Around a week ago, after the Coronavirus began to aggressively take hold across the United States, I discovered, like many of you that Americans were being asked to stay at home as an important measure to contain and control the virus. Around the same time, I found out that my income was going to be slashed to almost zero for the next month and a half (at minimum). I travel all over the country conducting week-long professional development trainings for teachers, and the next 6 weeks of my trainings have been cancelled.

Everything seemed to hit at once and it was overwhelming, to put it mildly. The loss of income was an obvious reason for being upset, but I immediately realized that sitting at home day-after-day was going to be incredibly difficult for me. I knew that I could only watch so many TV shows and movies before becoming incredibly bored. I settled on a a two-pronged approached to defeat the ‘stay-at-home blues.’ I decided that I was going to learn how to speak French (I’m working on that using Duolingo), and that I was going to walk—and by walk, I mean walk a lot!

Camino, in Spanish means ‘path,’ and I suppose this word could symbolize a lot of things. To me, however, the Camino represents the Camino Francés which is a 500-hundred mile pilgrimage that runs from Saint Jean Pied-du-Port, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. I’ve walked it twice–yup–1,000 miles on foot!

I decided that as long as I’m stuck at home, I would create my own Camino, or better said, my own ‘path.’ I’ve even named my adventure–My Coronavirus Camino. I’m going to walk 500 miles and the rules that I’ve set up for myself are simple–

• I need to walk every day for a minimum of 2 miles
• This isn’t a race. It doesn’t matter how long it takes me to accomplish the task…I just need to finish! 500 miles–here I come!

I started a week ago, and from this point on, I’m going to post my weekly results every Wednesday night. I haven’t walked on a regular basis for a long time, so I was really out of shape when I started last week. I’m hoping that my walks get longer and longer as I get back into the groove, and that the weather improves as we march into April and May.

My Coronavirus Camino–Week 1

• 3/19/2020–2.49 miles (w/Tyler)
• 3/20/2020–2.18 miles (w/Tyler)
• 3/20/2020–2.0 miles
• 3/21/2020–2.35 miles (w/Tyler)
• 3/21/2020–6.27 miles
• 3/22/2020–5.11 miles
• 3/23/2020–2.19 miles
• 3/24/2020–2.14 miles (w/Tyler)
• 3/24/2020–2.80 miles (w/Debbie)
• 3/25/2020–2.14 miles (w/Tyler)
• 3/25/2020–2.27 miles (w/Debbie)

Week 1 Total–31.94 miles