Injury on the Road To Pamplona

If you don't want to be completely grossed out, don't scroll down to see Janine's injury. She hurt herself pre-Camino but it was (and is) a concern. I'll put something more pleasant in the post first so if this gets re-posted to Facebook that the accompanying picture is not her knee catastrophe.

Mike in the Morning. Pre-Pamplona, Pre-Injury

Since this blog is all about me, I'm here to talk about my possible injury - and it's not the sciatica / ischial tendonopathy old-man injury stuff I've been dealing with for the last 18 months. I was hoping not running for a month might fix that particular problem. The Camino is a strange place and I often joke that after the first week everyone has what I call the Camino Limp - there is some small part of you that is out of whack and the rest of your body is adjusting for it. I spotted my first case of it today, a young woman slightly favoring one leg. A little further down the road, a Japanese young man that was stepping gingerly on one foot. I had been worried about a blister on my bottom right foot but had wisely changed out of my wet shoes for the last hour yesterday and put on my Tivas - disaster avoided. But then, as we were getting close to Pamplona today, I noticed the outside of my left shin was rather tight. As the afternoon progressed, it really felt like a weird case of shin splints - so now what the hell do we do? It's not too painful to walk but I don't want to damage it further. I'm icing as I write. We wanted to spend a little longer in Pamplona anyway so I think the plan will be to stay here in the morning and do a half day tomorrow, probably just a few hours of walking. If it gets worse, I may end up on a beach while Janine continues the walk.

As for Janine's injury, she massively wiped out while running a few weeks back - hit some uneven sidewalk hit all fours - her knee taking the worst of it - one of the nastiest scrapes I've ever seen. Why do I bring it up now? One reason is that it's been a constant concern - a pharmacist in Biarritz told her to go see a doctor (two weeks after the fact). She's been minding it well and it seems to be on the mend. But then WHY subject the reader to the horrific image that follows? Because Jesus too has such wounds. Twice now we've been in churches where Christ is bleeding from the knees. I'm used to the wounds on the side but I've never noticed the knees. Check out the pictures below and see if you can determine which is which.