A little progress, yesterday, but not enough. I have decided, however, to make a small adjustment in these daily posts: I’m adding the two datapoints now shown in the date header: my weight today and my mileage yesterday.

Why the personal data? Simply to share the difficulties that folks our age face working to get ready for the Camino.

For context, sometime around 1980, I weighed about 205 pounds; 1990 about 190 pounds; 2018 about 185 pounds. Today’s 166 pounds is the result of a lot of hard work on a journey that I hope will someday bring my weight below 160 pounds. I’ve been close, but never there. I also know that today’s weight is an upward spike due to a lot of salt consumed yesterday.

The mileage falls into a similar category. Pre-2000, my regular exercise routine consisted of watching TV. A wakeup visit with the doctor who did my flight physicals pushed me into starting to improve my health habits. Deteriorating knees and Camino dreams led to emphasizing walking somewhere around 2010. About 600 km (380 mi) on the Camino showed me that my external Camino generally includes 10 to 20 km (6 to 12 mi) of often strenuous walking per day.

If my daily walking when not in Spain is focused on the distance from the couch to the refrigerator during commercial breaks, it won’t be enough to really prepare me for my next time in Spain.

There is an old saw that goes “if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” I measure my weight and mileage, and quite a bit more, to manage them in a way that brings my external Camino journey, the part in Spain and on the Camino, well within reach. I hope that sharing my response to the challenge will help inspire you to measure and manage the things you must to bring your own Camino journey within reach as well.