Preparation and training before the expedition

The first stage of my project can be divided into two separate parts, the physical training and pre-expedition research. As a member of Polish Association of Tourism and Travelling I have been organising and participating in regular hiking expeditions to the Tatra Mountains every summer for the past five years. Shortly before the flights to London Stansted and then Lourdes / Biarritz, I have gone on a similar hiking trip with an aim of preparing myself physically for the difficulties to be inevitably encountered during the project. Between 26th August and 31st August 2013 I have been expanding on my hiking experience in the Polish mountains. Although not perfect, the weather has not prevented me, fortunately, from doing the intended training and climbing several of the mountain peaks. When complemented by the regular jogging sessions I have been having over the summer, I have felt prepared, at least to a certain extent, for the physical challenges and hardships that I thought were around the corner. However, during my pilgrimages I have learnt that I could not have been further from the truth. Not diminishing them in any way, the physical strains of even a 10 day hiking trip are distinct from those one faces during a 40-day expedition to Lourdes, the Pyrenees and the Camino de Santiago. After visiting the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes on foot for two days, hiking in the Pyrenees for four days and walking for two or three hundred kilometres on the Camino de Santiago, your body, both, adapts to the physical challenges and is simultaneously much more sensitive to them. To give an illustration of that, when on a shorter trip, although it is still important to maintain the balance of your rucksack's weight, the lack of it will most likely not lead, with the exception of accidents, to serious physical problems. On the other hand, having covered a significant distance of the project I have learnt that a difference of even one centimetre on the stripes of the rucksack responsible for the equal balance of its weight can translate relatively quickly into physical pain. This is only one example of how much more careful a pilgrim needs to be when setting off for a longer pilgrimage. Judging from today's perspective, I would say that the training I have described and undertaken before the project has been invaluable even if not fully sufficient if one would wish to be completely prepared for the coming physical effort. Truth be told, it seems to be the case that such a sufficient training is hard to be fully achieved before the expedition unless one replicates the length and intensity of the physical aspect of a pilgrimage. However, it is not to try to discourage anyone from going for such an experience of a personal development project. Rather, I would like to highlight that although not easy, it remains within the boundaries of the possible even when you might be not fully trained for it. Moreover, this has been complemented by pre-expedition research on the issue of a pilgrimage which I will come back to in a future post. 

I hope you enjoyed the reading. Next time, the first part of my project journal. ;)