The best preparation for the Camino is not bought. It is walked — in the weeks before departure, on ordinary streets, in ordinary shoes that are slowly becoming Camino shoes.
Walk three times a week if you can. Break in the boots until they stop being a topic. Learn your natural pace — the one you fall into when no one is watching. Discover what your body says at kilometer fifteen, and what your mind does when your body is occupied. That restless, circling, settling mind? That is the Camino, rehearsing.
Walk once in weather you would rather avoid. The road will not check the forecast before sending rain, and there is a particular confidence that comes from knowing you have already been wet and kept going.
And be gentle with the plan. The strongest pilgrims are not the ones who punish their bodies into readiness. Walk, rest, walk again. The first days on the Camino should be shorter than your pride suggests. The road is long; there is no prize for arriving exhausted.
A PRACTICE FOR THE WEEKS BEFORE
Three walks a week. One of them in weather you’d rather avoid. Notice everything.