Greg's Wanderings

Category: Training

The more I can walk before leaving for Portugal, the easier the transition to hiking 15+ miles per day will be.

  • Final long training hike

    Final long training hike

    Last Sunday, I met some friends for coffee at St. Honore’s bakery in Lake Oswego. On the way home, my navigation suggested a route I had never taken before and I realized that LO was much closer to my home than I had previously thought. Close enough, that I could create a training hike that would take me back to the bakery as a mid-point rest stop.

    That evening, I used a route-mapping app to create a loop that took me from my Garden Home neighborhood to Lake Oswego via Tryon Creek State Park and then back again over Mt. Sylvania along Kerr Parkway.

    The weather was overcast, but quite muggy. But without the sun blaring down on me, it made for a pleasant 16-mile adventure.

    For the past two days I have been practicing my “trail laundry” tactics. After returning from hikes and taking a shower, I’ve been hand-washing my clothes. This is to both ensure the process I intend to use works and to make sure my clothes are dry by morning when left hanging.

    From this experiment I’ve learned two lessons that will serve me well on the trail:

    1 – wash socks after everything else. The first day I tossed all my clothes into the sink together. The water immediately became murky due to the dust that my socks had picked up from four miles hiking on dirt trails.

    2 – use a micro-fiber towel to help wring out clothes. My first attempt included hand wringing each item before hanging to dry. Twelve hours later, all items were still damp and by morning the socks were still too damp to wear. So for my second attempt, after hand wringing, I laid each piece flat on top of my travel towel. I then rolled up the towel and wrung it as hard as I could. After unrolling, it appeared that the clothes had lost perhaps half of the remaining moisture, which in turn meant they were all dry by the next morning.

  • One week to go

    One week to go

    I’ve been planning my trip for so long that it feels surreal that it is now only a week away. As I write this, I’m literally exactly a week away from my departure from Heathrow to Lisbon.

    I’m definitely in the home-stretch mentality at this point. I literally have my bag completely packed with only my iPhone to be added. I have hikes planned throughout this week to test and make sure everything rides comfortably.

    I did a solo 6.5 mile hike yesterday, will hike 5 miles with my MeetUp group this morning and then have a 15-miler set for Wednesday.

    About the only thing I really feel behind on is learning some basic phrases in Portuguese and Spanish. I fully expect that I can get along with English, some pantomime and Google Translate, but I feel it is important to be able to at least attempt to speak to people in their native tongue.

    I used an AI tool to generate a list of common phrases that would be helpful to me. It produced the list and categorized them in groups such as navigation, accommodations, dining and basic pleasantries. Now, I just need to practice them.

    As part of my home stretch preparations, I did a thorough cleaning out of my refrigerator, not only removing those things that should have gone away weeks ago, but also things that will expire during my trip that I am not certain to use in the next few days.

    A tight fit, but the door will close!

    My biggest accomplishment has been cleaning out my garage sufficiently so that my car can spend the time inside and the my daughter and son-in-law can utilize the driveway during my absence. It’s a tight fit. The sensors on literally every part of the car scream warnings of impending collision as I slowly drive in. It then takes some contortionist moves to get out of the car. But it fits and the garage door will close. I’ll chalk that up as a victory.

  • My training diversion

    My training diversion

    For most of the summer, my training has focused on increasing my distance and adding the weight I expect to carry on the Camino. But for the past couple weeks, my focus turned to speed walking, as I tried to get back in shape for the annual Portland to Coast, a 126-mile relay from downtown Portland to Seaside, via a convoluted route through the coast range.

    Whereas, when I hike alone, I normally move at about 3.3 miles per hour, when racing my speed is closer to 5.2 mph (about 11.5 minutes per mile). Both hiking and race walking involve moving your legs, but there are muscles that I really didn’t work too hard while hiking longer distances that were pretty sore after some of my practices.

    For those not familiar with the P2C, teams are comprised of twelve racers spread out over two vans. The first van does the first 30-ish miles before handing off to the second van. Once Van 2 finishes their first leg, Van 1 starts their second legs. Legs range in length from just under 4 miles to near 8 miles.

    The race is capped at 400 teams (this race overlaps a running race called Hood to Coast that is longer, but follows the same course after the first 60 miles). The H2C has another 800 teams. This can make for some serious traffic jams in some tiny communities up in the coastal hills.

    My team has finished in the top two each of the past four years. We won in 2021 and 2022 and finished second in 23 and 24. Our goal this year was to beat our nemesis and finish under 24 hours. We didn’t count on daytime temperatures in the upper 90s, which lead to some slower times. We missed breaking 24 hours by less than 10 minutes and beat our rivals by over 33 minutes.

    Besides getting in some speed training, I had a chance to “field test” (pun intended) my sleeping gear for the Camino. Before the race, I think I had tested/used almost every piece of equipment I intend to take with me. But Friday night was my first time to test my eye mask and earplugs under conditions similar or worse to an alberge bunkhouse. I’m happy to report that the eye mask was perfect. I totally blocked out all light, while putting no pressure on my eyes. My earplugs were another story. We had about three hours to rest, but between the sound of generators, porta-potty doors slamming and the constant noise of road and foot traffic I got less than one hour. I am so glad I discovered the deficiency ieny of my ear plugs before leaving. I’ve ordered a pair of silicone earplugs that are supposed to reduce noise by 45 decibels. These were substantially more expensive than the six pair for a buck foam plugs, but being able to sleep through the sound of snoring neighbors will make them worth the money.

  • 20-miler

    20-miler

    Wednesday morning, I took my dog out to pee at 5 AM. It was pouring rain. I had a 20-mile hike to and from my parents house scheduled and the thought of canceling crossed my mind. Then, I remembered that it rains in Spain in Portugal too. In fact, by the time I reach Galicia, the state where Santiago is located, there’s a 50% probability on every day that there will be measurable rain. So on with the hike.

    By the time I started walking at 7 AM, it was just the typical Oregon pissing kind of rain that really never gets you wet. It’s just more of an inconvenience. 

    As the crow flies, my parents house is only about 5 1/2 miles from mine. But with a US highway, an interstate freeway and the Willamette river standing between us, you have to make some detours in order to get there.   I spent some time the day before mapping out a route on AllTrails. The route initially looked pretty good but on closer inspection, I realized I’d have to do some on-the-fly adjustments to avoid some tricky intersections and scary streets.

    While most of my training hikes have been on forested trails or in quiet residential areas, this one perhaps best replicated the types of conditions I expect to encounter in the Camino: getting from point A to point B can sometimes mean walking alongside busy roads.  

    Walking streets in Portland, Oregon is normally a pretty safe endeavor.  The city is generally pedestrian friendly, many streets have sidewalks and motorists generally try to scoot over to give you a little extra space.   

    But not all streets are created equal and there are a few that a downright frightening to walk  with non-existent shoulders around blind curves.  

    I use AllTrails as my mapping App.  It shows all the roads, the cut-through pedestrian paths, intersections with walk signals and contour lines so you have an idea about how steep the grade will be.  

    It also shows streams and helps explain why it’s impossible to get to an adjoining neighborhood without traversing at least short distances on scary roads.  

    During my 20-miler, I experienced both some of Portland’s best and worst pedestrian experiences.  The photos included here illustrate the variety of conditions. 

    One of my favorite options is a path with dedicated foot and bike lanes and a small barrier between the car lane.
    The Springwater Corridor. No cars in sight. Just watch out for the bikes speeding past.
    SW Multhomah Blvd. A five block section has this divider posts to give you some distance from cars.
    SW Palentine Hill. Very limited shoulder and only a ditch to jump into if cars get too close.
    SE 17th Avenue has a nice wide pedestrian/bike lane with a median separating from car traffic.

    The drizzle I experienced as I set off at 7 am quickly disappeared.  Aside from the occasional drop falling from a tree I made it to and from my parents place precipitation free.  I made great time and added a quarter-mile detour in Sellwood to stop at Blue Kangaroo for coffee and a pastry.  Even with the detour, I arrived at my folk’s apartment around 10:40.  

    Stopping in at Blue Kangaroo for a cold brew and berry muffin.

    I carried my full backpack and did a little show and tell of what and how I had packed.  We then had a nice lunch before I reversed course just after noon.  

    In my way home, I didn’t follow my own policy of stopping every two hours to rest my feet.   While I made it home by 3:20, I paid the price for not taking a break midway to give my feet a breather.  After a good soaking in Epsom salts, they were as good as new.