respuesta es catorce. (If you speak Spanish, now you know too!)

a 30 minute car ride to the airport

a 3 hour checkin, say goodbye and wait

a 10 hour 45 minute flight to Singapore

a 6 1/2 hour layover

an 11 hour flight to Istanbul

a 1 1/2 hour stop

a 3 hour 20 minute flight to Madrid

a two hour stop

a one hour ten minute flight to Almería

a 32 minute bus ride

40 hours of travel will take me from one side of the world to my Camino Starting Line, though my phone clock which automatically all-by-itself amazingly adjusts to whichever time zone it finds itself in will try to tell me barely a day has elapsed from takeoff to touchdown, arriving the Very Next Day. But then time will slow down. Hours and minutes, days and dates will cease to matter (except for Siestas and Sundays – note to self: remember shops will be closed then, so always carry spare food).

200 days to go.

197 sleeps.

That’s right, it’s not a typo. The sun has already set today, so tonight is practically over and you don’t count the last night before you leave, because you’ll be so excited you won’t sleep a wink.