Leaving Pamplona. Heading to Puente de Reina. I stayed at a Marriott last night and got a great night’s sleep. I took a cab back to the point I stopped yesterday, in front of the Cathedral in Pamplona. It was a little rainy when I started, but it cleared up once I started to climb the mountain.
I’m beginning to realize this trip, for me, is as much about pain as it is about the thoughts in my head. Not so much emotional pain, but physical pain.
The mornings are filled with questions:
Do I need a new bandaid on the blister?; Do I need to protect my heel again?; How many uphill sections will there be?; Are they steep?; How many downhill sections will there be?; Are they steep?;What hurts now?; Is it worse or better than yesterday?
Then I start waking. The immediate questions of pain and well-being return. Toes, feet, knees, hips, the back, even the neck are all questioned. But, what I have started to realize is that it doesn’t matter. I keep waking. Today, my right knee started out sore. It had no problem yesterday. But from the start it had a hitch today. No matter.
I had to summit a 3,000 foot mountain today. The leg and muscle pain would be immense. I measured the uphill sections in a quantifiable sum of pain. Still had to traverse them. No bother.
The downhill sections of the same mountain were brutal on the newly tender knee, especially the rocky, lose trail sections. Still had to go down. No problem.
The worst and hardest to endure pain for me is the foot pain. After the first 5 miles, it begins to seep into the arches. Then the heels. Possibly the actual tops. Finally at around 13 miles, the most unbearable: the balls of my feet. They burn with soreness. Almost like a blister is forming, but just intense, throbbing soreness. The kind where I try to step on a rock at just the right location under foot so that it might massage one point and lessen the pain for the instant of contact between the boot and the stone.
For me, this pain is unable to be ignored. I want to stop when I can find a rock, stump, log, or even a trail marker that is tall enough to sit on to disconnect my feet from the earth. These pauses can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 15 minutes. But they don’t do much. The pain flows back soon enough. Because of this, I have learned to put it aside. I need to walk to the next town and the pain can’t stop me.
I’m hoping tomorrow the pain starts a mile or two later.
It’s difficult to add everything I’d like to via phone, so here are some of the highlights:
That’s all for now. I need to get to bed and analyze every pain in my body so I can compare it to tomorrow.
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