Save Me…… from a pair of dodgy knees and a body that may not do what its told anymore

I used to go walking in the countryside a lot with friends when I lived in the UK. We would go everywhere from hills and mountains to moors and dales. And we would often camp out too.

Many times have I woken up to the early morning light coming through the tent as I’ve laid there in my sleeping bag. Many times have I made a cup of tea on a small stove fuelled by methylated spirits  while sitting half in and half out of the tent. And many times have I trudged across freezing fields in the middle of the night, in boots with untied laces flailing around, to visit the chemical toilet in the corner of the campsite, when all I’ve really wanted to do was to stay in my warm sleeping bag and wait until morning. But sometimes you’ve just got to go, even if it is three o’clock in the morning, there’s frost on the tent flaps and your torch doesn’t work very well.

There are some things you should never be without when you go walking. Good boots for one. A good map. And plasters. You’re almost always going to need plasters.

Now I still like to do walking here in Spain. But things are different now. We need more than just plasters.

As I mentioned back in January, we’ve set ourselves the fairly tough challenge of walking between 100 and 200km of the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain in August. It’ll take a week and a bit to complete.

Preparation is the key. But so is weight! Walking with as little as possible in your rucksack is vital. This means swapping a sleeping bag for a duvet cover. Yes, that’s right. A duvet cover. Infinitely lighter and perfectly good for the hot days we’ll almost certainly encounter, even though northern Spain is quite a bit cooler than the south. Clothes are another key area to cut back on. Three t-shirts, three pairs of socks and three pairs of underwear. That’s all. All you’ve got to do with give them a wash during the trip else they probably won’t even let you into Santiago because of the stink. Spray-on deodorant is also vital. It’s amazing what smells a good one can cover! And let’s be honest, despite the showers, the washed underwear and the clean teeth, you’re still going to pong at least a bit when you’re walking more than 20km day after day in hot weather.

I’ll be honest with you, I’m not nearly as fit as I used to be. So while walking 100 to 200km in a week might have been plain sailing for me 20 years ago, it isn’t quite as easy now.

For a start, I’m carrying a few extra pounds. I admit it. I’m cuddly. Secondly, my joints creak a bit more than they used to, especially the dodgy right ankle I’ve had since injuring it playing rugby more than 20 years ago. The older I get the more creaky it gets.  The knees too tend to get a bit stiff nowadays. Everything else seems to be in reasonable working order however, at least for the time being.

But to get back to my original point, what’s also different though is the things we need. While the plasters still come in handy, there’s another thing I’ve found absolutely indispensible. Vaseline! Before and after a long walk, it is amazing how useful it is for those hard-to-reach places that chafe and rub and get red and sore. I’m sure you can work out where I mean.

It came in very handy last weekend, for example.

We had planned, last Saturday, to walk about 15km on a route out of Seville along the river to a small town called La Algaba. Walking with friends, the idea was that we’d get there and then get a bus back. But as it turned out, we got a bit carried away and when we got there we thought we might as well walk all the way back too. So we did.

A walk that was estimated to take between four and five hours ended up talking nearly nine hours and instead of 15km we clocked up 28km.

Boy, did the Vaseline come in handy after that! And so did the cold compresses for the tendons on the backs on my knees that were strung tighter than piano wire.

But, despite the discomfort – which thankfully only lasted about 24 hours after the end of our marathon day – we were really pleased with ourselves.

You see, fearing that 20km a day for five days in a row might be the undoing of us in August, we had planned to slowly build up the distances we were doing in preparation. We figured 15km was a good objective this time, after we did a 10km gorge walk a few weeks back.

So to end up doing 28km, and walk away with little more than sore knees, chafed nether regions and aching feet, is in many ways a mental barrier that has been well and truly crushed.

Last time, our destination was in a loop around the outside of Seville, so that the unplanned walk back from La Algaba only turned out to be about 12km.

Next weekend, we’ve got a 22km walk lined up. But the destination will not be in a loop this time. It’s actually 22km north of Seville, so walking back will mean doing double that.

And despite the joy of knocking up 28km in one day – an achievement which I would have been able to do easily 20 years ago and which our friends, a decade or more younger than us, did with considerable more ease – I’m not sure I’m ready to do 44km in one day just yet. The mind is willing, but the body – and especially the knees - may decide to down tools and go on strike if I push them too hard.

Who knows though? There’s nothing like a dose of confidence, a surge of adrenalin and a pot of Vaseline to give you the drive to do almost anything, even if your body's not up to it! At this rate, come August, we’ll be doing all 800km of the Camino in one week instead.

Or maybe I’m still on a high from the achievements of last Saturday.