Sunday 8 May 2011

What to do when walking for 6 hours a day?

My new favourite hobby has developed into ranking the road surfances that I am walking on in terms of comfort. Now since this computer can not download pictures for some unbelievably compliated reason (in Spanish) I feel the need to use my 2 euros (that I put in before I realised) to give you the list. Please note it is likely to require upgrading as weather conditions vary.

Staring with the worst (I cannot see this changing:
  1. Tarmac of a quality to take lorries. Hurts the feet like hell after 10 miles.
  2. 5cm ish pieces of stone. Put down to ´improve' the camino. Hurts like something close to hell and hard to balance on.
  3. Cement roads. They are very keen on these here. YUK
  4. lots of road surfaces as yet unidentifed fit into these places
  5. 1cm pices of stone on hard compacted dry clay - you get caught out easily  and have an ankle wobble and it has no give.
  6. Compacted cinder track
  7. Compacted gravel track with sand
  8. Dried slightly uneven dirt track - the unevenness actually helps the feet and cses less pain. Not sure why I guess the foot rolls more. I will spend some time working out a theory NEXT WEEK (did I really sign up for all of this????)
  9. Soft dried dirt track is a good surface
  10. A new one in yesterday is wet well cambered compacted sand on gravel after a 30 minute heavy down poor. I love this surface. it has lovely give and actually helps the feet feel better than ever. I don´t want to ask for rain, let me make that clear. But I like the effect.

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