I'm a spectacle walking up the Mt. Rubidoux dressed as a trekker, using walking poles and gloves, along side a sea of summer workout attire. The poles make me look like I'm a skier whose lost her snow. I frequently drink from the hose of a hydration bladder concealed in my backpack—I've been asked if it's oxygen. I trod up hill in hiking boots and a headband to cover the bed-head, and not a Nike swoosh anywhere to be found on my panting body. People often snicker and whisper to each other as I walk by, but the expression of 'what the heck?' it what I see most.
These poles are a life-saver. They keep my back straight and prevent me from rolling down hill. I can almost hear my drill instructor calling me Slacker. But what I've heard and read, is that this training and these poles will help me conquer the most dificult parts of the Camino – going over the Pyrenees into Spain. Why is the hardest part in the beginning? I'll take it as a metaphor for life when setting a goal.
I climb watching the sun making its decent behind the horizon. It'll be dark soon but I have a kind of miner's headlamp which will make me look even more freakish. I glance at the pedometer clipped to me, divide miles into steps--the math confirms I will have achieved 14 miles today. I reach the house and felt a resistance to stop walking, but when I did I felt a stronger resistance to bend. I've got to get my boots and two pair of socks off. An urgency to pee as a result of drinking steadily while walking. “You've got to stay hydrated.” my older sister insists. So I've drained the bladder on my back into the one in my body, which proves it can't hold 50 ounces. My boots are dirty and the carpet white. I tiptoe across the carpet to the bathroom. I ease myself down and for a double relief. I lift one leg onto my knee and free the first foot, examine it for blisters, there were none. The next foot wants to remain on the floor, but I pull it close enough to unlace. No blisters there either, but I did have to pull my toes apart. The two-pair of thick socks squish my toes so tight I got an idea of what it was like to be a girl in nineteen century Japan.
I sat with my business completed, wondering when I ate last. It had been early the day before. “You've got to take better care of yourself.” I demanded out loud to myself. My next thought was of gratitude—that the shower was only two steps away. I left my sweaty clothes in a pile which I pushed aside to close the bathroom door. In slow motion and aware of each muscle involved--some I wouldn't know I had if they didn't ache, and moved under the spraying water.
The next evening I included a stop-off at church for Wednesday services. After service, as I prepared to walk back home, a woman I don't know but seemed to know me or of me, looked me straight in the eye and said, “Be sure you aren't over-train.” “Hello, allow me to introduce myself, "I'm Over-Trained-Tracy, and you are?” Clearly she was sent by the All-Knowing Spirit, to tell me to slow down. By the time I reached the house her advice sunk deep. Tomorrow is a new day and a fresh start of training 'just enough.' But what is that? It'll come to me...
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