The Camino Blues

What are the Camino Blues? Well simply put it is the somewhat depressive state one may get after doing the Camino.  However its not just a Camino thing. I have often felt it when I have returned from any vacation, that low, that feeling of being lost and not wanting to go back to the real world.

I have also heard that after anything you train for and build up for after its completed there is a low.
That goes from a 5k to College Graduation to the Camino.  When I first heard of this it was when I was training for my first half marathon.  I didn't see how it could be. I mean why wouldn't I be excited about reaching my goal? Why would that make me depressed?  Then the day came when i did my first half marathon. The day of and the next few days I was proud of myself and excited. Then I began to feel the low happen. It was hard to do the 'rest' part of recovery since I had been walking everyday for months. Then it was as if I had nothing to look forward to, nothing to work for.  So I found myself looking for new adventures.

One of those adventures is the Camino. This years as I came off my week of camino I was faced with some challenges and found the low very low. First I was ill when I returned.  I am not sure if it was dehydration or something I ate, but my stomach was upset for a few days. Which made making the flights home less than enjoyable.

Then once I was better from that I was able to take my sister site seeing around Germany. One morning about a week after my return both my knees swelled up and felt like funny to walk on. Then I noticed my calf was swollen and hard as well. I began to fear that I had over done it and started to worry my walking days may be numbered. I know a bit dramatic, but i was in a lot of pain. Come to find out I did have a bit of a tear and bruise in my calf. After some rest, but still walking some and a few days of Motrin the swelling went down.  I could once again walk without pain and begin to think about the camino.

They often say the best thing to do to combat the camino blues is to start planning your next one.  The planning part is easy for me since I already knew I had more camino to do.  In fact as i rested my legs, with ice packs on them I was already planning the next stages.

Really I guess that is true for most things that bring us down. If we can find something to look forward to, something to believe in, something to work for, we are able to lift ourselves up and dust ourselves off and head on to the next adventure.