Once again, I have my gear packed. Total weight of 4.75kg for everything. Adding water and trail snacks will add up to 6kg total. Shoes are specially selected for a road to trail experience. Most of Norte is asphalt walking.
Norte follows the North Atlantic Ocean from the French border to Santiago. I will start my journey in Hendaye on the French side and from Irun in Spain the real adventure begins.
What have I been doing since the last Camino?
Mostly walking. A lot of walking. Around 5-10 kilometers per day on average.
I did have foot issues after the last Camino. To be more specific, I made a mistake of constantly stretching the bottom of both my feet (especially the toes) during the Camino. I thought it would give stress relief in the foot. What I did not know is that it also made space for the muscles in the foot to re-adjust. This adjustment normally takes like two months and becomes very uncomfortable when hiking at the same time for several weeks.
Because my foot muscles needed time to recover from the Camino and adjust, I had to skip running a half marathon in Tartu last Autumn.
I have continued going to a physical therapist weekly up until this Camino to make sure my body is in optimal condition for hiking. Now I finally feel like everything is close to perfect from head to toe. There is always room for improvement, but I am confident enough to be able to carry on from here without external help.
However, I will buy hiking sticks as soon as I get to Irun. I want to make sure I am safe from foot injuries. The first week of Camino Norte is a constant mountain adventure (1000m elevation gain and drop daily) and that is not something you can easily train for in Estonia.
I am doing the trail with a super tiny 20L backpack. It has been quite a challenge to figure out how to optimize my gear. I did make a post about it on my Camino Blog:
Camino Pilgrim 
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