I’m 111 days out from my second Camino. That sounds like a lot, but the time will go by quickly. With that, I realize the need to step up my training. Haha, get it, “step up?” 🙂

My fitbit tells me I walk a minimum of 5 miles a day, which has basically been a standard for me for the past two years. I can’t stand it if I don’t hit my minimum goal of 11,000 steps a day. But it’s time to start getting even longer walks in on a regular basis. Not every day allows for plenty of time to get a decent amount of walking in, so you have to make that time. I’ve found that adding the walking into my daily events makes meeting my goal easier.

If it’s a work day, I walk the 1.4 miles each way to work and often add detours that make my walk to work closer to 2.5 or even as much as 5 miles. Of course, this means I need to get up and out the door earlier which is sometimes easier said than done. If I don’t get the longer walk in to work, then I make sure I take a longer walk home.

If I need to run errands, I try to see how many I can do on foot in my neighborhood. Not only do I get my steps in, but I get to support local businesses.

If I’m going to meet friends for happy hour in another neighborhood – as long as it’s 3 miles or less, I walk there. Feels less guilty having that beer if I walked 3 miles before drinking it!

One of my new favorite ways to incorporate training is something I call ‘Camino de Sounders.’ Since 2009, I’ve been a season ticket holder of my beloved Seattle Sounders FC. In fact, I love the team so much that I carried a Sounders scarf with me 500 miles across Spain on my first Camino. My tickets are in the supporter section, so I’m often times standing fully exposed to rain – or in yesterday’s case, hail. One might say it’s good resilience training for walking the Camino on less than ideal days.

It doesn’t always work with the game schedule to incorporate a training walk, but when it does, I don’t hesitate to consider taking the “Nike highway” to the game. (Nike highway is a term my friend used in college to mean walking somewhere…guess the term only works if you’re wearing Nikes)

Yesterday my friend Rachel, who will be joining me on the Camino this June, and I walked from my house down to the stadium – stood in the rain and hail and walked home. After the 10 miles roundtrip of walking and our cheering in the stadium, we had nearly a 12 mile day.

My Sounders lost, but I still loved the day because I had a lot of quality time to catch up with a good friend and got the perfect training walk in. I love trying to find creative ways to train. Walks like yesterday made me not even realize I was getting a 12 mile walk in.

Go Sounders! Buen Camino!