Professor Conny’s transformation from doctor to hiker

April 1^st is coming closer, and Professor Conny is getting ready for her 1200 km walk. At the moment she is a very busy doctor who wants her patients to get the best care while she is away during her walk for Chromosome 6.

In the video below you can see her transforming from a busy doctor into a well-prepared hiker. 

Do you want to support Professor Conny during her 1200 km walk for Chromosome 6?

Please go to https://www.chromosome6.org/walkforchromosome6

What goes in Professor Conny’s backpack?

Today we asked Professor Conny what she is going to take with her on her Camino to Santiago de Compostela. We thought this was an easy question, but she sighed and looked a bit troubled before answering.

“Well,” she began, “the rule of thumb is that you carry max 10% of your bodyweight on your back. For me this means less than 7 kilo. There is a saying in Dutch: ‘alles wat je thuislaat is meegenomen’. It is difficult to translate but it means that everything you leave at home is to your advantage.

Thus, with everything you pack, you have to ask yourself: Do I really need this? And you have to make a lot of difficult choices. You can keep it very lean. For instance by using a solid bar of soap for washing yourself, your hair and your clothes. Or by using your cell phone to store all documentation, take photographs and make notes. You can also keep your clothes to a minimum of only two sets, washing one every day and putting on your clothes for the next day after your afternoon shower.

How do you prepare yourself for a camino of 1200 km?

Camino is Spanish for “walk” or “I am walking”. Professor Conny is going to walk 1200 km in approximately 9 weeks. Her daily distance will depend on the availability of places to sleep and the difficulty of the terrain. The mean distance is going to be 20 km per day, but some days it will be necessary to walk over 30 km before reaching the next albergue (pilgrims inn).

Professor Conny is used to walking. She usually tries to do a 20 to 25 km walk twice a month because she finds it the perfect way to relax her always busy brain. A time for reflection. However, these walks are made in a flat country and without a 10 kg backpack.

So how does she train for her camino?

First of all, she takes the stairs. Every day she climbs the stairs from the hospital’s basement to the 6^th floor where her office is. During the day, she uses the stairs instead of the elevators as much as possible.

No hills in Groningen means training on the stairs!

Secondly, during the weekends, she tries to walk with gradually increasing weight in her backpack and an ever greater length of the route. Unfortunately, she does not have time to walk every weekend. In March she planned to walk both days on two weekends. The first weekend of March she walked 29 and 14 km with a backpack of 9 kg, all while it was raining.

Professor Conny’s Camino

Professor Conny will start her camino – her journey along the pilgrim route of Santiago de Compostela – in La-Réole, a French town with a railway station. The town is located on the river Garonne and has a bridge designed by Gustave Auguste Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel tower in Paris. On April 1^st, Professor Conny will travel by train from Groningen to Rotterdam and by airplane to Bordeaux. On April 2^nd, she will travel by train to La-Réole and start walking in the afternoon. The Camino here crosses the Garonne over Eiffel’s beautiful bridge, and this will be the starting point of Professor Conny’s 1200 km walk.

Eiffel’s bridge over the river Garonne in La-Réole, the start of Professor Conny’s 1200 km walk

Professor Conny will follow the Via Lemovicensis – the route of Limoges – for 260 km to the small town Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, located in the South of France at the foot of the Pyrenees. Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port is the starting point for the Camino Francés, the most popular route to Santiago de Compostela. The Camino Francés is 800 km and is well-known thanks to the movie “The Way”. Approximately 85% of all pilgrims who walk the camino arrive at Santiago via the Camino Francés. Another popular route to Santiago is the Camino Portuguese, which begins in Porto, Portugal. Of all the pilgrims who start in or travel through Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, 99% will cross the Pyrenees here to Roncesvalles where they continue along the Camino Francés. Professor Conny will not do that because she is not going to walk the Camino Francés. She has decided to walk another route that is longer and more challenging (with more hills), but  has more to offer of beautiful nature, culture and silence.