In this blog post I was planning to write about my shopping search for Trekking poles. However the last 2 weekends have been a snow fest and I have not been out shopping. This is unfortunate since the more it snows, the more I need those walking poles. During my last walk I found a tree branch and used that as a walking pole to help me trudge through the snow on the Trans Canada Trail. Instead I will write about my other major exercise commitment for my Camino Santiago de Compostella training in the form of Yoga warm up and cool down poses for long distance walking.
In June when I started my walking training, I also started my Yoga Instructor Training. My main reason for taking the 200 hour instructor training was to be able to “deep dive” into the Yoga poses for both stretching and strengthening my muscles, breathing (pranayama) techniques to help build my lung capacity and meditation to help with the mental toughness and confidence to complete the 800 kilometer walk. My goal was to be able to design a yoga practice to support my training efforts for the walk, and to keep me stretched and limber during the actual 40 days of walking on the Camino trail.