Parque Del Cid Campeador

Just a knee update.
As you see from the picture I have been icing my knee . I am doing it 5 times per day .keeping it elevated most of the day. Had the knee brace on day 1 and did not have it on yesterday.
Today will be my 3rd complete rest day. First day I needed to go out to the grocery store to get food and walked about 3000 steps that day. There was pain in the knee when I walked and I had the brace on.
Yesterday came in at 250 steps:)
The funny thing is that new watch I bought kept notifying me to get moving throughout the day:)
Also on day 1 of rest I did extensive googling on knee injuries. Probably wasn’t a good use of my time but did get a lot of info. One thing I read about that surprised me was the use of NSAIDS with soft tissue injuries. Seems like there is some debate about whether they slow the healing process. As a result I decided to stop taking the anti inflammatory meds I have and just see what happens as I am not in pain when not walking and the icing should help the internal inflammation which I assume I have. There is no exterior swelling.
The knee has felt different yesterday morning as well as this morning. Yesterday it felt completely fine with ease of movement. No soreness or pain when I poke around with my hand, did a few squats and no issue. This morning the knee feels tighter and a bit contracted.A little feeling of soreness but mostly just feels tighter. I am assuming that these are good signs that healing is occurring. I plan to do my 250 steps today as well as I have enough supplies.
Tomorrow I will need to go to the store again so that will be a good test of whether I have made any progress or not. After today I have another 4 days of complete rest so fingers crossed!
Yesterday I mapped out a plan for the rest of the trail if I can begin walking it again. While they say this is an easy walk there are still quite a few elevation changes that one must navigate . The plan I concocted would have us stopping half way down the two largest mountains so that I can split the downhills into 2 days as my downhill walking is more of an issue that flat or uphill. Using this plan would have us arrive in Santiago on 10/9. We do want to go to Finisterre which is 51 miles from Santiago ( it is also called the “ end of the world”) and is the coast of Spain on the North Atlantic Basin . There are bus trips there and back so that will take a day. I ain’t waking 51 more miles:) Our flights are set for 10/10 so will need to push them out a day but did the research on that and should be easy to arrange but we will need to leave from Madrid instead of they Paris as it is difficult to get a flight from Santiago to Paris but easy to get a train to Madrid not to mention that everything I read is the train trip to Madrid provides great views as well!
CJ is crushing the trail. First day he did around 14 miles and then yesterday he did 40km which is just under 25 miles! Also yesterday morning he had rain and 20 mph wind till about 11am. He said he only saw 10 hikers and 2 bicycle hikers in the morning. In the afternoon it was sunny and he was rolling along! Said it has all been flat and the views are not particularly grand as it is in the middle of the Meseta . He and I talk several times a day so he is keeping me connected with his journey . He has about 55km left to get to me so he should be here tomorrow afternoon. He will have great hiking weather today although it is 48 degrees right now and will only have a high of 65 today and partly sunny all day!
So in conclusion I am doing the RICE approach, hopefully healing and trying to keep my sanity, Thank goodness for the internet and the 2 streaming services I have that work internationally( Apple TV and Netflix)! Many thanks to all that have reached out, I am hopeful that I can get back to the trail and so far so good so we shall see!Read more