The math teacher and I went for a five-hour walk through town while wearing huge backpacks and yet we are not Marines. We are just middle-aged married people. 

This was our weekly “training walk.” That’s what hikers call them. Training walks. Namely, because it would sound weird to call these walks “walking for five hours while wearing backpacks the size of Whirlpool appliances.”  

“How are you doing back there?” the math teacher called out to me as we walked. 

“Yay,” I said in earnest. 

The math teacher and I must exercise like this because, in April, we are travelling to Spain to walk El Camino de Santiago—from one end of Spain to the other.  

Training walks are important before hiking the Camino. You would not want to walk upwards of 500 miles across the breadth of Iberia, traversing the Pyrenees Mountains, when the most intensive workout you have done previously consists of using your teeth to open a Butterfinger. 

On our walk, members of the general public gave us odd looks. Joggers weaved around us on sidewalks, giving us lots of room, avoiding eye contact, clenching their pepper spray canisters. 

We felt ridiculous wearing large backpacks in public. But this is how you train for a pilgrimage. 

When we reached the corner grocery store, my wife went inside to get an energy bar. I waited on the curb, sitting on the pavement, dusty and forlorn, hair askew, sweaty, clasping my heavy backpack. Massaging my feet. 

An older woman with a little boy approached me. The woman looked concerned. She said, “How are you today?” 

“I’ve had better days,” I said. 

“Are you able to keep warm?” she said with a frown face.

“I guess.”  

“Is there anything you need right now, sir?” 

“I could really use a beer.”

The woman grasped her son by the hand and hurried away. 

When my wife got back outside (beerless) she found me half-sleeping on my backpack beside the Coke machines. She had apples and Larabars. We had two hours left to walk. 

Soon we were on our feet again, trudging onward through Birmingham. The math teacher kept pace about 20 feet ahead of me. Everything was hurting. My hips were sore. My back was tired. My calves had gone to be with Jesus. 

You neve realize how truly big the hills in your neighborhood are until you walk these hills while wearing a load the size of a mature toddler. 

“Just think,” the math teacher said cheerfully. “We’ll be doing this every day for a month.” 

Yay.