My Backpack Exploded

We are 25 days out, so it’s about time for an update. It’s also apparently time for my backpack to explode all over my dining room. I’ll cover both training updates and planning updates here, as best as I can remember everything that’s gone on in the past few weeks.

Training

I continue to stick to my plan, which includes shorter walks throughout the week, with one day of hill hiking and one day of speed hiking. Then on Saturday, I have been taking a longer walk. This has gradually increased in length week over week, until this past Saturday, I walked about 17 km.

This has been going well, although I have had occasional flare-ups with the plantar fasciitis in my left foot. I’m doing my stretches, and I don’t really feel like this is a worry.

The bigger worry is the shoe situation.

Planning

One pair of shoes will not be enough. When I walked in 2023, I had to change out my shoes after about 900 km. Francine served in Logroño before I was due to arrive, and she just left me a second pair of shoes. The photo shows both pairs of shoes, the same brand and style, on the day I swapped them.

I’ve been trying to reach the owner of the gîte I have reserved in Saint-Jean to see if I can mail him a second pair of shoes once I land in France. So far, there has been no response.

I bring this up because my 17 km Saturday hike included carrying the extra pair of shoes in my pack. It was rapidly obvious to me that this was way too heavy. My goal for my total pack weight is about 18 pounds. The extra pair of shoes alone weighs more than two.

Yes, yes, I hear you saying, “France and Spain are first-world countries – surely you can buy hiking shoes on the trail”.

I’ve done extensive research, and although there are, in fact, two shops along my 1800 km route that carry my brand of shoes, neither of them carries the actual hiking shoes I need. And if there’s one thing you don’t want to mess around with on a long walk, it’s your feet.

I’m still working on this, but right now I have no idea what I’m going to do.

Overall, I need to get my pack weight down. Not even counting the shoes, my pack is about 20 pounds. I’m working to get that sorted, which is why my pack exploded all over my dining room. I’m swapping out equipment for lighter equipment or just deciding what I can leave behind.

In other planning news, I learned that the train from the airport in Paris will drop me off right near Notre Dame and the other sites in the area I want to see. Unfortunately, this is a long way from my hotel.

I chose the hotel because it’s literally next door to the train station I will need very early the next morning. But unfortunately, that means it’s not terribly convenient to anything else.

So I went ahead and pre-rented a luggage storage locker near Notre Dame. I need a place to stash my backpack while I’m visiting these sites, since most of them will not allow backpacks inside.

In terms of the actual walking part of the pilgrimage, I have nine of my first ten nights reserved. The tenth place is a municipal gîte that does not take reservations, and I’m not really worried about not finding a bed there.