🇵🇹 Thank You Vieira Much

Hello Adventurers, 

Bom dia from Portugal! Pathetically, that’s about as much Portuguese as I know…and it’s criminal since my wife and her family speak the language in my presence every day. And at a volume — full of lots of love and laughter — that’s impossible for me to ignore (as well as anyone else within a five kilometre radius…because The Vieiras are that loud, LOL).

I can’t make excuses for my lack of effort (it is just that)…but in my meagre defence, I just don’t seem to have an ear for the language. My working knowledge of French can hopscotch me into a lil Spanish and Italian…but Portuguese? I just hit a wall…because the words look so different from how they sound.

The kicker? I entered this family in my late thirties alongside newborns-that-are-now-kids, and today the lil ones speak Portuguese a thousand times better than me (and that is as humbling as it is embarrassing). And to add insult to injury, my gifted wife is actually trilingual…she speaks a third language with her constantly animated hands. And funny or not, that is a punchline ‘cause it’ll earn me a punch from her.

Anyhoo, this issue of the newsletter covers four marathons in northern Portugal. It is highly personal…but I’ve ended it with one of the biggest ‘knowledge shares’ I’ve done in some time (which your email inbox may clip, click here if so). Obrigado for your understanding,

- Ben Pobjoy

2023 TREK TRACKER

Where in the world...record am I?

• Countries visited: 31

• Flights taken: 36

• Kilometres flown: 58,483

• Marathons completed: 99

• Kilometres trekked by foot: 4,693.5

• Total kilometres trekked since 2015: 67,785

RAPID WEEKLY RECAP

A speedy synopsis for time-crunched readers

• The Wildest Thing: Here’s a selfie of me trying to follow along as my wife-turned-tour-guide explains her family tree to me…as she points out her Uncle’s Cousin’s Sister’s Cousin’s Father’s Mother’s Grandfather’s house…on some Portuguese land once owned by her Aunt’s Brother’s Grandmother’s Niece’s Nephew…down some alley, behind a stone wall, on a hill, left of a small mountain that’s to the right of a bigger mountain…while she’s like, “You finally understand, right?” as I nodding-ly reply, “Um, yah…it’s all so clear to me now”😵‍💫

• The Biggest Obstacle: Countryside abundance vis-à-vis itchy eyes — and itchy skin — due to heaps of hay fever and mosquito bites🤧

• The Lesson Learned: An acknowledgment of my existential softness; I never had to live under a dictatorship, I never had to trade beauty for opportunity, and I never had to go make it in a foreign land with a foreign land-guage that was different than my mother tongue. Utmost respect-yet-heartbreak for the hardship endured / sacrifices made by my Portuguese family…and infinite compassion for — and solidarity with — immigrants and migrants everywhere🫡

FIELD NOTES: CASTELO DO NEIVA, PORTUGAL

The birthplace of the world’s best scallop

Castelo de Neiva is tiny…it's less than seven square kilometres in size, and — according to a 2021 consensus — has a population of 2,700 people. It's so small that when you're in it, the name doesn't even appear on the screen of your smartphone when you open Google Maps...and the app itself actually struggles to determine your exact location...so it just 'blues out' the entire parish, which itself is on the Atlantic coast at the foot of a mountain that's really just a forest-y hill...about 30 kilometres south of Portugal's northern border with Spain.

And I think this is why about two weeks ago, my wife started to worry about us spending three weeks there. Not her worried for her, but her worried for me. And I totally misunderstood her concern, with me saying it wasn't too late to go elsewhere...like, if she had a change of heart. But she clarified that she loves Castelo de Neiva, and wanted to go...but feared I'd get bored and hate it.

Now, a measure of love is how well someone anticipates another's needs (said or unsaid)...so I was touched by my wife's thoughtfulness. However, what Christine didn't understand — in light of her understanding me as well as my insatiable need for action — is that I wasn't going to Castelo de Neiva to 'do'. Rather, I was going there to feel...something I'll close the loop on in a sec.

In the interim, what you need to know is that my wife's mother was born and raised in Castelo de Neiva. And if you've met Christine's mum Aida, you have a very deep love for her because she is infinite in her generosity and her giving-ness.

Aida is a wife, a mother, a sister, an aunt, a godmother, a grandmother, a cook, a caretaker, a gardener, and a confidante to many. And those aren't individual hats she puts on — and takes off — all willy-nilly, they're multiple hats she expertly wears; simultaneously and daily, and at all hours. And it is remarkable.

When I first met Aida, I couldn't parse what was demanded of her by her culture (which is Catholic, patriarchal, and defined by traditional gender roles) versus what was of her own volition. Like, I'm in Portugal right now and there's a thousand monuments to the fishermen who risked their lives to earn a living...and I've yet to see one single monument for the women who equally sacrificed their lives for the upkeep of the homestead and for the demands of childrearing. All I know is that I've never met anyone who has Aida's reverence for family, loves outwardly loving like she does (while demanding absolutely nothing of others in return), and somehow remains so ebullient in the effort it all requires (which I can tell you — from the outside looking in — looks so exhausting).

Lazily, you could say Aida's the maternal type and/or the matriarch...but neither get to the essence of her soul. The former can be performative and gooey and often pushover-y and the latter is a tenured title any female elder can passively inherit in one’s tribe over time (and just cruise with). Aida? She's lovely but hard...and not 'hard-as-in-fickle', but hard like a hard wood with inner rings of no-guff reliability, like the hard wood of a sturdy trunk of a family tree (from which all members beautifully brach off of, and ultimately connect back to…for stability and support). And together, it's perennial and flowering...with Aida at its core.

And because Aida is of her time and of her struggles, she is stoic and matter of fact about all things be they new or old (where the big is made small...because the small isn't fussy...and the fussy doesn't create a stir), and that's why I was eager to go to the place where her roots are the longest (and therefore the most revealing). Because I wanted to know-by-way-of-feeling what type of place can seed someone so beautiful, someone so beautifully tight-lipped and humble about hardship.

The mission here was to wander into the wilds of the winds — by way of big concentric marathons around a small place — to listen to their whispers in hopes of receiving anything of significance (because if we make the attempt to be loving and hear the unsaid, we can better excel at anticipating the needs of our loved ones; especially those who'd lead us to believe they need not).

Castelo de Neiva exists at the intersection of what was and what is, yet there are some constants; the abundance offered by the shoals and crustacea in the Atlantic Ocean as well as the fertility of the fields and the farms. Everything old remains, not because it is cherished due to historical significance or emotional resonance but because tearing things down is wasteful and costly whereas repurposing things is the cost-effective way of life here. And here, the new is built on top of the old or right beside it...so 'then and now' are neighbours, even when they live on the same plot of land…with nothing neighbouring it.

Relatively modern terracotta roofed homes are connected by some asphalted streets and lots of cobblestone paths that are the width of some bygone horse cart, and both have a labyrinth quality thanks to the stone walls that are hundreds of years old (and covered in lichen and moss). And in the mix of it all are the folksy Catholic shrines on homes...and some of my favourite holdouts: that quintessential and decorative Portuguese tile. Everything is stony and the birds are so chirpy that their tweeting echoes off of everything in full-fidelity stereo sound.

One can't see into all the walled enclosures, but you can hear and smell what they contain; some chickens, lots of citrus trees, the occasional horse, a persimmon bush, sporadic sheep, huge hydrangea, and some scratchy cacti. And should you sneak a peek inside, the gardens are nothing short of hyper maximalism in terms of aesthetic and layout; every flower, every colour, everywhere. Domesticated and wild, abundant and potted. Never prim and proper or contained, just always bursting up — and out — in every direction.

Here, there's one bank, one grocery store, one soccer pitch, one church, one chapel, and a handful of cafés and restaurants (all excellent because everything is basically grown here...then made into something to eat that day).

Staying at the ancestral Vieira home in Castelo de Neiva has been a pretty neat experience; we're literally surrounded by family history. Aida estimates the plot of land has been in the family's possession for 700 hundred years (through her Mother's Father's lineage), and the two acre property is dotted with a bunch of little structures, and two little patches where veg is grown. There was a fig tree that croaked, an orange tree that’s still kicking, and an avocado tree in limbo (it hasn’t produced avocados in the last two years).

Anecdotally, Aida told me that an earthquake toppled a castle on a nearby hill within the past 1,000 years, and locals pilfered its stones for their homes down the hill (after the royal court abandoned a rebuild). Aida doesn’t know if any of the stones turned up on her family’s property, but for fun — and ‘cause nothing says otherwise — I’m into humouring it. Joking aside, a fascinating thing that Aida told me, is that stones in Castelo de Neiva have always been a signifier of class; wealthy people could afford big and sturdier stones for their houses, and others built houses with smaller, found stones more susceptible to cracking.

One of the main buildings on the property is what's referred to as the 'old house' (pictured). It is where Aida and her sister Ines were born, and before them their Mother, Grandfather, Great Grandfather, and Great Great Grandfather. Wild. I know there’s lots of families with generations born in the same hometown…but the Vieiras are the only family I know where generations were born in the same home in the same town.

The other house on the property is the 'new house' (built in 1959, and since renovated). It is where Aida's brothers Joel and Paulo were born. My favourite elements of it are the vintage framed portrait of the Benfica football team from the 1960-61 season on a wall (surely for Aida’s Father…who was a lifelong supporter of the club), and an ornate wooden crucifix on a side table that’s believed to be more than 200 years old. Little sister Lisa missed the boat and was born in Canada, non-ironically in the Little Portugal neighbourhood of Toronto.

There’s another little stone structure on the property that was most recently the ‘potato house’ (being dry storage for potatoes), and another little section in it with wine barrels. Historically, it was Aida’s Grandfather’s Sister’s house…which was conjoined with his little house. Squad deep in these parts!

Aida and her siblings now live in North America, but their respective families do visit Castelo de Neiva from time to time. As such, Aida’s Father’s Cousin Mena (pictured) stops by to check in on the land. Her Father was the town’s shoemaker, and he taught Aida’s Father the trade when he was six years old.

That would be a good place to stop, but I can’t skirt my hilarious interactions with Mena. Firstly, when my wife introduced me to her, Christine offered me up as help for any labour (which I would be stoked to do). But Mena sized me, gave me this look that said, “This dude looks like a half-man”, and then politely shutdown the conversation. Secondly, I probably see her three to five times a day around town…and she always rounds a bend when I’m taking photos of like a cat or a plant…which are likely the most-asinine-to-her-things (and I’m convinced she probably thinks I’m not just a half-man…but a double weirdo).

Also, Mena’s overall look typifies how many women in the area carry themselves. Their hair is kept short for total utility, they wear the loveliest little work vests when labouring (and I gotta believe they’re homemade), and on sunny days they all wear these big brimmed hats. It’s very old world and timeless, and I think it’s so all so rad.

Everyone like Mena presents as being happy and hearty and healthy and just chugging along (as they’re pulling veg and weeds outta the ground). There’s big pride in these little parishes and villages; everyone’s sweeping their property, tending to their flowers, and there’s no litter in sight. Everyone feels ‘of the land’, and living with lots of respect for it.

Besides Mena, I haven’t made any other human friends in the parish because I can’t speak the language (and my friendship with her is likely one way…um, coming from me). But I do visit a brown horse down the street most nights, whistle at some sheep, and play with the odd dog roaming around.

I love this area; everything about it feels like God’s Country, and I’m excited to go deeper into the surrounding region next week; highlighting the wonderful Saturday customs at the local cemetery, hitting a festa with the locals, and — I’M BURYING THE LEDE HERE — but a section of the Caminho de Santiago pilgrimage route cuts through Castelo de Neiva…and I’ve marathoned loads of it…and it’s stunning…and I don’t like teasing things…and basically just wanted to issue a ‘spoiler alert’ in case it’s on your bucket list (‘cause I’ll be writing about it next week).

FIELD NOTES: VIANA DO CASTELO, PORTUGAL

A morning destination for coffee or wine

Viana do Castelo is approximately 10 kilometres north of Castelo do Neiva, and is comparatively much bigger (as in it’s a big small city). I’d like to profess I go to VDC to go to VDC, but I basically go there because it’s at the end of a pretty incredible stretch of coastal beach.

The beach is exceptionally wide, it’s raw and undisturbed, totally spotless (props to the locals for keeping it immaculate) and is walled by huge sand dunes. It’s ‘busy’ when there’s 20 people using it over a kilometre, and I often have it all to myself for kilometres and kilometres when marathoning it in the early morning. It has been an indescribable joy to use as a thoroughfare, and makes me exceptionally happy to trek alongside the gulls as well as these tiny birds with spindly legs that run over the shore.

Viana does have some things to check out; Santuário de Santa Luzia is the deceptively old-looking-but-actually-sorta-recent landmark church on the hill (that’ll give your booty a burn should you take the stairs up to it), Praça da República is a nice square (and all the potted flowers on the fountain are beautiful), and Avenida dos Combatentes da Grande Guerra is the main strip (and with a name that long it sorta has to be). Coffee and wine on said strip are sometimes cheaper than bottled water, and every time I settle a bill there I’m convinced something wasn’t included ‘cause I can’t process how such good food, drink or coffee is so inexpensive.

Really though, my fave part of Viana is this one woman who sets up this push cart full of fresh seafood on a side street in the morning, puts a scale on top of a municipal garbage can, and sells fresh octopus as well as crabs to all these really old ladies. It’s informal, cash-in-hand no BS…and I was tempted to buy some crabs and tell the missus I caught them by hand while swimming in the Atlantic…just to wind her up (but the hitch in my plan was having to trek 10 kilometres home with live crabs in my backpack…and that killed the idea).

One of my newer morning routines has been to go to Cervejaria Concha and drink Port for breakfast. I saw old guys doing it one morning and I don’t know if that’s a Portuguese thing or a retired person thing or an alcoholic thing…or a mix of all three. But everyone there — be they behind or in front of the bar — is cranky and buddy buddy and 500 years old, and it’s just great for people watching. Like, an old dude walked in, tapped the counter, didn’t say anything, and the bartender brought him a newspaper and a glass of white wine. That’s service! Plus, a glass of port here is only $1.40 USD.

And here’s how my first experience at Cervejaria Concha went down:

“Um vinho do porto por favor” - me, reading a Portuguese translation on my smartphone…and just butchering the pronunciation

“Huh?” - bartender, probably 85 years old

“Um vinho do porto” - me, reducing the sentence

Huh?” - bartender

“Porto” - me, getting to the core of my request

Huh?” - bartender

“Porto..um, port wine?” - me, abandoning Portuguese

*Bartender points to a can of Monster Energy behind the bar in a fridge*

*I shake my head…then point to the glass of port that an old guy is drinking…two feet from us*

“Ah! Porto” - bartender, who nods and then serves me a glass of port

This mural caught my eye down an alley because it felt so ‘of place’, and is refreshing because so much graffiti follows global trends…as does rap music — like I’ve heard Drill in French and Arabic and Azeri and Portuguese — in different countries over the last month or so.

Anyhoo, one last anecdote: Aida told me she moved to Viana do Castelo when she was 10 years old to live in a house with three octogenarian women because they didn’t have school beyond grade four (if my memory of our convo is correct) in Castelo do Neiva. It cost Aida’s Mother 1000 Escudos per month for Aida’s room and board…which is $5.35 USD today (Escudo was Portugal’s pre-Euro currency).

Aida was quick to add that, “The food was really good”, and that she went home on the weekends, when the bus operated between Viana do Castelo and Castelo do Neiva (something it didn't do on weekdays at that point in time).

BEST LOCAL THING-Y

I almost died when I entered the Vieira house to find a cornucopia of farm-fresh vegetables waiting for me and Christine…courtesy of the saint that is Mena; a massive head of lettuce, a beet as big as a coconut, rooted onions that were juicy when you cut into them, fresh leeks, carrots, and muddy spuds.

I’m a city slicker that’s as far removed from food production as pathetically possible, and I’m big on trying to eat well…and this was just such a huge gift from Aida and Mena and from Portugal itself.

I’ve been eating mixed salads all week and Christine whipped up a big potato salad with the potatoes and leeks, and I swear I can taste the soul in every bite!

POBJOY'S GLOBAL PRICE INDEX

This is an on-going documentation of how much things cost in different places around the world. Here are some of the things I bought in Castelo do Neiva, Viana do Castelo, and Paço (all prices converted to USD):

• A 946 millilitre carton of soy milk, a red pepper, and two 150 gram bags of sultanas from the grocery store in Castelo do Neiva: $4

• A double espresso, a 500 millilitre bottle of water, and a bread bun from a café in Viana do Castelo: $3.15

• One banana from a roadside veg / fruit hut in Paço…which the 80 year-old lady insisted I have for free ‘cause I think she thought I was a pilgrim…but I insisted on paying…and she took the coin with the lowest denomination from my palm: 21¢

MARATHON MUSINGS

Tips for Treks

I have sown an unfathomable amount of confusion across northern Portugal this week. Why? Well, because a section of the Caminho de Santiago pilgrimage route cuts through this part of the country…and sometimes I’m intentionally marathoning off-route, and other times I’m unintentionally marathoning on-route.

When I stray from the route, the occasional local — like, in some tiny village — will approach me with a very worried look and ask, “Santiago?” to which I reply, “No / Não”, and then I make a hand gesture to communicate that I’m randomly trekking elsewhere…which leaves them even more confused.

And then when I’m on the Caminho de Santiago route, I’m trekking so fast and so lightly in both stride and step — with such a small backpack on — that the massive bag’d pilgrim hikers look at me with this mix of rage and envy and confusion. I pay no mind to them — because we’re doing different things — but I constantly see them, and some are really battered and broken. And it’s really sad, because this particular hike seems like it’s a bucket list thing for them…and it ironically looks like it is killing them.

I love seeing people out in the world moving through it, and I hate when I see them moving in pain, and seeing lots of ‘in a really bad spot’ people this week compelled me to ditch writing one of my typical essays, and instead share some tips.

Why? Because maybe you aspire to do a huge, long, dream hike or pilgrimage one day…or maybe want to tackle a marathon…and I want you to succeed! And I want it to be as fun and as pleasurable and as pain-free as possible.

Now before I get into things, I gotta throw down some caveats; I am a complete hack when it comes to movement. I started out at 260+ pounds on a slim 5’11” frame walking a couple kilometres gasping and in pain back in 2015, I read some things / learnt some things on my own, lost 100 pounds by moving / sticking with it, and now nearly nine years later I’m doing my Marathon Earth Challenge / am approaching the completion of 700 marathons in said timeframe. This isn’t boasting, it’s me setting the stage before I acknowledge three things:

1) I started out in the worst physical shape imaginable. If you’re in a bad place, know that I was in a worse place…and I was able to crack the code, and I hope this gives you some hope that you can too.

2) Most of what I’ve learnt about physical movement has come from ‘trial and error’ field research marathoning every weather condition on every type of terrain worldwide. I’m more ‘lived experience idiot’ than ‘schooled and studied expert’…so everything I’m about to share is anecdotal, non-scientific / non-medical, and worked-for-me-but-may-not-work-for-you. Again, I’ve never had coaches and I don’t possess any certifications…so read everything I’m sharing with the utmost skepticism / don’t take me at my word.

3) I don’t want to toot my own horn…but I am approaching the completion of 700 marathons as well as 68,000 kilometres of treks by foot…and would like to think my advice has some merits…but that’s for you to determine.

My movement journey wasn’t a freak and sporadic thing…despite it morphing into a freakish thing. Rather, it was inspired by me hearing Katy Bowman speak on a podcast nearly a decade ago. Katy is a thought leader in the space, a studied biomechanist, an author of numerous books on the subject, and she instructs courses all over the world on the topic. Anecdotally, she entered my life as a stranger-as-mentor, became a collaborator (I wrote a foreword to one of her books), and today is my friend.

Katy is a lovely human being, and a total real one (that wants everyone moving happily and healthily). So I’d encourage you to read her books as well as her newsletter if you want to improve your mobility (because she knows what she’s talking about…while I don’t).

Oddly, I sorta hate sports and athletics…and thankfully that isn’t Katy’s angle. Rather, she’s all about mobility, movement, and range of motion for real people in the real world. So her work is extraordinarily practical and written for ordinary people like me and you. Bless!

I have to mention Katy because I’ll never miss an opportunity to let people know that she singlehandedly changed the course of my life, and because she really has dedicated her life to studying movement (and I believe her to be the best thinker on the matter, and someone who is publishing the best resources about it). So read my tips herein…but also read her work and think about our different contributions to movement as yin and yang. As yin, I’m the mentee moron. And as yang, she’s the mentor master. And like, I’m rudely writing myself into the script like we’re a formal duo…and we’re not (we’re just into the same thing, and coming at it from different angles)…and I’m just trying to stomp the point that you should listen to her wayyyy more than me, LOL.

Also, if I accidentally tread into Katy’s territory herein, I totally apologize to Katy…I don’t know where what I’ve learnt on my own begins / ends, and what she has taught me starts / stops.

Now, here are some things I want you to know before I share some tips:

1) I’m not a Joni Mitchell fan per se, but her ‘they paved paradise, put up a parking lot’ lyric is emblematic of North America’s deranged obsession with making every surface smooth and flat. Convenient? Yes. Deceptive? Indescribably. Should you want to get yourself walking or running, I implore you to slowly transition your ass off of the asphalt. The latter is completely artificial, doesn’t fully give your body what it needs in terms of varying inputs to build capabilities and capacities, and it just isn’t indicative of the natural world…which is rocky and slant-y and hilly and curvy and more treacherous than I often admit. Basically, if you only train on asphalt then you’re going to get your ass handed to you on every other type of terrain. And if you train on every other type of terrain, you’ll absolutely sail over asphalt.

2) Yes, walking and running are cardiovascular activities. However, that’s a simplification…because our bodies are super complex. 25% of our body’s bones and muscles are located below the ankle. That’s literally our foundational base…and if those bones and muscles are fucked up or weak, just imagine how out of whack and/or poorly adapted the other 75% of our body is. In addition, our skin is the largest organ of our body…it needs exercise too, and it is often stifled by socks and shoes and stepping over smoothness. Doing cardio on a treadmill or a stair master is fine for the heart…but you gotta build up the feet’s bones, muscles, and skin to effectively trek long distances. The latter took me too long to learn, and I wish I had known about it sooner.

ON GETTING STARTED:

I was once so immobile that I’d call a taxi cab just to have it take me to a taxi cab so I could get to where I wanted to go. That’s a joke, but it’s sorta true. So if you’re just starting out with walking and/or running, the following may be helpful (other practitioners may way to scroll down to the next section):

Start slow and go steady: Ultimately, I think it’s way better to get the juices flowing then have one’s juices be immobile and jello-like. So start out leisurely in really comfy, cushy shoes on the sidewalk or on an easy, flat-ish path to get your body moving. Ease into it…but be consistent and committed…and just listen to what your body is telling you. Don’t pound, just be patient…the goal is just to get the heart ticking and the blood flowing. Then ever so slowly, dial up the intensity over time (be it duration, distance or pace). And do this when your body tells you to (i.e. it’ll be less bark-y about aches and pains as your baseline increases). Just don’t start out intense…such invites injuries.

Don’t be American: You ever invite a Yankee into your home? They’re savage…culturally, they’re just so conditioned to strolling into homes wearing outdoor shoes. Obviously, not all of them…but many…so the ‘five second rule’ doesn’t apply in their homes, LOL. I kid, but my nudge is for you to get out of your socks and shoes or house slippers when you’re in your pad, and just onto the actual pads of your feet. It’s an easy way to start building up the bones and muscles in your feet. Shoes are casts that force our feet into weird adaptations — and they keep lots of parts of our feet weak — so we gotta give our doggies some tough love...to toughen ‘em.

Gently mix it up: When you can elevate your heart rate without gasping for air and have toughened your feet just a tad (i.e. they look like adult feet…not baby smooth skin on an adult’s body), get into a grassy public park (not a hardcore national park). Here, there are two separate exercises to do. One activity is to walk slowly and gently — and barefoot — over textured terrain that is bearable (it can be kinda ouch-y but it shouldn’t be excruciating). My reco is to step on some big, smooth stones or on some fine gravel or unkempt patchy grass. Doing this over a few weeks and months will really toughen the skin on the soles of your feet. The other activity is for you to very slowly transition off of flat paved paths onto natural terrain (to start building strength in your feet’s muscles as well as the range of motion in your ankles). Start slow and do short distances on a dry, flat-ish mud path with some bumps and rocks. You don’t want to go hardcore and roll your ankle or give yourself plantar fasciitis or shin splints, you just want to start conditioning your ankles, knees and hips to — ever so slowly and gently — handle new loads and slants and angles (which will usher in more dynamic range of motion aka your body’s BFF). And dial things up when the body’s honestly feeling up to it, doing so with ascents up — and descents down — hills, and treks along slanted shores. Look for variety, and trek accordingly.

Be minimal: Cut your toenails and take care of any wounds on your feet (because infection is the enemy)…but do not pumice your feet when the skin starts getting rough, don’t slap a bandage on your foot at the first sign of rubbing, and just leave blisters alone to do their thing (i.e. heal then callous). When I started out, my feet got gnarly; wimpy skin that was near-raw for years…but then they toughened up over time. Leaving your feet alone and having them naturally evolve will expedite your progress whereas aesthetically trying to keep your feet looking nice keeps them in a purgatory of pain. My feet don’t objectively look nice now (they’re no longer raw, just caveman-y looking), but they have this exoskeleton-like sheath of toughened skin that could let me tap-dance on broken glass sans pain or problem. And because I made an equal effort to wear more minimal shoes for a very long time (i.e. wide toe box with a heel that didn’t have much drop), I was able to cultivate strong feet that barely ache when punished. Basically, if you keep your toes wrapped in bandages, and your feet in cushiony socks, and your soles on gel-y insoles, and your shoes just have a big spongey sole and wedges and a padded heel then you’re actively maintaining weakness / preventing strength from developing. Comfort is nice, but it’s an enemy that’s costumed as a friend. So start comfy…but put in the work to get to the minimal.

Macho is for morons: I go really slow so I can go exceptionally far…like every fucking day. So when I see sponsored posts on social media that say “Get marathon ready in 45 days’ and/or I see people’s personal posts where they’re physically destroyed post-marathon (and injured or needing physio or just having to take time off), I’m confused as to why someone would want to do something they like — in such a punishing way — that it prevents them from doing what they like anytime soon. Speed kills! I know that may sound controversial in the endurance sports space…but why kill yourself to win…if you lose out on being able to do what you love tomorrow, next week or next month? Really, it comes down to the tortoise and the hare fable…and I genuinely encourage everyone to start out really slow and build up your capabilities and capacities over time. I have never had a serious injury, I regularly do five marathons a week, and it is because this practice is the only thing I effectively do slowly and patiently (I’m fast and furious in all other areas of life). This is my least sexy tip, but I know it to be the most sustainable one.

ON GOING FOR IT:

Okay, you’ve now built up the cardiovascular ticker and you’re less gasp-y in the lungs, your feet skin is sorta looking more like an animal hide, the feet / ankles / knees / hips are stronger and more dynamic in their range of motion, and you’ve put in the time and logged some kilometres…and now want to do that pilgrimage hike or some freestyle marathon over varied terrain? I gotchu...with this cheat sheet:

Head over hips…with the shoulder blades holding an imagined balloon: I spend much of my day looking at my phone or farting around the internet on my laptop while seated…so when I stand my posture has adapted / de-evolved to look like it’s damn near seated. I already wrote how boxing taught me everything about marathoning in a previous issue of the newsletter, but when I first started boxing my coach made me do footwork drills then had me shadowbox for months and months before I ever laced up the gloves. Why? Because we first had to correct my posture then improve my balance as well as my sure-footedness (the latter was drilled into me by my coach yelling, “STOP!” and if I couldn’t — like if I wobbled to stay in place — he’d instruct me on how to get planted). Balance, posture, and sure-footedness is everything in marathoning…like if you’re contorted your knees and hips and lower back will hate you after a few hours, and should you fall you’ll eat shit ‘cause you ain’t planted. So stand tall with your head directly over your hips (not slouched forward over them) and much springiness in your knees…don’t hunch forward (you’ll fuck your knees and blast the pads of your feet into a blistered state). This is an awkward skill to learn, and it is easier to ‘get’ in cities where you walk by stores with windows, see your hunched ‘Mr. Burns from the Simpsons’ posture, and correct yourself time and time again. And if you don’t have mirror-y things in your orbit, stride while imagining your shoulder blades are trying the hold a balloon between them. It’ll straighten you up and your movement will flow more comfortably and efficiently over long distances. And if you’re in mountains, just look at how graceful and upright and efficient mountain goats are…they’ve taught me a lot.

Lift with your knees / land with your arches: This is a very peculiar technique I swear by. And I developed it so that I can cover extreme distances day after day with as little wear on my body as possible. For all intents and purposes, a marathon is just somebody taking approximately 50,000 steps to trek 42.195 kilometres. And I have spent an indescribable amount of time thinking about — and then trialing — how to do this more efficiently. Now a step obviously requires force to propel a foot off of the ground to move one’s body forward. That’s kinda Physics 101, and I’m not here to argue with that! However, what I have learnt to do is lift as much with my knees as I do ‘push off’ with the balls of my feet. Why? Because when you’re tens of thousands of steps in — and the socks are a tad sweaty and the underside of your foot is a little raw — ever ‘push from the pad of the feet’ becomes even more micro-abrasive than the last, and ergo worse. Using the knee as this ‘helper piston’ — which I actively raise up — takes a lot of load off of my feet, and mitigates the aforementioned. Furthermore, when my foot lands in my stride, I like to imagine it landing on my arches. This helps me stay planted and balanced (versus teetering on my toes or heel…which is a ‘no no’ I learnt from boxing). Am I actually landing on my arches and risking blowing them out? No, I’m just being really mindful not to land on the exact same spot on my ball or heal because — thousands of steps in — either will become super aggravated. Really, I’m just being super mindful with how my foot lands and constantly making micro-adjustments with its position so I’m not landing on the same part of my foot and wearing it out to a bloody and blistered state. Lastly, get out of those bulky, heavy, rigid sole, inflexible, high-top hiking boots. They are total bullshit that train your feet to stay weak and diminish the range of motion in your ankle. People falsely think they stop you from rolling your ankles…but the onus is on you to learn how to move so you’re not rolling your ankles (ala learn to drive, don’t rely on the airbags).

Thumb to middle finger: Holding tension in the body is terrible in general…it prevents looseness and flow. And it’s even worse to do when marathoning, especially when you’re hours deep and the body inevitably starts to stiffen. But there are some workarounds…to release strain versus be strained by it. One thing I often see, is struggling hikers and marathoners wilting, clenching their fists, and then swinging their fists like pendulums…throwing ‘em forward like lawn darts which I guess the body is supposed to follow? I understand how this can happen, but it expends a lot of valuable energy and fucks up posture. If you find yourself doing this, I want you to imagine holding a piece of paper in between your thumb and middle finger. We know this doesn’t require a lot of strength or pressure, and I promise it’ll keep you looser and more efficient than defaulting to that clenched-up King King destroyer lewk. Furthermore, ditch those fucking hiking poles: the majority of people wear the wrist straps the wrong way (and will break wrists if they fall), they’re a terrible shortcut that undermines actually learning how to balance, and they make everyone hunch forward…which your lower back and hips will hate you for (when you’re going far, and there’s still far to go).

Breathe through your nose: When marathoning or hiking far, the goal is to get yourself into a flow state as quick as possible where the body and mind are working in unison in this weird sorta auto-pilot state. If you can achieve it, you won’t have many thoughts, you kinda transcend bodily aches and pains, and you can cruise for a really long time…like hours can go by as minutes (I’m being serious). However, it takes years to master, and it starts with breathing rhythmically through your nose (in and out) in a tempo / BPM that grooves with your stride. Basically, you just don’t want to be a mindless mouth breather gasping for air while swinging your arms around all wildly while slamming your feet into the ground. The aforementioned is how an extreme barbarian would move…and the goal is to move like an elegant ballerina. I don’t know how to effectively teach the latter…other than instructing you to ‘inhale through the nose, lift a knee up, exhale through the nose, and land with the arch’…all done rhythmically and with perfect posture and with physical looseness free of tension.

Always slow down, never stop: Every single marathon I do is very hard (some just happen to be less hard than others). And while it is a super physical practice, I have learnt it is actually way more of a mental thing. I regularly want to quit my marathons but I don’t…because their lure is that they force me to work through my doubt by problem solving and adjusting in real-time (and I just think this is a valuable skill to develop for life…which often sucks and is hard like a marathon). What I have learnt is to never ever stop, because the body goes, “Yippee! We’re done with this hell!” and it releases the lactic acid and the inflammation just kicks in…and then your mind goes, “WTF? Nah, we’re revving back up”…and you just lose all unison between mind and body…and they go to war with one another…and your soul goes to a very dark place. When it gets hard, just ease up and slow down a tad…but keep going. We are all way more capable than we think we are, and every single marathon teaches me this in new ways. And should you struggle, go through the check list herein and implement the items; get your head over your hips, get your shoulder blades holding the imagined balloon, lift with your knees / land with your arches, touch your thumb to your middle finger, and breathe through your nose. It’ll help you reset, and I promise you’ll be able to persevere.

I wish I could have downloaded these tips — into the minds and bodies — of every struggling pilgrim hiker I saw on the Caminho de Santiago this week. I couldn’t…but I can share them with you.

And if you made it this far, many of the pilgrim hikers on the Caminho de Santiago have a little scallop seashell on their backpacks…which is the official insignia of the pilgrimage (I don’t know why…I’ll report back on it next week).

Anyway, Aida’s surname is ‘Vieira’ and that’s the Portuguese word for ’scallop’. She was born a few hundred metres from the salty Atlantic Ocean in Castelo de Neiva — which the Caminho de Santiago passes through — and she is salt of the earth, and that’s why Castelo de Neiva is the birthplace of her, the world’s best scallop.

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