Pushing through

Today was the most difficult day so far.

The morning was incredibly beauful. I slept well, went to the post office and sent off another 1.5kg of stuff, making it a total of 7.5kg lighter. It was a cool morning and my legs felt ok.

I walked for a good 6km, and then I stopped.

That's when it changed and my right leg started to hurt. The day also changed.

My legs started to remember the hurt from the days before, the sun was strong, there was no shade, the walk was along the highway, it was straight and monotonous.

I was going to stop after 15km, 5km short of Belorado, the days destination. When I got into that little village, it was all quiet, and no Albergue in sight. I had to walk on, another 5km to Belorado. My feet and right leg hurt so badly I started crying.

I was hobbling along, crying and breathing heavily, but through my nose (like my sis taught me).

Then I stopped for a bit and collected myself. I had only hobbled 1.5km and still had at least another hour and a half at this pace.

I plugged in my headphones, cranked them up, and put some heart pumping dance music on.

That kept me going, until a silly ballad came up and I swore and then quickly changed the song, so as not to slow my momentum.

I saw the town of Belorado in the distance, and then saw the first Albergue, 1km outside of the town. I nearly started crying again.

I stopped there. At that point I didn't care about going all the way into town and being closer to shops, the cathedral or the restaurants.

That was a hard day, and I was glad it was over.

I arrived at 6:30pm.

It took me 2.5 hours to walk the last 5km.