A few months back I turned 42.  At this middle age, you know that your peak performance has passed.  You know that you have something still left in the tank, but you look at yourself and wonder if you really are past your “prime.” As the country song goes — “I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m good once, as I ever was.”  Today I looked at myself and I wanted to know if this rang true.  But first a little setup:

Earlier in the day, I saw a married couple struggling with injury and after some conversation, I found out that they had been pushing close to 30k a day.   “Woah,” I said.  “That is quite a bit.”  She also revealed that they were having an “Okay” time and I think they were starting to reconsider their Camino plans.  I pulled out my “Tranqilo” advice and walked them through how they needed to make the Camino their own.  When we crossed paths after a couple of hours, it was apparent that they had not figured out Menu del Dia yet and were probably having a less-than-enjoyable culinary experience as well.  I continued with my unsolicited advice and talked them through how eating works in Spain.  They seemed to be comforted with a better plan going forward.  Once our own time at Comedia came to a close a new plan among our group started to form.

We have adopted a great schedule of getting up a little early, taking it easy on the trail, visiting and praying at churches, and then stopping for a while for a meal around 1-2pm.  This usually leaves us with another hour or 2 after our meal to finish up our daily time on the trail.  The other nice side effect is that after a couple of bottles of wine shared in our group, the last few kilometers are pretty easy.  It makes us feel pretty confident.  Superhuman maybe…

Today was no different and after we started back on the trail, Blaise suggested that we just keep walking until we hit Burgos.  This was after he saw a sign that said 50k to Burgos.  Mind you that this is already after a day of walking.  Our original plan had us scheduled for 2 more days of walking to get there.  On the way to our planned stop for the night, I protested time and time and time again.  Going that far would be impossible.  It is ridiculous.  We would be starting at 5pm and would need to go another 45k.  Two days of walking, starting at 5pm. That would lead us to:

Find out tomorrow if my son won out.