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The episode in which we manage to cross the Brouwersdam (yay) but can’t find a camping spot on the entire island (boo).

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DAY 4 – JUNE 29 At the end of yesterday's hike, stopped at the St. Jacobs church in Renesse to collect our first on-the-road stamp. And a lovely one it is too! It's an image of the clock tower encircled by the inscription on the church bell. . With @alexandergriesdoorn . . Subscribe to the Foot Pilgrim podcast! Visit digimaddays.com for more info. . . . #fatherdaughter #relayhiking #vanlife #hiking #trekking #camino #santiago #compostela #caminodesantiago #theway #iperegrinos #peregrina #modernpilgrim #pilgrim #pilgrimage #buencamino #hikingadventures #femaleexplorers #femalehikers #shetravels #inthewild #getalittleoutthere #wandelen @eurekacamping #eureka! @deuter #deuter @leki.ski.outdoor #leki #lekipoles @prana #prana @lowaboots #lowaboots @lifelineoutdoor #shapeflexer

A post shared by Victoria Griesdoorn (@thefootpilgrim) on Jun 30, 2018 at 4:54am PDT

The Route Taken

Audio Transcript

Hello! Welcome to the Foot Pilgrim podcast by digimaddays.com. I am Victoria and I’m a modern pilgrim. Today is Friday the 28th of June and we have arrived… somewhat further than we expected. But we have arrived across the Brouwersdam and I will tell you about it in a minute.

I left off telling you that we have switched tactics and that we have decided to relay the distance; the pilgrimage to Santiago. Instead of both of us walking with a pack, the entire 2000 kilometres journey, we have decided that we would have a much better chance at completing the pilgrimage if we switched it up and we had the support of our camper van and we would relay the course so that each of us would walk 1000 kilometres; on a schedule of one day walking, one day driving.
Yesterday I told you that my dad travelled back to Rotterdam to pick up the camper van, and met me at the foot of the Brouwersdam where we hoped that we could get across before the festival, the Concert at Sea festival, closed the bridge and that was successful!

I felt some strain in my right heel yesterday and this morning I woke up still feeling it. It wasn’t severe but there was a little bit of a buzzing sensation in my heel. And it wasn’t severe though. So I decided that a short walk without a pack was feasible and so we set off; my dad stayed behind at the campsite to pack up the camper van and the tent that I sleep in (because I still sleep in a tent with the sleeping bag I brought (nothing about that has changed), and my dad sleeps in the camper van. So my dad packed up the camper van and the tent, ready for departure, and I set off on foot across the Brouwersdam.
This was interesting because the Brouwersdam, if you’re not familiar with it, has the layout that it has a provincial road, a national road or B-road (depending on how you are familiar with it); so it’s a dual carriage road that is not a highway or motorway but it’s one of the lesser-speed roads that connects areas together, like a regional road. So the dam has a dual carriageway regional road across the dam and then it has two parallel roads; one on the inside of the dam which is on the lakeside, and then one on the outside of the dam which is on the seaside. On the seaside is where they have the Concert at Sea and it’s actually in the middle of the dam. They close off the entire dam to traffic so that the public can enjoy the concert. The route that you usually walk is a bicycle path that has a pedestrian path next to it part of the way that would follow the seaside of the dam (the outside of the dam), which is exactly where the concert is being built and prepared.

I set off onto that bicycle path, as usual. There wasn’t a lot of interruption until I got to the actual festival grounds where I was stopped because it had been turned into the artist entrance and the crew entrance for the concert, which meant that I had to walk part way along the provincial road and then there was a little tunnel that I could take to cross the provincial road underneath, and then I could carry on on the parallel road on the inside of the damn, i.e. the lakeside of the dam.

All in all it was an ok walk, even though there was a little bit of an interruption me trying to sort out how I was going to get across the dam with the concert and all of the fencing that they put up and all of the security people that were around. It was an interesting walk. It made for an interesting walk. I reached across that dam. (I wanted to say the farside but of course I should be more specific and say the south side of the dam because we were travelling north to south. And the far side would still be the opposite side, and could be either side depending on which direction you’re travelling.) So I reached the across the dam on the south side after a little bit of interruption but not too much. And then I continued on to the town of Renesse where one of the first things you walk into (because it’s a very small town); the first thing you walk into is actually the big St Jacob’s church or St James’s church (depending on how your country or language refers to Santiago). At St Jacob’s church, as we call it in The Netherlands, in Renesse, I stopped at the Pilgrim’s church which recognises the pilgrimage that we’re on, and my dad met me over there to collect our third stamp in our pilgrim’s passport.
The first stamp that we have in our pilgrim’s passport is the stamp from the St Jacob’s church in the city of Utrecht, where we became members of the St. Jacob’s community and purchased our passports, and then the second one was from our local church in the neighborhood that we live. We had contact there with the church and the staff, and they provided us with a stamp because we thought it would be great to have a stamp from our local church to signify our point of departure. And then now we have collected our first on-the-road stamp, from the town of Renesse.

From there it became interesting again because the Concert at Sea caused all of the camper spots and all of the campsites on this particular island to be fully booked, so we had to drive to the next island over (so we had to cross the next dam), which on our walking itinerary wasn’t planned until tomorrow, but we had to drive across; we had to drive all the way out to find a place where we could actually overnight.
Thinking about it if we didn’t have the camper van with us and we had arrived as foot pilgrims (even though we made such a point of the fact that the dam was going to be closed by the festival and we really wanted to get across it so that we wouldn’t be hindered in our walking), we hadn’t considered the fact that once we got on the other side of the dam, there might not be a camping spot to be found. And of course trying to, what we call, wild camp, i.e. putting up your tent anywhere in the countryside or anywhere on a grass-field or lawn in the vicinity of a town or city; of course with a festival like this the police would be surveying a lot for people who would just be pitching tents so all of the campsites were fully booked that we inquired at and then of course if we had been foot pilgrims that would have been a problem because if we had pitched our tents somewhere we would have been camping illegally, and with this amount of police and security staff on site in the vicinity, we probably would have been heavily fined and removed from our spot. So this is an example of how the camper van has saved us from a difficult situation. Even though we had to drive to the next island over, we found a camping spot. And we’re going to stay there for two nights; to have a rest day tomorrow.

My heel was wasn’t doing too well. I set off because I only felt a very slight buzzing sensation in my heel. But, really, next time… I felt it was a good choice to make it across the dam because it was a short walk with no pack but I felt my heel again when I was walking. I didn’t want to put too much pressure on it so I changed my gait little bit to the front of my foot to not use my heel so much, and of course that caused a blister on the front of my foot because the front of my foot is not used to walking in that position. A blister is not the end of the world though. I do get them and they change into callus quite quickly which strengthens my foot. I don’t really have any problems with blisters because I just take the pressure off and it turns into a callus that actually protects my foot from getting a blister in the future.
My heel situation is ok but I’m looking forward to a rest day tomorrow and not walking on it for a day; just hoping that the strain of use will go down a little bit.

Today was another interesting day; walking across the dam and trying to find a camping spot. We didn’t actually settle in to the campsite until 3:30 p.m. That’s how long it took us. I’m not quite sure what time we set off but because it was such a short walk I think I sent off at around 9 a.m. And then we weren’t on the campsite and settled in until 3:30 p.m. so that was a substantial amount of time.
It also adds the interesting tidbit of now that we are here, on the campsite for 2 nights one island over, it means that will have to backtrack. We’ll have to drive back to the town of Renesse to actually start the trail where we stopped at the church. Interesting times.

We’re glad we have the camper van with us because it saved us from a situation that could have been difficult, or at least saved us from an anxious situation. If we had camped in the wild nothing might have happened but you don’t rest easily just because you know that you’re camping illegally in an area where there is heavy surveillance and a lot of security support, and you might get a heavy fine. The fine could be as much as €300 a person so that would have been a very, very heavy fine indeed if that happened to us. So we were very glad to have the camper van and to be able to get some distance between us and the concert.

We made it to Renesse. That’s where we left off on the trail and where we will be doubling back there to continue on. I’m taking a rest day today. But when my dad has recuperated a little bit from the strain on his calf (which I haven’t told you about in full but will at some point in the future, probably tomorrow) we’ll see what the situation is like and I’ll tell you about our plans then. We will continue back to Renesse and continue the trip from there.

Thank you for following along. I hope this update was interesting to you. If you have any questions or suggestions or anything you would like to share with us at all, please visit our website which is at http://digimaddays.com.
Feel free to leave a comment on any post you like, or use the contact button in the header of the page. Also you can visit us on Instagram which is at http://www.instagram.com/thefootpilgrim. On Instagram you’ll find a daily walking post. I might not post on the rest days unless I have extra content to offer you. But there will be daily walking posts and some brief updates in a visual medium as well. And Instagram may be interesting to follow because I do also do some live streaming on Instagram. I find anything particularly interesting that I would like to share with you, I go on Instagram live and record a little bit of footage there with what’s going on. If you’d like to follow us on Instagram you can find us at /thefootpilgrim.

Thank you for listening as always. I would love to hear from you and if not I hope you have a very good day. Talk to you soon. Bye.

 

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The episode in which the day takes an unexpected turn after we mutually decide we stand a better chance completing the pilgrimage as a relay team. Ramifications ensue.

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DAY 3 – JUNE 28 Mutually decided this morning to change tactic. I continued on walking with my gear as planned and dad travelled back to Rotterdam to pick up their camper van. We're continuing to Compostela as a hiking relay team! Walking alone today did remind me how great it is to have a trail to yourself. This was on the road to Goedereede. And taken after I hadn't seen anyone for over a kilometre. . With @alexandergriesdoorn . . Subscribe to the Foot Pilgrim podcast! Visit digimaddays.com for more info. . . . #fatherdaughter #relayhiking #vanlife #hiking #trekking #camino #santiago #compostela #caminodesantiago #theway #iperegrinos #peregrina #pilgrim #pilgrimage #buencamino #hikingadventures #femaleexplorers #femalehikers #shetravels #inthewild #getalittleoutthere #wandelen @eurekacamping #eureka! @deuter #deuter @leki.ski.outdoor #leki #lekipoles @prana #prana @lowaboots #lowaboots @lifelineoutdoor #shapeflexer

A post shared by Victoria Griesdoorn (@thefootpilgrim) on Jun 28, 2018 at 8:30am PDT

The Route Taken

Audio Transcript

Hi! This is Victoria; I’m a foot pilgrim. Thanks for listening to the Foot Pilgrim podcast at digimaddays.com. Today is Thursday the 28th of June and we’ve changed our strategy. This morning we woke up in Maassluis… Sorry, in Hellevoetsluis, where we camped last night. We stayed somewhere near the beach. We’ve made the mutual decision that it’s going to be a more feasible journey if we are going to continue as a relay team; one person walking and one person assisting in support. So what we’ve decided to do is my dad has gone and travelled back to Rotterdam today and collected our camper van. And I’ve continued on foot from Hellevoetsluis across the dam at Hellevoetsluis into Zealand and then on through the towns of Goedereede and Ouddijk, south and stopped at the foot of the Brouwersdam which leads on to the next island. And my dad travel back from Hellevoetsluis by public transport with most of his luggage because I couldn’t carry it obviously because I had my own luggage. So he had to take his luggage back home and collected the camper van, then drove out.
So the idea is that instead of the both of us walking the trail, we’re going to complete at least the section until the Spanish border which is probably around about 1200 kilometres in relay fashion so one person is going to be walking and the other person is going to be driving the camper van to the location where we think we’re going to stop for the day. This gives us the ability to deal with any unexpected circumstances (as I’ll tell you about in a minute because we’ve encountered those already in our five day long trip). And also the possibility of carrying food and water as much as we need to cross the sections that are very sparsely populated and having the ability to rest more so that if one person is walking and one person is driving you would have a day break from walking so that we complete the whole Camino trail or at least the whole pilgrimage on the Compostela and Camino trails but we do it in a fashion that each of us completes a thousand kilometres of it and not 2000 each. We have also decided that we’re going to go to the Jacob’s church or St. James Church (depending on which country you’re from and how you refer to Santiago) in Renesse and both of us collect stamp there since we both completed the journey there on foot, but then afterwards since we’re going to do a relay we’re going to collect the stamps also in relay fashion. So after Renesse whoever completed most of that hike will get the stamp and then the next time the next person will get the next step in their pilgrim’s passport. So that between the both of us we would have a complete set of stamps but we would have to put the two Pilgrim passports together to see the entire journey across two passports.

Today was an interesting day. It was not planned but having experienced the first couple of days and looking ahead to possible injuries and some existing injuries that we already know about, and getting into the routine of hiking and food management and water management and other sort of things. it’s a very long journey. Of course we realised this on forehand but it seems more feasible to us now to complete this with the support of a camper van and not doing it the traditional pilgrim-style of having a backpack and walking the entire distance. We’re optimistic now about our chances of completing the journey; having experienced the first couple of days we were pessimistic about our chances getting to Santiago, and even though the traditional pilgrimage is what everybody thinks about, we feel like it’s more important to complete the journey, and having walked a thousand kilometres each (still amounting to the entire 2000 kilometre track) will be equally as challenging and equally as rewarding of a pilgrimage. It will just be a slightly more modern version of a pilgrimage, since we have the support of a motor vehicle behind us.
The moniker that I’ve given myself in the first few episodes of the Foot Pilgrim podcast, I’ve called myself an aspiring pilgrim; after we set off on Tuesday the 26th I’ve called myself a pilgrim and I think from this day forward I’m going to have to refer to myself as a modern pilgrim, to distinguish the fact that we’re not walking a traditional pilgrimage on foot with all of our gear on our back going forward from this point.

We found a very nice campsite at the foot of the Brouwersdam. I walked from Hellevoetsluis across that dam over there, which is the Haringvlietdam and then into Zeeland, and walked through the towns of Goedereede and Ouddorp, and then to the south of Ouddorp there is the Brouwersdam which connects to the next Island. We have found a very, very nice campsite to park our camper at the foot of the Brouwersdam and then tomorrow will be the walk across it.
We were planning a rest day but we will have to continue on across the dam because of a concert that’s being held on the dam the Friday night (so tomorrow night) as well as Saturday and into part of Sunday. And the whole Brouwersdam will be closed, so to avoid having to go all the way around the island which would be a significant detour we would have to cross the Brouwersdam tomorrow morning before the dam is closed to traffic in preparation for the concert.

Today was a challenging day for me walking because it was the third day in a row. I’ve cleared 15 kilometres the first day, about 20 kilometres the second day and about 20 kilometers again the third day so I’ve cleared 55 kilometres with my backpack on. It’s a little heavier than the pack weight that I was training with so it’s been a challenging day, and I can feel a little bit of strain in my heel. I hope it’s going to be better tomorrow because we would really want to cross the Brouwersdam. And I’m looking at a walk of 15 kilometres, possibly less, depending on the route exactly. It’s hard to calculate exactly how long the route is, because if you use Google Maps to estimate it may use a slightly different road then we’re actually walking. Somewhere between 20 kilometres or 15 kilometres is what I’m looking at tomorrow. Differences though of course is that I won’t have my pack anymore; I’d be leaving that in the van, so from now on will be just walking with a daypack with snacks and some emergency equipment, and some other things we need. And of course water. And if it’s going to be a long hike then lunch, not just a snack. But for tomorrow, the short hike, I’ll just have a snack with me so I’m hoping that my heel is okay tomorrow and I don’t feel it strain anymore that I feel right now, and that I can complete the crossing of the dam so that we’re not hindered by the festival anymore. Because if we are, then we might have to take a rest day. Well, if we are then we’re probably going to take a rest day tomorrow and then we’re going to have to detour on Saturday and Sunday, or we would have to wait it out because detouring would take just as long as waiting it out until Sunday, possibly.

Anyway, yes, let’s see how I feel tomorrow but I wanted to at least send you this update and let you know what’s going on. So yeah, I am Victoria and I’m a modern pilgrim. If there is anything you would like to share, feel free to leave us a comment on the website. We would love to see you at our Instagram as well which is at instagram.com/thefootpilgrim. And I’ll check in with you again tomorrow. Have a great day. Bye!

 

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The episode in which we have a challenging walk to Hellevoetsluis but we’re rewarded with a beachfront location to overnight.

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DAY 2 – JUNE 27 On our way to Hellevoetssluis we passed by the mill, 't Vliegend Hert, and stopped to capture its view alongside part of the Brielle city wall. . With @alexandergriesdoorn . . Subscribe to the Foot Pilgrim podcast! Visit digimaddays.com for more info. . . . #fatherdaughter #hiking #trekking #camino #santiago #compostela #caminodesantiago #theway #iperegrinos #peregrina #pilgrim #pilgrimage #buencamino #hikingadventures #femaleexplorers #femalehikers #shetravels #inthewild #getalittleoutthere #wandelen @eurekacamping #eureka! @deuter #deuter @leki.ski.outdoor #leki #lekipoles @prana #prana @lowaboots #lowaboots @lifelineoutdoor #shapeflexer

A post shared by Victoria Griesdoorn (@thefootpilgrim) on Jun 27, 2018 at 5:18am PDT

The Route Taken

Audio Transcript

Hello. Welcome to the Foot Pilgrim Podcast by digimaddays.com. I’m Victoria and I’m a Foot Pilgrim.

Today is Tuesday, June 27th sorry, Wednesday, June 27th. I’m sure I’m going to make these mistakes more often, so excuse me for forgetting what day of the week it is. And we have arrived at Hellevoetsluis in the Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. Yesterday was a good day. We had a short hike to Maassluis and then we didn’t have a very good night’s sleep.

Both my dad and I suffered from a deflating air mattress and so we were tossing and turning a lot. Both of us didn’t get a lot of sleep. It’s probably because of all the new impressions and all the things that we are processing. So both of us were awake at around 5.00am and we decided to just pack up our things and go. It took us a while to pack up. It took us an hour and a half (1hr 30min) which is longer than I would like it to be, but it did mean that at 6.30am we were on the ferry, from Maassluis to Rozenburg and then we had a hike that I think was about nineteen kilometres (19 km).

Unfortunately, I messed up with my Garmin watch today and a significant section of our hike today wasn’t registered by the Garmin. So I’m thinking it was around nineteen Kilometres (19 km). The watch said that we had walked close to seventeen kilometres (17 km) and I know that the intervening section was approximately two to two and a half kilometres (2 km – 2.5 km). So that will get us to about nineteen kilometres (19 km) and now we are here in Hellevoetsluis. I’m looking out over the dam that’s going to connect us to the next island in the Province of Zeeland which we are going to be walking through all the way down to Vlissingen the capital of the province and then to the German border crossing at Sluis.

So even though today was hard and we had to well, we didn’t have to, but we chose to stop at a farm where we saw somebody water the plants in the front garden of the farm yard. So we asked them whether we could refill our water bottles. It turned out that was ditch water. So we definitely didn’t want to refill our bottles with that, but the person watering the plants was nice enough to guide us to the owner of the farm and she was very, very happy to refill our water bottles with drinking water. So which we chose to do that. But we have to manage our food supply a little bit better.

We are fortunate now that we found a place at the foot of the dam that’s going to take us to our next session sorry, our next section and the amenities are very nice. There’s a beach that we actually had a bit of a dip into the water. And there’s a restroom, a public restroom here. There’s a restaurant that we had food at, which was good because if we didn’t have any of these amenities in particular the restaurant, we probably would have run out of food. Now we still have breakfast and we can make it across the bridge into the next town and stop at the supermarket. But this is a good lesson for us to make sure that we stop at every supermarket we see because in our hike today, we hiked across Brielle and we actually both saw a well-known supermarket in the area. So our instinct should have been to stop and think whether we needed any more food which we probably would have gotten, if we had thought about it, but neither of us did and we just continued on hiking. But now the fact that we were lucky that there’s a good quality restaurant right here at the beach location, where we are staying overnight made sure that we didn’t have to touch our supplies for our dinner. So we will have some food left for breakfast. It’s a good lesson to learn especially easy earlier on.

So today made for a challenging day. We weren’t very well rested at all. It was a longish hike nineteen kilometres (19 km), especially for a second day on the trail. And we chose to stop to ask somebody to be kind to a stranger and refill our bottles with drinking water. And then we were lucky that we had such good amenities here when we arrived. So hopefully this is a lesson learned and hopefully it won’t happen again. I’m sure it will, though. I think food supplies is one of those things that if you don’t, if you’re not on top of it all the time. It’s something that can easily slip through the cracks and you think you might have enough and you don’t stop to think about how long your next leg is or where you are going to be staying overnight. And maybe it’s so happens that you are going have to stay somewhere unplanned and there aren’t actually any amenities and there is actually nowhere to get food. So I hope that we are going to be able to plan ahead a little bit more and take this as a warning.
So tomorrow we were planning to do three days of hiking and then a rest day. But we found out that there is a big concert going on, on a second dam over. So when we stop tomorrow at the foot of the next dam on to the next island in the Province of Zeeland we will have to cross that bridge on Friday morning. Because if we don’t, the concert is going to be starting up Friday night and it will go all the way through Saturday into Sunday morning. So if we don’t tack on a fourth walking day, then we will get stuck. Not being able to cross the dam until Sunday, which we don’t want to do. So instead of having our rest day on Friday, we are going to be crossing the dam into the next leg and then have a rest day probably at Renesse on Saturday.

So that’s sort of what our itinerary looks like. I’m hoping that we are going to be okay with this physical challenge and the mental challenge of getting used to this hike. I’m optimistic though and I think for now we are coping okay. So I’m hoping for a better night sleep. We are both really, really tired. Actually it’s only about 8.00 pm now and I’m struggling to stay awake. So I’m hoping I can stay awake until about 9.00pm and then have a good sleep. And hopefully we might actually be awake again early and start having early start, so that we arrive at the next location before the heat of the day. That’s always going to be our aim. We always want to arrive at the latest at 2.00pm, which means that we are probably going to have to get into a routine of leaving early, very early, preferably at around seven (7am), but definitely before 8.00am. So that will arrive at the next location and about 2.00pm or earlier depending on how long that leg is.
So here’s to hoping for a good night’s sleep, so that we are refreshed in the morning, and for the weather to be in our favor. I’d like it to be dry, but I’d like it to be not too warm. Sorry, people of Europe we are coming through and we are hoping to give you a mediocre summer.

Anyway, that’s the wrap up for today. Hopefully I’ll have enough electricity to make it to the campsite on Saturday. We are using a solar powered charger and we are not sure how efficient it actually is. And we are now load testing. We have got two. We have got one each, but we are load testing it with my Garmin GPS watch and both of our phones. So we will see whether we are going to be making it through whether it’s going to be charging enough tomorrow because both of them seem low on energy right now and see whether they be going to be able to charge enough tomorrow to get us through to another charge for Friday into Saturday. Hopefully by Friday night when we arrive in Renesse will be able to stay to campsite and we have got cables to actually charge the chargers on the net, on the grid. So that would be a great advantage. To get a full charge on them when we leave again. This is another reason why we maybe should be planning to stay at a campsite or some formal amenities location every third day. Not only because the clothing that we are packing is designed to get us through three hiking days, but if we can’t get more solar energy, then we need for three days worth of electricity for our devices. That might be another good reason to try and stop at an amenities location or campsite of sorts every third day.

Well I hope this recording was okay. I am standing outside. I’m looking at the beach. It’s cheering me up immensely to be here at the coast but it is a bit of a breezy day. So I hope there wasn’t too much background noise of course you will hear traffic in a distance and there are people walking by. I’m actually standing at the foot of a flagpole. So the flag is actually flapping merrily in the wind in the breeze. So I’m sure you hear that clattering in the background too if you were wondering what that sound was. And I’m also standing at the at the restroom entrance so if I lean over a little bit too much to my right you are going to hear the echo of the tile in the restroom.
Anyway so I hope this recording was worth listening to and that’s my report for today. Hopefully I will have some more news for you tomorrow and I’m planning on speaking to you then. If you have any questions or suggestions or just want to say hello feel free to do so on the website in the comments section or come and find me on instagram.com/thefootpilgrim. I would be always very happy to hear from you.

Alright, thanks for your time and I hope you have a lovely day.

 

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Departure day! And the episode in which we walk 16 kilometres and pitch our tent in Maassluis where we meet a great lady who brought us loads of food and cups of tea. We’re very grateful for our first day. Also, broke a tent stake already and we have leaky air mattresses. Still grateful!

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DAY 1 – JUNE 26 Happy departure day! This was minutes before we left home to set off on our (hopefully) 2000 + km foot journey to Santiago de Compostela. Departures are always hard and full of brave faces. I will miss my home, my anchor, my love. But we carry a lot of love with us, and hopeful determination for a successful trip. Reunion will be all the better when the time comes. Chin up and Buen Camino. . With @alexandergriesdoorn . . Subscribe to the Foot Pilgrim podcast! Visit digimaddays.com for more info. . . . #fatherdaughter #hiking #trekking #camino #santiago #compostela #caminodesantiago #theway #iperegrinos #peregrina #pilgrim #pilgrimage #buencamino #hikingadventures #femaleexplorers #femalehikers #shetravels #inthewild #getalittleoutthere #wandelen @eurekacamping #eureka! @deuter #deuter @leki.ski.outdoor #leki #lekipoles @prana #prana @lowaboots #lowaboots @lifelineoutdoor #shapeflexer

A post shared by Victoria Griesdoorn (@thefootpilgrim) on Jun 26, 2018 at 5:42am PDT

The Route Taken

Audio Transcript

Hello. Welcome to the Foot Pilgrim Podcast. I am Victoria and I’m a Foot Pilgrim.

Today is June 26th, it’s a Tuesday and we have set off, our journey has begun. Today this morning at about 10.00 am local time in the Netherlands was our departure and we have walked sixteen kilometres (16 km) on this first leg, and we have ended up in Maassluis in the Netherlands. We have pitched our tent near the little ferry crossing that is going to take us towards a town called Hellevoetsluis for our leg tomorrow.

So the day has gone pretty well, sixteen kilometres (16 km). We planned on a short walk today and we have completed the walk without too much trouble. It took us about three and a half hours (3 hr 30 min) walking time. We took a lunch break, of course. So I think we arrived here at the location at about 2.00pm. Then we had a little bit of a look around, where the best place was to pitch our tent. At first we were looking at a dyke area right across from the ferry, and then when we walked a little bit along we found a grass field with a playground and a few benches and waste bins and a few big boulders and we found some helpful people.

So we explained what we were doing this was our first day setting off and the lady was so helpful. It was so incredibly nice to have such a sweet person treat us in such a friendly manner, the first day. She brought us a bucket of water to have a bit of a wash and then she brought us cups of tea and biscuits and other sweet treats and then later she came back to bring us some fruit and we are very, very grateful for our first reception over here.

We have our St. Jacobs shells with us. There are a type of molluscs, scallops is what you would call them, the food, the mollusc inside that you can eat. The scallop shells are what is traditionally seen as the logo of the pilgrims of St. James or St. Jacobs depending on the area of the continent you ask. So we have got the shells ,we have hang those on our tent so that we are identifiable to everybody who knows the symbol as pilgrims and the lady was very, very enthusiastic about our story and to help us out.

So hopefully we will be in a spot that’s okay. Hopefully nobody will call the police because we are stood near a camper site. But we are, of course, staying in our own little tents and at the moment they are pitched in a public playground for kids in the field adjoining that so of course, there might be some people who are wondering what we are doing here and it is technically illegal to pitch your tent in the wild, wild camping as they call it in the Netherlands. So theoretically the police could show up and tell us to leave so hopefully that won’t happen. I’m sure it will happen at some point during our trip but hopefully the shells will be a little bit of a marker for people to know that we are pilgrims and we will be getting up first thing in the morning and leaving the pitch behind the way we found it barring the few tent stake holes that we have made into the ground but you won’t see in a grass field anyway.

So all in all it’s been a successful first day so far. I’m going to go to a local cafe on the corner hopefully to use their restroom and then we have got plenty of provisions to get us through tomorrow and probably the next day and water as well. So, so far I’m content.

The two little things that have happened that need some further attention is that one of my tent stakes broke, but that’s okay because I brought an extra spare one and only in heavy winds do I need to set the guy ropes. So I have got four ten stakes for the guy ropes, and I brought a spare one. So I will use the stake that’s been bent to the point where the shaft is broken. But I will continue to use it on until the point where it actually breaks and then I still have a backup stake not counting the four stakes for the guy ropes that I only need and in heavy wind. So far, that’s not a setback.

The other thing is that the air mattress that we brought with us are old and the rubber seals on the air mattress have dried out which means that at the moment, they are not airtight. So hopefully with us breathing into the air mattress with the moist air, it will soften up the rubbers a little bit. Hopefully we will get the seal back. If the seal doesn’t improve significantly over the next couple of days, we will probably pitch these air mattresses because we can inflate them all the way and then within a matter of an hour, it’s probably all the way deflated again. So for tonight, I’m expecting to inflate them and then fall asleep. And then in the morning, wake up on the ground or at least on the empty air mattress on the ground. So hopefully that won’t disturb my night’s rest. So we will have to see how it holds up. Hopefully the moist air that we breathe into the air mattress will soften up the rubbers and recreate a seal.

So far, nothing really deterring us. This air mattress situation at the moment is too bad but will cope and we can pitch them and we can go to an outdoor store and buy some new ones. So our positive mood has definitely not deflated with our air mattresses, pun intended, and we are hopeful for the second day.

So tomorrow morning we will be looking to rise with the light which should be early, somewhere between 6am and 7am. And then head towards the ferry dock to get our ferry across the river and then continue our journey to Hellevoetsluis. I’m looking forward to it and if you would like to leave us a message, I’d be very happy to hear from you on the website in the comments section or else I would love to hear from you on our Instagram which is instagram.com/thefootpilgrim. If there were any questions or suggestions you may have, we would love to hear from you there. And from here it leaves me to say that I’m very happy that we have completed our first day of the pilgrimage. And we can now call ourselves Pilgrims officially and we are hopeful and determined to continue this to see how far we can go.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for joining us. And hopefully you will let me talk to you some more in the future.

Have a great day. Bye.

 

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The episode in which I complete my last training day. Now it’s easy recovery walks only until departure day on the 26th!

The Route Taken

Audio Transcript

Hello. Welcome to the Foot Pilgrim Podcast. My name is Victoria and I’m an Aspiring Pilgrim.

Today is Friday, June 22nd and departure is coming very close. Today was the last of my scheduled training days. This week I have done a few walks. I have done five since my last rest day. I have done one of eight kilometers (8 km) on Monday. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday both training walk of twenty kilometers (20 km) distance about twelve and a half miles (12.5 mi). And then the last two days I have walked ten kilometers (10 km) each. All of these days, I have walked with a heavy pack.

I have packed now that I’m here in Rotterdam. I have got my own backpack that I will be taking on the road. And I have packed the big three. My tent, my sleeping bag, my sleeping mattress, in addition to my pillows, some other things I’m taking with me. And to weigh it all down, I have added some cables, some cable bags. I have added some resistance bands that are quite heavy. I have added two glass bottles full of water. And I have added a very, very heavy PhD dissertation. So all in all, my pack was quite heavy together with the drinking water that I was carrying with me. My pack was about thirteen (13 kg) to fourteen kilograms (14 kg).

And today was the final day of my training schedule. I will have two recovery days and then a rest day. So for the two recovery days, tomorrow and Sunday, I will be walking. I will be possibly cycling, at least something to keep me active and moving for about two to three hours. But if I’m going to go walking, I’m not taking my pack with me. I’m not going for a particular distance, just somewhere between two or three hours to keep my muscles moving. And I won’t be recording on my GPS tracker either. So they are really intended as recovery walks, not as training walks, and not taking the pack with me.

But now that I was on my last day, I thought it would be useful for me to actually pack most of the things I’m going to take with me. And it turns out that just with the equipment without provisions; my pack was a lot lighter than the pack weight that I was training with. Just because of the extra bottles of water and the very thick heavy book and all of the extra cable bags that I threw in there just to weigh it down. I have not put it on a scale. I don’t actually have a scale in this house. So once I pack for departure on Tuesday, I’ll be stopping off at my dad’s and I will put my pack on that scale just to see how heavy it is.

But I think for today, the pack was certainly light because it didn’t have any provisions with me, I just had the water that I needed. And it was a short walk. So I didn’t actually need that much water. So I only had about maybe six hundred (600 g) or seven hundred grams (700 g) worth of water with me. And so when I have the provisions in there, which will be my drinking water for the day, which is about a liter and a half (1.5 l). So kilo and half (1.5 kg) and I will be carrying two one liter bottles of water as a backup water source. And then I will be carrying provision. So probably a small loaf of bread, some cheese, some cooked ham, you know, any provisions that I want for the day or two until our next little shopping trip. I would think that the equipment and with the provisions my pack will be back to the way that I was training with. But for today, it was a nice easy walk with just equipment in it compared to the heavy pack that I have been training with in the last couple of days.

So yes, today the last of the training walks on schedule just two recovery days. And then I have a rest day on Monday. And then we will be setting off on Tuesday. I feel like I have all of the equipment that I need with me. The only thing that we are missing is one particular route guidebook for walkers or hikers. We have five guidebooks with us so far, but we are still waiting for the bookshop to deliver one of them. Possibly, if we don’t get it in the mail in time before Tuesday. Then we’ll set off without it. And we will ask family to send the book to us by mail, or possibly drop it off, if we are still in the vicinity when the book comes in. But I feel confident that we have all that we need to set off on a successful journey.

As for the physical aspect, my body is bearing up pretty well. I still haven’t had any significant blisters. My hip is improved a lot after the exercises, the abductor lengthening exercises, and my shin has been a lot better since I have been doing the shin exercises. The only thing now that I have is that I feel tension in my back. And sometimes it can be a little painful. Usually it starts when I have walked about five kilometers (5km) or an hour (1hr). And then by the time we get to eight kilometers (8 km), something like an hour forty five (1hr 45min). I usually shift where the weight balances by adjusting the straps on my pack so that it actually weighs more on my hip. And I’m supporting the weight more with my hip rather than my back or my shoulders so that I just alleviate the tension on my back a little bit. But that is still something that I can cope with fairly easily. The pack adjustments can shift the weight a little bit onto a different body part. And I can complete the day’s walk. I also will be taking with me a little massage tool so that I can massage my back work or I can ask my dad to massage my back at the end of the day to relieve some of the tension. So I feel that my body has done really well during this training. And I hope that it will bear up equally well once we set off and we will be walking probably six days a week.

From a technical aspect, the podcast is going well. I have the podcast up on Apple podcasts, on Google Play; I have got a FeedBurner link. All of those are added to the website. So every time a post is made the links to the Apple Podcast, the Google Play and FeedBurner will also appear. You can also know subscribe to the posts on the website for them to be delivered to your email address. So that is a very nifty function. I have added a contact page that refers the readers to a little email icon that is in the header of the page so that people can click that and send me an email if they would want to. If you want to send me an email then you can do that by sending it to victoria@digimaddays.com .

I also have a newly minted Instagram account. I’m actually quite pleased with that. I’m not a photographer necessarily. I don’t take a lot of photos. Generally, if you were to be a friend of mine and if you were to look at my Facebook account, you will see that the photos that I am in. Well, first of all, I have very few photos on my Facebook account. Second of all, the photos that are on there, and that I’m in they have been taken by other people and the other people have tagged me in it. I don’t take a lot of photos. I always blame this on the fact that I don’t have a very good visual memory. And I would prefer to see the pictures in my head for as long as I have them. And when the memory fades, I don’t want the memory to be replaced with an image. I feel like I would rather remember how I experienced the location, even if I don’t have a visual picture with it anymore. Rather than just have this one image that I take that would be a poor substitute for the visual imagery that I had in my head. So that’s the excuse I give for taking photos.

I also prefer to experience life around me in the moment and not trying to capture it through the lens. I feel like I’m personally I’m enjoying it more if I just have a good look at the things around me and not try to look at it through a camera on my phone or something like that. I would rather be there and see it and experience it and don’t necessarily feel the need to capture it. However, this trip a few people have told me that I really should be documenting this. And I do feel like this is going to be something that I would love to see through pictures, because it’s going to be a long trip. It’s going to be difficult to remember everything. I’m sure I’m going to forget. So actually taking a picture once a day and posting it to Instagram, I think it would be a very nice thing to do for to look back on later. So if you would like to find me and follow me on Instagram, you can go to instragram.com/thefootpilgrim and you can find me there.

The first post I made was a very simple graphic that announces our departure date of June 26th. And from then on, on every single walk I have taken a photo. I think there are four up now from the previous four walks that I have done. So I have taken a photo every day and posted up on Instagram. And these Instagram photos will also be embedded into the blog posts. So there’s some cross posting right there. So if you follow the Instagram you will have the link in the posts in the Instagram post right there to have a look at the website. And if you follow the website, you will still see the embedded photos from Instagram on the page.

So I’m pretty pleased with that. The posts, the blog posts, I think are really nice with the information that are in there. The links appear to the podcast right at the bottom of those posts. And then I have got a contact page, I have got a very summary about page at the moment, which I will be developing over time with any questions that I might be getting or, general questions that I know a lot of people have. And I will be adding those to the about page. I also have a gear list page, which I’m working on. And that will feature information about all of the equipment that I’m carrying with me, with the links to where you could possibly find those for purchase, in case you are interested in similar gear that I have.

So I’m pretty pleased with the state of the website right now. And I feel like from a technical point of view, I think I’m really doing well with my phone. It’s working well. I have been able to upload all of the data from my Garmin GPS watch to my phone. And from there to my Garmin account to be used on my website. These voice recordings are going well. These are voice recordings that are synced to Dropbox. And then from there, they are made available to be posted on the website as well. And then Instagram on my phone and all of the other apps that I need, weather apps to check the weather and the UV index. And all of the things I need are on my phone right now that I will be taking with me. And I’m feeling pretty confident with this phone. Even though it’s a Samsung which is a Google Android operating system. I’m used to iPhones but I’m getting much more comfortable with this Samsung phone to get me through the trip.

I have also bought, I think they’re called popsockets, I’m not quite sure. But it’s one of those little things that you can stick on the back of your phone and it pops out and you can hold it fairly easily with two fingers and stabilize the phone in your hand while you are possibly taking photos or something else. So I’m pretty pleased with the popsocket for now. I have got a fox on the back of it. And I quite like that image.

So yes, I feel like this is going really well. My body is responding well. I think I have got the technical aspect all taken care of. I think that’s going okay. I feel like we have got all the gear and even with the missing guidebook. It’s not a guidebook that we will need for the beginning of the journey. So I feel confident that even if it doesn’t arrive in the mail before Tuesday, we can easily set off and have it sent to us for pickup at a post office later in the journey because we won’t need it until we are actually in mid France to the south of France. I think it’s a guidebook that starts in Tours in France, so we won’t need it for a long time yet. So that’s something that doesn’t give me a lot of doubt. Or it doesn’t give me a lot of anxiety because I feel like this is a situation we can manage, even if it doesn’t arrive before Tuesday.

Okay, so yeah, I’m not sure I have a lot of other things to say other than I’m optimistic. I feel like we are in good shape. And we are definitely setting off on Tuesday. It’s definitely going to happen. This is probably the last voice recording that you will hear me say that I’m an Aspiring Pilgrim because for all intents and purposes, it is looking like we are going to be setting off on Tuesday. And I’ll probably be making the first or the next voice recording on Tuesday on the day that we set off unless there is anything else in between that I really want to tell you about. But that seems unlikely for the moment. So yes, for all intents and purposes, it’s looking like Tuesday is going to be departure and I’ll probably make a voice recording for you guys on Tuesday as soon as we arrive at our destination on Tuesday and put a tent up and that will probably be the first recording where you might hear me say that “I’m Victoria and I’m a Pilgrim”. I’m quite excited about that anyway.

So thank you for listening. Thank you for joining. I hope this was informative. If there’s any suggestions or comments or questions that you might have feel free to send me an email at victoria@digimaddays.com . Please visit the website for more information. The website you can find at www.digimaddays.com or possibly come and see me on Instagram and follow along in pictures that would be www.instagram/thefootpilgrim .

Thank you for listening. I hope you are having a wonderful day.

Bye.

 

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The episode where I announce our departure date! As well as a catch up on everything that happened in the last couple of weeks.

The Route Taken

My Current Audiobook

Moby Dick Or: The Whale by Herman Melville‎

Audio Transcript

Hello. Welcome to the Foot Pilgrim Podcast. I’m Victoria and I’m an Aspiring Pilgrim.

It’s been a while since I last recorded. But the big news is that we have a departure date. We are leaving on Tuesday, June 26th, which is tomorrow in two weeks. And I’m very excited. So what happened in the meantime, the last time I recorded was in May, and I’ve done a couple of walks, and moved to a different continent in the meantime.

So I’ve done a longish walk on May 22nd, which was in Wisconsin. It was a very nice walk through farmland. Actually, I say longish, but it was twenty four kilometers (24km). Twenty four point three kilometers (24.3 km) to be exact, which is about fifteen miles (15 mi). And then I did a shorter one. Followed by a period of transition where I moved from Chicago in Illinois back to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, where I’m from, and which will also be our starting point for the pilgrimage. So on the 31st of May, we moved to Chicago. And it took me a while to settle ourselves in here.

So I did a short social walk on June 7th, which was last week, Tuesday, sorry last week, Thursday. And then I did a longer training walk on June 9th, which was two days ago, on a Saturday. That training walk was good. It was shorter than the longest walk I’d done in May. So the longest walk I did in Wisconsin was twenty four kilometers (24 km). And the first training walk again here in Rotterdam about two or three weeks later, was almost fourteen kilometers (14 km), which took me almost three hours to do. But I walked with all of my new gear, which was exciting.

So I now have my own pack which is fitted to me. I have walking poles that I really like they’re light weight aluminum, and I packed my trekking pack with my sleeping bag and my sleeping mat and a number of things that I will be taking. In addition to some heavy books and some bottles of water just to give it some extra weight to it. But it’s exciting to be walking with my own pack. So that’s great.

Also in the meantime we traveled to Utrecht which is a city here in the Netherlands, to get ourselves registered with the St. Jacobs Church. So the St. Jacobs Church here in the Netherlands in Utrecht is the official body that has been designated by the Church in Spain, possibly in Rome, as the official church that can give off the pilgrim’s passports. So last week Friday which was the 8th of June, we traveled to Utrecht and we became registered members there, and we received our pilgrim’s passport with a stamp of the church that we picked the passport up.

So now we have an official document that actually verifies that we are going to be doing a pilgrimage and it explains our pilgrimage and it explains that we might be asking for help and it’s requesting anybody that we ask for help to assist us with whatever we need. Now I don’t think we’re going to be doing that all too often. And if we do it might be small tokens like asking, if we could use toilet facilities, asking if we can refill our water bottles, things like that. Possibly asking if we can stay with our tents or at least camp with our tents on private property. I think it will be things like that we’re going to be asking for, if at all. And then we will have the pilgrim’s passports to show to people, to explain to them what we are doing, and also to hopefully instill some confidence in us when we elicit requests like that. So that’s exciting, we’ve got that documentation now.

The other thing that we have been doing the last couple of days was looking at the route that we are going to be taking. So from Rotterdam we are going to be going pretty much straight south, to the province of Zeeland and then we are going to be crossing into Belgium at a town called Sluis. From there we are looking to take much of the coastal route if we can find maps for it.

So the route that we would be taking would be Sluis and then in Belgium cross the border into Belgium we would go past Brugge and Menen than we would cross into France and we would be going past Lille, Arras, Amiens, Beauvais, Nucourt, Tours, Poitiers, Saintes, Bordeaux, Dax, all the way to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and then we will be walking on the official section of the Camino trail or at least most recognizable section of the Camino trail all the way to Santiago de Compostela.

So we have got walking maps for the route in the Netherlands. And we’ve got walking maps from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, which is on the border of France and Spain, from there all the way to Santiago de Compostela. But we don’t have the middle section; we don’t have root maps for walkers, or hikers for the middle section that crosses through Belgium and France. So we are in talks with a store in Amsterdam that specializes in travel books, and travel documentation and that includes maps. And hopefully, we will be able to get the maps that we need for Belgium and France. Otherwise, we will have to rely on some of the public information on websites there’s a very good information website at www.santiagoroutes.nl, that we’re looking at, which is a Dutch website with Santiago roots. And we will be using some of that public domain information that’s on there. If we can’t find some of the maps, then they will be downloadable directions from that website as well. And of course, we’d be supplementing it with Google Maps and any sort of like other documentation that we can find online while we are on the road.

So that’s going from the training walks I’ve done in the past couple of weeks, and my transition to Europe all the way through the new gear that I now have, and the passports that we have picked up, and the walking maps that we are looking into and researching.

So what else happened? I have worked a little bit on the website; I like the state that it’s in right now. It’s got an about page, it’s got a gear list page that I’m populating. The posts with the information about my walk so far are on the main page and they’re showing images of the cities that I have walked through, which is kind of cool. I’m thinking about possibly adding a gallery page of any photos that I might be taking along the along the way. So that might be something that’s appearing and I’m still working on the contact page, I haven’t quite found a plugin yet that works with a contact form. So hopefully, that will be up soon.

And going forward, I have got two weeks left now before the planned departure date of June 26th. And I have got a schedule that I would like to do for the next two weeks, which would be heavily focused on training walks. My body is bearing up pretty well so far. And I think that the muscle training that I have done has been very useful. And I’m definitely going to be keeping up some of these muscles groups specific exercises that I have done to develop specific muscle groups like my shoulders, the muscle groups, supporting my shoulder blades, my hips, my shins, my thighs, and then generally metabolic conditioning exercises as well. So I will be keeping those up as needed. But I would like to really focus on the training walks for the next two weeks. I’m now back in Rotterdam. So my dad and I can do the training walks together. So I’m looking to do six days of training walks, various distances and lengths, and then a rest day, and then another six days of training walks and then a rest day and then it would be departure day.

So for the next two weeks, I’m going to be buckling down on that. My schedule should be much more settled for the next two weeks. So I’m planning to maybe record every third day or so that I have got a few recordings coming up before departure day with any sort of like new progress that I’ve made .And anything that I can share with you guys about how the training is progressing, and how the preparations are progressing. And then hopefully that will take us to departure day. And, yeah, I’m excited about it.

So that’s a brief summary of everything that’s been going on here, in the last two or three weeks since you’ve heard from me. Everything is going well. Everything is on schedule. I am excited about all the things happening. And it’s starting to sink in that this is actually going to be something that we are going to be starting with. I’m really happy with how my body is responding to the training and I’m optimistic that we can start. Of course, we have no idea how far we are going to get into it. But we are going to be careful and we are still going to give it the best we can, and hope for the best and see how far we get. But for now everything is looking positive. Everything is looking like it’s going to go ahead as scheduled or at least as prepared. So hopefully you’ll be hearing from me soon.

And if you have anything you would like to ask or you would like to share please visit us at www.digimaddays.com. Feel free to use the comments section and hopefully I’ll have a contact form up soon as well. You can find this podcast on Google Play as well as iTunes and if you would like to contact me through those avenues. I would love hearing from you again.

Alright. Thank you for listening to this voice log and I hope you are having a wonderful day.

Talk to you soon. Bye.

 

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The episode in which I have some catching up to do, and the day that two people asked me why I am walking with walking poles.

My Progress

Audio Transcript

Hello. Welcome to the Foot Pilgrim podcast by digimaddays.com. I am Victoria and I’m an Aspiring Pilgrim.

So today I have a lot to catch up on. I’ve been a bit remiss in my recordings, recently. It’s because I think there’s been a lot of things I’ve been researching, and I’ve shifted from recording while walking to recording well, any other time and day really. But in my head I’m imagining myself recording when I complete my walks, and that’s in reality not happening .So I’m trying to find moments when it makes sense for me to record, and sometimes I get distracted start doing other things, and then I go over a week without recording as just happened in the past week.

So anyway I’m still trying to find the right timing, I guess, for me to start making the voice recordings, and find a bit of a rhythm there. I find that it’s a nice distraction for me to do the recordings while I’ve been walking in the past but, now I’m walking with walking poles, and it’s just not easy to plug in my microphone, and you know, handle my phone, and do that while I’m walking without feeling that I’m losing my steady pace that I’ve been going at and distracting myself unnecessarily .So I’m now doing this recording after I’ve come back from a walk which I’m hoping to make a routine.

Anyway that’s more of a personal matter but I just wanted to give you some sort of explanation why I haven’t recorded as regularly since the last episode I posted. So I have a few things to catch you up on. The last walk I think I’ve recorded about was May 2nd which was (so I have the post and the information here). So that was a shorter walk and in the recording I talked about my shin splints or at least my shin complaints. Those are a lot better.

I’ve been doing exercises for my hip and I’ve now also added stretches for my shins, and those have really helped because I don’t feel the tightness sort of burning feeling in my shins anymore. There is a little bit of a pop going on. I think some of the muscles and tendons might be realigning a little bit after the stretches, and this training schedule that I’m on with the regular walks. But in all reality those feelings in my shins are lessening and I don’t have the burning feeling anymore when I start walking. So, that’s a lot better.

So the walk I did after my last recording was on May 5th, and I did a longish walk then it was three and a half hours. I’m not quite sure what the distance was but my kilometers is about to tell me. So that distance [oh, interesting]… So that distance was twenty one point six kilometers (21.6 km). Which if I do some quick math works out to about 15 miles .Which is interesting because I walked it in three hours thirty eight. It was a hot day. So I walked that in Wisconsin which was a very nice experience because I was in a more rural setting in Wisconsin, and it was a clear bright warm day and I really enjoyed that experience because it set me in mind of what I think some of the days on the road from Rotterdam to Santiago might actually look like.

Of course, we’ll be walking through an urbanized area, which that area of Wisconsin still is as well. But there was a lot of green around me and I was walking on sort of like road in-between farms. So there wasn’t a lot of traffic on there. It was just in a nice warm day. And I was thinking that with the exception of cities that will be crossing on the route and some of the smaller cities and larger towns, I think we’ll have a fair amount of experiences that are more similar to what I experienced there in Wisconsin I think. So back roads and walking through farm area and just generally not seeing a lot of people on the road. Generally, not having a lot of traffic will certainly have sections like that too. So it was a nice change from the walks that I’ve been doing in Chicago, and it sets me in mind that I think the walk the journey can both be a challenge but also somehow calming and interesting from the perspective of somebody who’s always lived in cities and doesn’t actually know a lot about what rural living would be like.

The downside of that walk was that it was so warm. And I learned another lesson there, that apparently the UV index is a lot higher here, than it is what I’m used to in the Netherlands. So we have a fair amount of cloud cover and possibly there might be a difference in ozone layer and the UV index just simply doesn’t get as high where I’m from compared to the area that I walked on that particular May 5th.

So luckily I had my hiker’s hat, I’m wearing a long sleeve, and I’m wearing long trousers. Of course you know hiking shoes. So really the only part of me that was exposed and liable to the UV and the sunlight were the backs of my hands. Having said that though, I got a pretty nasty sunburn on the backs of my hands to the point where today is May 17th which I don’t think I said at the beginning of this episode but it’s 12 days later and the backs of my hands have been peeling and I can definitely still see a very angry patch of red skin on the back of my hands and I can definitely see a line just from that sunburn still across my hand so it makes me think that after this summer I’m going to have a very, very interesting tanning line on my hand because as I said I on purpose walk in long sleeves because I burn easily. I’ve got a fair skin type so I don’t want to burn and that’s why I wear long sleeves but my long sleeves are. I like them a little bit longer maybe than some people do I like them to actually fall onto the back of my hands. I don’t like my sleeves to stop at my wrist or even above my wrist. So this means that when I’m going to be walking and my in my long sleeve shirts, the shirt is going to stop somewhere across the back of my hand which is leading me to believe that I’m going to have quite an interesting tan line by the end of this. So yeah I’ve still got skin peeling and you know red sort of like triangles across the back of my hand from that walk.

The other interesting thing that happened is that was the walk that I decided I really need to start walking with hiking poles. I have a set of hiking poles that I borrow and I really like them. I have actually purchased my own hiking poles but they’ll be delivered to Rotterdam to which we’re going to be traveling in about two weeks.
So I’m having my stuff ship there so my purchases, my equipment because it makes no sense to have it sent here to Chicago and then having to travel back with it to Rotterdam. So I’m having it delivered there. So I’m using a pair of borrowed hiking poles at the moment but I’ve ordered my own now because on that walk on May 5th, I worked for just over three and a half hours and it was it was warm. The sun was out got a sunburn but the other thing that happened was because I walked in the heat for three and a half hours and my arms were at my sides and not doing anything in particular. My hands swelled. My hands swelled to the point where my skin was so taut from the extra fluids that I couldn’t ball my fists. This was a little disconcerting, because by the time I realized it, I was about two and a half hours in (2h 30m). Maybe a little bit more than that. I probably had about 45 minutes to go on the walk and I could actually already see the farm I was staying in the distance so you know I knew I was going to be close to my end point. But by the time I realized that my hands couldn’t close all the way just because my hands were so swollen.

So that was the point and you know after a while the fluid drained from my hands and then I was absolutely fine. Nothing bad happened other than the fact that I was a little shocked that I could have that much fluid in my skin. But it also set me in mind of the fact that I actually should be walking with hiking poles not just for the obvious reasons. The obvious reasons being that the more you use your arms with hiking poles to prepare yourself forward the less your legs have to exert themselves so it will be easier on my hips, it’ll be easier on my knees, easier on my feet. Some of the energy can be distributed across my body and not just have to be in my legs the whole time because my arms with the hiking poles will help propel me forward. So that’s one thing. The second thing is stability. I won’t trip as easily which I’m fairly prone to do. I’m a fairly clumsy person and when I’m walking with my pack I am not necessarily afraid that I’ll fall or trip or something like that. But the possibility is always there which means that I’m looking much more at the ground about a yard in front of my feet rather than looking out. And with the hiking poles, it just gives me a little bit of extra confidence. It gives me extra stability to the point where I’m much more comfortable actually just looking around me, which is, you know, making for a much better walking experience. And then things like the swelling of the hands will happen less as well because my arms are just dangling by my side. So there’s a myriad of reasons why I should be using my hiking poles and I have started doing that with the borrowed pair, that I’m lending now, to do that. And the reason why I bought my own set which will be delivered to Rotterdam at the beginning of June when we arrive there.

So, yeah, a lot happened on that May, 5th trip and it made me wary of a few things so to make sure that I’m aware of the UV index, I also bought an app for my phone called Weather Underground. The app actually has a UV index measures as well in it so, it doesn’t just give you know temperatures and others like weather conditions but it also gives the UV index and the pollen index and all sorts of.. It’s actually a pretty nifty app. So I got myself that. To make sure that I’ve got that information at my fingertips as well, every day.

So, yeah, my May 5th was an interesting walking day. After that I did a short speed walk which wasn’t wholly interesting other than the fact that something was odd with my Garmin because I speed walked for six kilometers but my Garmin data somehow shows that I was slower than usual. So I’m not quite sure how that happened.

But anyway, and then last weekend, May 12 to May 13 was the first time I did two back to back walks. So on May 12th I did a 15 kilometer walk which was a Saturday (and how long did that take me?) Yes, so I did a walk that was a distance of fifteen point one kilometers (15.1 km) and it took me two hours forty minutes (2h 40min). There wasn’t anything unusual with our walk. Actually nothing at all remarkable happened.

And then the day after that I did a walk of just under fourteen kilometers (14 km) so it was just about the same distance it was thirteen point nine five kilometers (13.95 km) and I walked that in two hours thirty six minutes (2h 36min) which is interesting because that was a pack walk. So that was a walk that I walked with my pack which is about 20 pounds. But it reinforced that the walking poles are a hikers’ best friend, really, because I walked 14 kilometers with a pack in about the same amount of time that I walked 15 kilometers without a pack and the walking poles really contributed to that.

So yeah, the fact that I walked a kilometer less which in the grand scheme of things was only like one fourteenth (1/14) of the distance in about the same amount of time while I had 20 pounds worth of packing material on my back made for the conclusion that the walking poles really do make a difference. And the fact that I walked that 14 kilometers and I didn’t other than having the feeling in my feet that I’ve walked 14 kilometers with 20 pounds on my back I didn’t really have any sort of issues. So I didn’t feel my shins, I didn’t feel my hips. Which is obviously what we want because that’s what I’ve been doing the exercise for. But it reinforces that the walking poles are really making a difference. And so I’ve been walking with those ever since.

And that leads us to today May, 17th, and I completed the longest walk to date which was twenty one point three kilometers (21.3 km) and that took me four hours and eleven minutes (4h 11min) to do. So, now going forward I’m doing longer walks without a pack.

So, now I’m at the four hour mark going forward. I’ll still have walking days that I’ll be five or six hours long because we are looking towards the 30 kilometer mark. So I’ll be training for that, of course I won’t be doing that with a pack straightaway. So, there’s sort of like a bilateral approach where I’m going to longer distance walks without a pack first and then doing longer walks with the packs. But you know both of those I will be using poles going forward and that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

So, even though today it was a packless day, I did take my walking poles with me, and I walked actually a whole long stretch of roads, the trail along the lake here in Chicago, Lake Michigan. So, yeah that was actually a really nice walk to see water. I do like seeing water. So I’m not quite sure how much I’m going to see of that on the on the trail to Santiago but it was certainly nice to walk the Lake Trail here in Chicago.

So, that’s the training side of it, all is going well there. The walks are going well. I’ve noticed one area of my foot blisters. I think it’s because I had my shoes tied a little bit too tightly at the front of the shoe which left not a lot of room, sort of like width in the shoes, so the side of my foot. So it’s an unusual place for my feet to blister, if my feet blisters it’s usually somewhere around the toe area or the heel area. But this was literally on the side of my foot and it’s just because I’ve tied my shoes too tight. I think they’re at the front of the shoe so I’m putting a little bit more slack in the laces to make sure that I’ve got a little bit more width there in the shoe but that should be totally fine.

And other than just feeling that I’ve walked twenty one plus kilometers (21 km+), my body is responding really well, so that’s optimistic. And from all of the rest, I had a good run doing a lot of research into equipment. I’ve now bought a pack, I’ve bought a tent, I’ve bought a sleeping bag, I already have a sleeping mat. Yeah, there are all sorts of equipment that I’ve bought now and I’m having delivered to Rotterdam.

The podcast distribution is going well too. This morning I got the confirmation that the podcast will be released on iTunes today as well as Google Play. The Web site is going well, I’ve added an about page and I’ve added a gear list page. So if you’re interested in the things I’m taking with me, please go ahead and visit the website digimaddays.com and click on the gear list so you can see what I’m taking with me. Other than, of course, you know, the post with the information are there on the website but if you want to find out a little bit more about the things I’m taking with me and I’ll be linking out to product pages so that you can have a look at them in detail. But I’ll also be listing; sort of like the weights and see how much in weight I’m actually taking with me in the end. So that’ll all be on there.

I’ve created an about page which now just has a tiny little bit of information. But, as I go I’m actually hoping that possibly I’ll get some questions from listeners and maybe I can use that to inform sort of like the about page maybe with an FAQ type style question and answer or anything like that.

So, yeah I feel like even though I haven’t recorded in a while. That’s not to say at all that anything had gone awry. In fact I feel like I’ve been doing quite well in preparations and keeping up with my schedule and researching gear and working on the website that actually yeah I was doing other things other than making recordings. But anyway that leads me to its day sort of like a rundown of everything that happened in the last 12 days.

I hope this was interesting for you to listen to I’ll be doing another walk. So this was a walk, usually I do longer walks on the weekends but this weekend we’ll be traveling in the weekend. After that we’ll be traveling as well and then the third day after that we’ll be traveling to Rotterdam so the next two weeks are a little bit erratic when it comes to scheduling some of my some of my training days.

The muscle training days as well as the walks. So I’m trying to get my walks in because I know that Friday, Saturday, Sunday are going to be a little bit less predictable. So that’s why I’ve done such a long walk today and I will be doing another walk this week it may be as soon as tomorrow
So if I’ll do I might do a brief recording about that as well. But if I don’t then you’re likely to hear me again next week.

If you have any questions or suggestions I would love to hear from you on the website or possibly iTunes or Google Play anywhere where this podcast can be found. All right, hope this was interesting and have a lovely rest of your day.

Talk to you soon. Bye

 

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The episode in which I talk about the past two walks and fears about my shin complaint abate.

My Progress

Audio Transcript

Hi, welcome to the Foot Pilgrim podcast. I’m Victoria and I’m an Aspiring Pilgrim.
Today is Thursday, May 3rd. It’s been a while since I spoke to you last which was last week, Wednesday. I had just completed a speed walk and was doing a recording about that. So, usually I would have spoken to you again on Sunday, but I was ill that Saturday.

So, I didn’t do my work out for Saturday, and I had a schedule already planned for Sunday. So, I did the Saturday muscle workout on the Sunday and then moved my walk to Monday which was a bit of a hectic day. So I didn’t do the recording then. The walk on Monday was a two and half hour at pace walk with my backpack on. Which to be honest, because I wasn’t well on Saturday, and then had a busy day on Sunday also getting into the muscle workout and then doing a two and a half hour walk on a walking day which I usually reserve for a weekend day. That was rough I’ll be honest. Two and a half hours with a pack, was the first time I did that distance as well. So it was a nice day. It was it was warm and I think spring had started here in Chicago definitely. So it was challenging it was still flat terrain. I walked most of the 606 and then a tiny little loopback to get home. Now it’s not something I would have not done or might have gone any better if I felt really well. I mean it’s just the first time that I’ve walked with my 20 pounds or 10 kilo backpack and for that sort of a distance.

So that was interesting. And for the past week I’ve done my workouts as usual. And then last night I did a speed walk of 60 Minutes. So that was an interesting one as well because if you recall on the last recording I was talking about my 45 minute speed walk which triggered well… Which was a bit of a challenge to my shin muscle. I talked about an injury that I’ve had 12 years ago and I was a little bit concerned that the speed I was walking was challenging the muscles or the tendons or even the shin bone itself. And I did a speed walk again yesterday which was longer with 60 Minutes this time. And it started much in the same way where I felt my shins within a few minutes of doing that at speed walk. However, interestingly, around about the 20 minute mark I was wondering whether the sensation in my shins was not good and maybe I should go back to normal speed and talk to my trainer about it. But then, promptly about 10 minutes later, the sensation melted away and for the last half hour of the walk I could actually walk at speed and didn’t have much trouble at all.

So I spoke to my trainer about it and next time I do a speed walk I’ll have to really be aware of the sensation I’m feeling to be able to define it a little better. So my trainer said that any aches that are you know like dull in pain and maybe something like a muscle burn are perfectly fine. It just means that the muscles are being challenged and they need to strengthen. And everything that feels like a dull ache maybe like a slight muscle ache the way you would feel the day after a hard workout, anything that is a burn which is a symptom of lactic acid in a muscle is perfectly fine. And that is actually a signal that the muscle being challenged and hopefully they’ll get stronger by doing that. Anything that feels like pins and needles or sharp pain that’s a bad thing. So in my head for the last two speed walks I’ve been describing the pain as pins and needles just because that was what the original injury felt like. And that is just a term that has stuck with me. But to be honest, because of this last walk where I walked for 60 Minutes and I had the shin sensation for the first 30 but then promptly it sort of melted away and my muscles adjusted or muscles tendons shinbone whatever it was that was feeling around that area.

I’ll have to make sure that next time I do a speed walk which is not coming up very soon, probably in a couple of weeks, I’ll have to see what exactly the sensation is. And hopefully it’s more of a burn ache and not pins and needles and hopefully this is just challenging my muscles and they’ll be getting stronger.
Yeah so, the Monday walk last week or this week was challenging because it was a two and a half hour walk with a with my ten kilo (10 kg) pack which I hadn’t done before. And then the speed walk for 60 minutes with the shin aches again. So all in all, it’s been an eventful week, physically speaking.

So today’s Thursday I’ve done a workout tomorrow, I have got a rest day and then this weekend I’ll have a three and a half hour at Pace walk without a pack so I’m not expecting too much issue there. I received in the mail a kick starter product that I supported. Which is the Shape Flexer. Which is a hat designed especially for outdoors hiking and those type of activities. So I’m very excited to try out my Shape Flexer for my walk this weekend.
Then another thing I think is great is that at the end of this week I will have wrapped up six weeks of training. I have a 12 week training plan. So by the end of this week I’ll actually be halfway through my training plan and looking forward into the second half of this training plan. I’m not going to be walking by time or by walk duration but actually all of the data that we’ve gotten for the first six weeks are now going to be changed into setting my goals at a distance school rather than on a time or duration goal for the walks. So that will be interesting. I can focus on walking the distance rather than walking the time.

The thing that frustrated me sometimes a little bit was that, especially for the speed walks, I was trying to maintain a good average speed but I was walking in an urban environment. So it meant that I was having to avoid or evade or run through orange or yellow lights pedestrian lights that were you know don’t work or blinking just to make sure that I kept walking and I kept walking at speed. Now of course that’s because I was limited to a walk for a certain amount of time but now I’m going to distance, that will be easier. I don’t have to pull tricks like that, constantly crossing the street just because that’s the green light and I feel like I have to keep walking at a certain pace. So, yeah, going into distance goals will be interesting.

Also I’ll be going down to one rest day a week. So far I’ve had two rest days a week but most of the weeks going forward. So after this weekend, most of the weekends are going to have double walk days where I’m going to have two training walks on the weekend. So I’m going up from two walks a week (that is) two training walks to three training walks a week mostly with two walks on the weekend and only one rest day.

So that will be the last six weeks and of course the distance is going to increase. The number of times I walk with my pack is going to increase. I’m also going to be walking with what’s considered a heavy pack, which is…So I’m hoping that I’ll be around 10 kilos or 20 pounds worth of baggage with me. But I am also going to be doing a couple of walks with a 15 kilo or 30 pound bag just to make sure that if I do have more weight than I expect at the moment or maybe if I need to pack an extra couple days provisions if we going through stretch that doesn’t have a lot of towns or villages to resupply. Just to make sure that my body has walked with a heavier pack and make sure that my body will tolerate that as well.

So that’s coming up for the next six weeks. Fewer rest days, more days walking, longer distances and more pack walks and even like heavy pack days. So that will be interesting. I haven’t done anything in the way of trying to get this podcast up anywhere else in my head. I feel like I should be. Well certainly I should do that. But in my head I am also thinking that I should be populating the website with more information. I want to create an about page. I want to create a gear list page with some of the things that I already have, with some of the information about all of the items that I would be bringing with me. But also to have a mental list of the things that I feel like I want to bring with me but I haven’t purchased yet. So a gear list will be a combination of the things I already have and I’ll bring it with me as well as just a mental note-to-self of the items that I want to bring with me.

So over the next few days, probably not before I talk to you again, because my next walk is going to be in two days so I probably won’t have made any progress on that yet. But that’s the goal for the next couple of days and of course with that looking into all of the equipment that I still need.

So I think that’s it for this week’s check in. And thank you for listening as always if you have any suggestions or questions feel free to contact me through the website or comments on wherever you find the podcast.
Alright, thank you very much for listening in and I hope to catch you again soon.

Have a great day. Bye

 

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The episode in which I re-record yesterday’s terrible audio quality.

My Progress

Audio Transcript

Hello. Welcome to the Foot Pilgrim podcast. I’m Victoria and I’m an aspiring Pilgrim.
Today is Thursday, April 26th. This was meant to be the recording of my training walk yesterday on April, 25th, but unfortunately the audio quality was not good enough and I’ve chosen to rerecord it. So, I’m not walking today I’m sitting outside my apartment building just enjoying the Spring weather, but I thought I would record it outside as usual.

Yesterday was a training walk. It was a short duration, higher speed walk. So it was 45 minutes walking at a walking speed over and above what I would usually pace at. This was interesting because, when I did that for 45 minutes my body reminded me of an old shin injury. I had a pretty bad case of shin splints over a decade ago. That was 12 years ago now.

I started training, well, I started running I didn’t really started training for anything in particular but I thought I would try to see whether running would suit me as a means of exercise. And I got a couple weeks into running. You know, when you’ve never run before you start to slowly increase the time that you run interspersed with time of walking). So, I got to, I think it was around twenty two, twenty three minutes (22 – 23 min) of continuous running. And then I got shin splints. So, as far as I know it’s been a while, but as far as I know shin splints is an injury where there are micro fractures in your shinbone and it’s the fractions that are causing the discomfort. It’s always felt like pins and needles on my shinbone to me.

So when I was walking at a higher than usual pace yesterday, I was reminded of that shin injury. It wasn’t painful, but it was the pins and needles sensation again. When I got the shin splints 12 years ago, it actually took a year and a half for me not to feel it, when I was just walking at my usual pace. I could not run for a couple of months straight. So, whenever I actually ran, maybe sprint for the bus I felt a shin splints. And it took me a good year and a half not to feel it, when I was walking on a regular pace.

Now, I have noticed in the last 10 years I guess since healing from that injury that, if I do walk at a higher than usual pace I do feel the pins and needles sensation but it’s not a lasting sensation. I feel it while I’m walking at that high pace, but then as soon as I stop it abates, and I don’t feel it when I walk again or even at routine walks up on my normal pace, I don’t feel it. It’s just that when I’m really straining my body to go at a high speed is when I feel that.

So, the training walk yesterday brought out that sensation again. So I’ll be discussing that with my personal trainer. I think there’s a few more speed walks in there. I’m not too concerned about it because, I’m going to be walking slower when I’ve got my backpack on. And I don’t necessarily see any reason for us to really exert ourselves beyond our usual walking pace which is fairly high as it is.

I’m a tall person. I might not have mentioned this but, I’m six foot (6ft) tall, and my dad is even taller. I think he might have been six- five, six-six in feet (6ft 5in, to 6ft 6in), when he was a young man. He’s a little older now so he might have shrunk a bit. I don’t know what his height is at the moment. He couldn’t have shrunk that much even if he has. But yes so we are tall people and our walking pace is quite high as it is. So I don’t necessarily see any reason why we would push ourselves beyond our usual hiking pace. But, having said that, these exercises, these training days are designed to see what the limits are, of my physical strength and maybe try and circumvent some issues that are going to crop up in the form of injuries with the repeated strain of walking six days a week for a long period of time each day.

So the fact that I can feel my shin splints when I’m pushing myself beyond my usual pace might be an indicator that, you know my shin splints might return just with the sheer exertion on my body from the six days a week, extended amount of time. So, I’m definitely going to discuss that with my personal trainer. Although, I don’t foresee it to be a problem in my training schedule in and of itself. We might be incorporating something to see if that can improve before we leave. So that’s the physical side.

I’ve done my usual training exercises, muscle development exercises in the meantime. And that’s all going well. The repeats are improving, the numbers of repeats I can do are improving, and I am going to higher resistance. I’m working with resistance bands because, I’m moving about from place to place sometimes. So I don’t go to a regular gym location. I have resistance bands, and I do my exercise routine at home. So my resistance is increasing with stronger bands or with an increased number of bands. So, that’s all going well.

On the technology side, I have now actually produced podcasts. So whereas; these before were just voice recordings and I was preparing the website. I’ve now got the website up and running. I still need to create some additional pages by the website. I like the current look of the website for now, and I have recorded an intro and outro and I’ve put that to music. So, that’s ready to go. So the last three recordings, I’ve stitched together these intros and outros onto the actual voice recording and publish them on the website as three individual posts with a little overview from my Garmin GPS watch.

And since yesterday’s recording, (yesterday’s recording that will never air), I was talking about the fact that I had also applied to become a content partner on Stitcher and submit the podcast to Stitcher and I was hopeful that that was going to come through and it did. This afternoon I got approved to distribute this podcast on Stitcher. So there are three episodes up on Stitcher right now. And as soon as I’m done recording here I’m going to take this and mix this together with the intro and the outro, post it up the on the website and then see how long it takes for Stitcher to pick it up. Hopefully that’ll be a matter of hours possibly up to a day. I’m not quite sure how quickly that’s going to go. But I’m pretty happy with that. It’s something I’ve done a long while ago but I haven’t done any sort of audio processing in a while. So I’m pretty pleased with the intro, the outro how it’s come together and the fact that I’ve managed to put a podcast together as well as get it distributed on Stitcher.

So that’s all progressing very well, in my opinion. I think the next couple of weeks will be more focused on gear. I’m going to be looking at some hyper light gear, to reduce the weight that I’m going to be carrying. I’m missing some key pieces of equipment that I need to acquire most notably I need to purchase a tent and some other pieces like that. So that’s going to be the next phase of operations. To do research, read some information that I need to gather.

There are some interesting books actually in the house that I want to read. There’s one book called “Fix Your Feet” which I’m interested to read because there’s sure going to be plentiful, helpful tips in there to do with any sort of feet issues that you can have on the road. So I’m going to be reading about feet while researching tents and other things of interest.

Anyway I think that was the update since last I spoke. And the next one is planned for Sunday again so hopefully I’ll have some more news and updates for you.

So thank you for listening. If you have any suggestions or questions feel free to head over to the Web site or otherwise get in touch with me wherever you find me. So currently that also Stitcher. I’m looking forward to possibly breaking the news soon that, I’ve also managed to get the podcast up on possibly, iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and those other avenues I’m also going to be pursuing when it comes to distribution.

So thank you for listening. I hope this was helpful informative. And I hope that you’ll tune in again for a future episode.

Have a great day. Bye.

 

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The episode where I didn’t bring any snacks.

My Progress

Audio Transcript

Hi, this is Victoria! I’m an aspiring pilgrim. Welcome to the Foot Pilgrim podcast by digimaddays.com.

Today is April 22, 2018. It’s a Sunday and I am on a training walk. I guess I say that a lot of these recordings and I will be saying that for a while since I’m only recording on the walking days. Hopefully, when we get onto the road, I will be recording every day that we will be walking. Only I won’t be indicating it as a training day. Then, the recording will be on the walking days that are for real.

So today is a clear sky. It’s not too warm in Chicago, Illinois. I will be here until the end of May until I go back to Rotterdam. A couple of weeks before we go. But today here in Chicago, it’s a clear day. A few wispy clouds, not too much. Temperature is around 10-12 degrees Celsius. It’s cooling down since it’s probably around 5 pm at the moment. But the sun is out and I’m going to have to be mindful to spray some sunscreen on me before I go.

Today, I’m walking a three-hour walk. I’m currently 2h 21m 32s in and I’ve just come to the exit that I would usually take. When I say the exit I usually take, I’m referring to the 606 walk, which is an elevated decommissioned commuter train track that runs all the way into, well, not all the way into the city. But it’s about two and a half miles long and I walk to it from my apartment in Chicago in about 25 minutes. Then it’s about two and a half miles of an uninterrupted walkway, which is very nice to walk these training walks because I don’t have to mind the traffic. Well, I have to mind the traffic on the 606, which on days like this can be heavy. But at least I don’t have to mind any motor vehicle traffic, which you always have to do when you’re a pedestrian.

But I’ve just walked past the exit I would usually take to head back, but that would get me home with about four minutes short on my walk, so I’m walking two minutes out from that exit and then looping back. That’ll be happening in about a half minute or so. So that I can take the exit and head home.

But yeah, so, sunscreen, this is a three-hour walk. I’ve done a two-hour walk, or at least I had a two-hour training scheduled. I was zoning out on that particular walk, so I actually walked two hours and twenty minutes on that particular one, but this is the furthest training walk I’ve done and the longest one in this training schedule.

Today, it’s been okay. My body really didn’t want to walk today. I’m still doing it though, which is perfectly acceptable. I’m not having obvious signs of discomfort, it’s just that my body is a little hesitant to walk today, which is perfectly fine. I’m going to have those days too. So, my body was feeling a little fatigued when I got about a half an hour in, which is unusual, but it happens, and it’ll happen on the road. This is a nice initial day to encounter that and it’s early on in the training, so I can get some mental training done too. Not just the physical part of it.

So, what else have I done this week? Or since Wednesday, I think was my last recording. So, I’ve done a metabolic training session, which is more like cardio fitness as you would do in a gym to get my heart rate up and my heart training. I’ve done muscle training, which focuses a lot on the glutes and thighs, traps and other shoulder and upper arm strength. That’s, of course, where I’ll be carrying my pack. In my exercise history, I really haven’t done much of a focus on upper body training. So that is something I certainly cannot disregard. I’m preparing to carry a backpack, which I hope will come out around 20 pounds or 10 kilos. So that’s on the training schedule twice a week to do. Then, today is a training walk. So that’s the physical preparation I’ve done.

In the realm of getting prepared with my digital life, I sorted out the electronics last week so that I can get my data off of the Garmin GPS watch that I have directly onto my phone and backed up into the cloud. So that’s taken care of, but my digital life needed a little work to actually get that aligned and distributed. I’ve worked on my website, digamaddays.com. That’s going to be the host for the Foot Pilgrim Podcast. So that website is now in a spot that I like, and also through freemusicarchive.com, I’ve found some music that I think will work really well as an introduction to the podcast. I’ve sorted that out.

I’ve written the intro for the podcast and the outro for the podcast, so hopefully tomorrow, I’ll record that and mix it together so that I’ve got the mixed files ready to be mixed with each individual voice live recording. I should have three now. So, I’ll be able to mix that together and save the intro and outro with each individual episode. Mix those together, so have those files ready to go.

Then it’s a question of sorting out the platform I’m going to distribute through. At the moment, I’m thinking about iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud and of course, the website. So, I’ll do the mixing probably tomorrow and hopefully at the beginning of next week, I might have it distributed. Then, hopefully, I’ll be able to report back on that on Wednesday.

I’m not sure what else to report about. I’m walking back down Humboldt Boulevard back towards Bloomingdale Avenue. For the next long walk, I’ve noticed that I need to make sure I’ve got a snack with me. If it’s sunny, I need to make sure that I’ve got a hat and some sunscreen to make sure that I don’t start to burn. It doesn’t feel like I’m burnt right now, but I very well could’ve been if I’d been walking in the sun this whole time, or at least facing the sun this whole time, which I haven’t been, fortunately.

The Netherlands isn’t a place where you get a chance of sunburn very easily in the spring, but Chicago definitely is. I guess the ozone layer might be a little bit thinner here or something to do with the location on earth may make it a little closer to the sun, so it can the UV index might be a little higher here than I’m used to in my native country. But I noticed this last year on walks. I need to really think about getting some sunscreen on me before I go and taking a snack because of course, I had breakfast this morning, but that was a while ago and I could’ve done with a granola bar on this walk. Nothing serious though. It’s just one of those things I noticed when I’m on a training walk getting up to this duration.

[Sound of sirens in the background] There’s an ambulance approaching. My apologies for the sirens.

But yeah, that’s a lesson. It’s not critical for today. Walking with just water and my cardio book to listen to give me some diversion. On walk going forward as we go towards summer, it’s definitely something I’ll be bringing.

Alright, I think that’s it for my report. So, everything’s still going well. Everything’s on track. I don’t have a lot of physical issues yet. I think this rounds out week four of my training program which is 12 weeks long. Next week, we’re also going to be looking into nutrition to make sure that my body gets the food it needs to cope with the training program and then hopefully after that is life on the road. So, you’ll have that to look forward to if you happen to enjoy this chattering that I do. So that’s a little preview of what’s coming.

But for now, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for following along, and as usual, if you have any questions or suggestions or any other things you would like me to talk about, perhaps planning your own walk or just curious, let me know any way you can reach me. Comments on the website and any other way you can find to reach me, I’d be happy to chat and perhaps you’ll give me some inspiration for future episodes.

Alright, signing off today. Thank you for listening and hope to talk to you soon. Bye!

 

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The episode where I was happy the previous attempt at an intro episode was finally good enough to distribute.

My Progress

Audio Transcript

Hi, this is Victoria. Welcome to the Foot Pilgrim podcast by digimaddays.com.

Today is Wednesday April 18th and I am on this rainy walk in Chicago, Illinois. Today I’m walking a one and half hour duration walk. On flat road surface at my usual pace and with a backpack containing the weight that I think I’m going to be taking on the road. I do a variation of different training walks and those are the parameters of this particular one.

Every time I’m on a training walk I’ll give you the parameters of what variation of walk I’m doing. That particular voice log. So today is a pack walking day.I’ve only done one of these before. I’m using an Osprey bag that is already in the household. To be honest it fits me quite well I did measure my back, the way you’re supposed to measure it for backpacks. And this backpack is exactly the size it should be for my torso height, torso length. Which is 19 and a half inches.
And it fits comfortably of course when you’re starting to walk with a 10 kilo or 20 pounds backpack first couple of times there’s always going to be fatigue spots. But that’s. Just because my body is used to it. In and of itself this backpack actually fits pretty well. And I’ve loaded it down with bottles and cartons filled with water which isn’t the best way to load it for training walks but I don’t have most of the equipment yet that I’ll be walking with so this is the only way that I can load the backpack. To the weight that I think I’m going to be carrying approximately. The downside of this way of doing it and not having my equipment yet is that of course all the weight is going to be stuck to the bottom. Whereas the top off, the middle and the top of the backpacks is almost empty. So all of the weight really is sitting on my hips. And I don’t necessarily get that slight bit of weight that would sit higher in the backpack once I’ve actually got it fully packed with equipment.You but this will do for now.

Today is a great day. As they say I’m Dutch, we like talking about the weather. My meteorology apps and websites tell me it’s just above freezing. But I’m walking comfortably with spring’s, spring padded, lining jacket of mine. Hiking jacket that I tend to wear in winter so I’m just wearing a lining jacket. And my gloves and my. And of course this will be enough to keep me warm because I’m moving for an hour and a half with ten kilos my back.

So today is quite pleasant I decided to go in the morning because or you know around midday anyway. Because there’s some rain predicted and even though I’m going to have to get used to walking in the rain, I don’t really want to force it yet if I don’t have to. So rather than walk in the late afternoon before dinner or after dinner I decide to do it now before the rain might set in at around 2:00 p.m. here today.

I’m recording on a new phone and a new app using the same microphone I did last week. I was very happy to see that the microphone actually works really well. And I didn’t have to do another test of a another test run, another go at recording an introductory episode. So the one that I recorded on sunday is going to be officially episode number one. And this hopefully will officially be episode number 2.

So I’ve switched to a phone which is Samsung Galaxy J7 prime. A little bit of a change from the Apple products that I’m a fan of and have been using for years. The reason why I did that is because the Apple phones do not come with the ability to transfer ANT+ file data or ANT+ data. I don’t think it’s the file extension, I think it’s the data language. So I switched to a make and model phone that has and plus capability natively built into the iOS of the phone. Which means that I can have apps on my phone that can communicate directly to my Garmin GPS wristwatch and get the data transfer directly from the watch to the phone without notes and bring in these sort of dongles and N-stick that I would have to bring if I stuck with my iOS device.

So I’m getting used to a new phone and I also bought this new recording App that I’m using right now. From memory It’s called RecForge II Pro and it will allow me to record and do some basic editing. Some normalization and do some noise reduction. The developer of the app tells me I should be able to upload it directly to dropbox store services possibly. Even directly to a podcast service.

So I’m testing this new app and hopefully the sound quality will be good enough to use this on the road. So there are quite a few, quite a few new things since last time I’m at the end of my training walk in fact. Our 20 minutes I think, yes! And now we’re 20 minutes, should walk for another 10 minutes. Probably need to do an extra lap around the block. Because it will take me 10 minutes to get back home from where I am currently. Which is kind of sad because it just started to rain. So that means I’ll Get 10 minutes of rain before I’m home. It’s okay though It’s not raining that hard and once I get home, I don’t need to go anywhere for awhile. It could possibly change if I get very wet you shouldn’t think so.

So yes, I walked last Sunday because you heard and then on Monday I did my usual muscle development routine. Yesterday was a rest day.
Sorry for the breeze I just turned the corner. The building I was Walking behind was blocking the wind. So yesterday was a rest day today is a walking day. Tomorrow’s another fitness exercise day but it’ll be Metabolic conditioning so it will be much more like a cardio session than muscle development session. Then I think I have a rest day on Friday. And then another muscle development session on Sunday and then a walk again Sunday. So It will probably be Sunday when you hear me again. Hopefully by that time I will have figured out how to record an intro, record an outro. And be able to stitch that together with these voice like recordings. And actually get it up on a podcasting service. Possibly iTunes, Spotify, some cloud any service that will take me really. Of course I need to do some work on the website as well. I’ve got a digimaddays.com domain we’ve got work rest installed on it. There’s a basic theme on there now that I won’t have to change or update to make it prettier than what it is now. And I’ll also be uploading the data from my Garmin as well as these recordings and post them up there in the direction posting the podcasts episodes to the podcasting services.
So that’s my goal for the rest of the week until Sunday. So my next first log recording to get the website theme updated. To get my Garmin data on there as Individual posts of the day. Left on walks beginning with the first one [unintelligible]. Half of these up on the podcast in two weeks.

Well If you happen to stumble upon this, must have already done that and I would love to hear any suggestions or questions or thoughts you might want to share with me. I’m nearing home and as I predicted, I’m at 1h 24m 58s. So I should do another run around the block before I get to go inside to get my distance in. But for today I’ll be signing off. Thank you for listening. I hope to catch you again in the future. Bye.

 

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The episode in which I prove my point to never trust any numbers I give you by misremembering the distance between Rotterdam and Santiago de Compostela. Which, for the record, is roughly 1900 km or 1200 miles.

My Progress

Audio Transcript

Hi, this is Victoria, digimaddays.com. Thank for listening to this episode, the first in the series where I’m going to be a taking you through my journey of becoming a pilgrim.

I am on a training walk. Today is Sunday, April 15. I am currently walking in Chicago, Illinois and it is cold out. I am Victoria from the Netherlands. I am not a native speaker. So I am going to be making some language errors along the way as everybody does, but conveniently I have an excuse to. Just blame it on the fact that I am not an English native speaker. And also I will be giving you some update here and there just general information about things that I am doing. And in my “Europeaness” I will be giving you these updates in Celsius temperature (⁰C), and kilometres (km), kilometres an hour (km/hr). I will probably do some quick calculations in my head to try and adjust it back to Fahrenheit (⁰F), and miles (M) and miles and hr (Mph) but I am doing this on the fly, I am not very good at math so I will probably be making mistakes here and there so any numbers I do give you throughout the course of these recording if they are in Fahrenheit (⁰F) or miles just take them with a grain of salt.

So you might have understood before you started listening to this recording that I am an Aspiring Pilgrim. I am training to do a pilgrimage from my hometown which is Rotterdam the Netherlands to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Now we do not know exactly how long the trip is going to be, how far it is going to be in distance because, well, everybody who knows if they want to navigate from Rotterdam to Spain they are going to go South. But when you are doing it on foot, you don’t necessarily know the exact route you are going to be taking. Whereas when you are doing it by car, you will most likely be taking the motorways and Google Maps can plan it out for you. There are maps of the historical pilgrim routes that we will be following but this does not mean that we are not going to take any detours. It doesn’t even mean we are going to know exactly which route we are going to be taking when we actually start off.

So Google Maps tells me that, to get from Rotterdam in the Netherlands, to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, is roughly a distance of about 2500 kilometers or roughly, possibly, 1700 miles. But as I said, this is only what Google Maps tells me and is only as accurate as any journey by car, if you don’t take any sort of detours. And this is interesting enough to know, but we are just going to keep a ball park informational idea that our trip might be of a similar distance. So, I am currently walking in Chicago, Illinois and I will be doing part of the preparations trip in Rotterdam in the Netherlands as well and in any other location that I might be stopping in between now and when we set off.

So today is April 15th on Sunday, I have been training on and off and I will be telling you about that in later episodes. This is just meant more like an introductory episode. So I started the voice log because people I know tell me that I need to document this trip, if not for anybody else then just for myself. But at the same time I thought that if I was documenting this then, perhaps, this would be useful for other people as well.

So I am not, a trained media person. In fact I have a very different background I have never made a voice log before let alone published it as a podcast or something of that sort. I have done some l blogging but I am terrible at keeping any sort of consistency with those type of projects. So this is going to be an additional challenge for me. I feel like I want to probably share some of this while I am on the road and that is why I am deciding to keep this voice log.

[Very Loud Sirens in the Background; Fire Engine type of siren]

As you might have noticed in the first few minutes of this voice log, I am walking through a decidedly urban environment here. Since we are walking from Netherlands to Spain, we will be walking pretty much in an urbanized area, North-western and South-western Europe. So occasionally you will hear people around me in this recording. Occasionally you might hear dogs barking in houses that I am walking past. You will be hearing cars and trucks and sirens and other things. Anything that I hear around me, you hear around me. I do have a microphone on me with a little, a little film thing that is supposed to be reducing, the noise, the wind, anything that could hamper with this recording. In all honestly this is actually the fifth recording that I have made and hopefully this is the last time I’ll have to optimize this process to actually obtain some usable material. So hopefully this is the first episode, but it might also be the second trial of an introductory episode that might need another trial of an introductory episode, but I digress.

The point to this was that, I want to warn that this is a voice log that is recorded on the road and it will be largely unedited. I am trying to reduce the number of “uhmms”, and stutters and generally, odd things that come out of the mouth when a brain is trying to find a word and it can’t produce as it quickly as the mouth wants it to produce so therefore the mouth the produces some sort of filler sound. So I am trying to avoid those, and I might be speaking in a bit of a slower cadence than I am used to because of that fact. Because I am not a trained media person as I said, so I doing this for the first time. I am learning to do this as I go and while on the road I will have very limited access to technology. I will be bringing with me a pair of headphones, my Smartphone, this microphone. I will be bringing with me a GPS enabled monitoring wrist watch. I am… Oh; I have just walked in to a very soggy area of a park. I am trying to extricate myself out of. That might not be the best way either.

Ok. Yes. So I will have limited amount of technology with me which also means that you will not be receiving a professionally produced podcast. This is going to be a real life, on the road, series of recordings, that are going to have very minimal editing. I have looked into some apps that I can use to record a process plus material I am recording and I can do a minimal some noise reduction and silence reduction and features like that but I will not be going back through the recording and editing out voice or sentences. So every word that you hear are words that I actually produced live while I was work….walking not working. Walking. I know my training walk is preparation while actually walking on the pilgrim route. So fair warning, this might get real.

If you are still with me over the course of these voice logs. I will be talking through my preparation which still has about 10 to 12 weeks to go and we are hoping to set off the end of June, beginning early July 2018 and I will be recording on my training schedule up to that point. Any sort of resources, any sort of research I have done, any sort of products that I bought to have with me on the road, tested, possibly tested and decided not to take with me on the road. I haven’t had that yet but that may very well happen as well and just some general information about what the day is like. I’m a Dutch person after all, so while I’m doing these training walks I might start off with a weather report because I think that, I think it might be something the Dutch and the British have in common-we really, really like to talk about the weather. So today is a very great day in Chicago. It’s actually warmer than I thought it was going to be. We had some snow this morning but it seems to have melted away a little bit. And now it’s just soggy everywhere.

So I hope that this voice log is informational and even interesting. Perhaps you are planning a walk yourself. Perhaps you would like to do the walk or perhaps you are not physically able to do it. Or perhaps you don’t have the opportunity to do it because of other factors. May be career, may be family, may be finances, and may be you are listening to this for that reason. So if through this voice log, precariously and learn about the scenery that you would find if you would do the Foot Pilgrimage from Rotterdam in the Netherlands to Santiago de Compostela in Spain at a Walking Pace. The scenery will glide by very slowly and possibly that’s what you are doing on a foot pilgrimage like this, to slow down to have time to contemplate, to have time to discover some of our own truths. Truths not truce, truths, on this journey and hopefully find some personal growth along the road.

So whatever the reason is that you are listening to this voice log, I hope you take something away from it. I hope you will excuse me for the days that I will be walking through a busy urban environments and you having to strain your ears to hear me above the traffic or the sirens or perhaps you are having to pull ear buds out of your ears because the background noise was just too loud. Or perhaps I’m walking down the road, down the path and poof, fall flat on my face. I’m a fairly clumsy person, and so at some point I’m foreseeing that I might get myself into harm’s way and hopefully it would be only as bad as tripping on a tree root and hopefully it won’t happen when I am in the middle of a recording. Whereas that might be very entertaining for you to listen to, it might also cause me to swear out loud and in that case I hope you will excuse that as well.
So excuse me for everything that is bound to happen in the weeks ahead of us and I sincerely hope that we are going to start on this walking trip. At this point and time I take every day as it comes and I am doing my training schedule. I’m preparing as best as I can, but injury is fairly likely, so I hope there is not any injury before we are going to start off. But it might, and I hope that one day in the future, in the next 5 to 6 months, I will be walking through the doors of the church in Santiago de Compostela, signifying the end of the trip. But I’m taking it one day at a time, and injury might prevent us from actually making it that far.

And now that leads me to tell you that when I say “Us”, I’m referring to my father and myself. We will be going on this trip together. He is a fairly experienced long distance walker or longer distance walker. He has done multiple day hikes; he has done a continuance endurance hike. He has done a few things like this, but he has not attempted a long distance hike of this magnitude. So we are both preparing for it and we are setting off on this journey together and I am very sure that you will be hearing about my experiences and you will be hearing about his experiences through me in these voice recordings.

Great! I feel like I have touched upon most things I wanted to say in this introductory episode. I will probably try and keep these recordings at about maybe 15 minutes. I don’t want to over load you with information but I also don’t want to get boring and repetitive so I feel like I shouldn’t want to explain everything in one go and they will be plenty material to talk about in the next recording if I pace myself and try to keep these recordings to a certain length of time.

So this first introductory episode is a probably long enough for me. If there is anything you would like to share, if you have any suggestions, if you have any questions, or if there is anything in particular you want me to talk about or just want to say hallo, then I hope to see you at digimadays.com or anywhere else online where you can find me. You will have a fair chance of me responding while I’m still in this training period whereas that might be less so when we are actually setting off.

So thank you for listening, I hope this was informational as well as enjoyable to listen to and I hope that you might be joining us again in the future to see how we are doing. Let me just let that car pull up on the stop light.
And with that I am signing off, Victoria, currently in Chicago, Illinois. Have a great Sunday. Bye.