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.

Training is not always fun

Finally, she trains with weights to make her neck muscles (trapezius) stronger because she often suffers from muscle aches when carrying a heavy backpack.

Lifting twice 6 kg

Let’s hope that all this will be sufficient for her to complete the 1200 km!

Do you want to support Professor Conny during her 1200 km walk for chromosome 6? Please go to www.chromosome6.org/walkforchromosome6