Day Two: The Wall

There have not been too many occasions in my life where I have been pushed to the physical breaking point. The second day on the Camino de Santiago was one of those times.
It began with a climb of about 500 meters in 8 km up from Porto Marin, about halfway through that climb, I thought I was going to just drop.  The toll of the first day's exertion on my muscles and metabolism was driving me into a wall, I just had nothing in the tank.  When we stopped for breakfast, Dan announced that he needed to take a taxi to Melide, he just couldn't do it.  Dan had had mononucleosis twice in the past year and a half, so we were not at all in doubt of his need, what I was in doubt of was whether or not I needed to get in that taxi with him.  It was going to be another 32 km to Melide for an overall distance of 40 km, for you non-metric folk, that's 25 miles, in one day, with backpacks, and hills.
I did not get in the taxi.
I kept walking, step by step.  I spent more time walking alone that day than I did on all the other days combined, not because I couldn't have walked with others, but because I was simply suffering too much to endure much company.
The thing is: walking 25 miles in a day is borderline insane, it's almost a marathon, but with a backpack.  Walking 25 miles in a day on the second day of walking is just over the line.  Conventional wisdom says you ease into things like this, you let your body harden and your muscles grow accustomed to the strains, you walk shorter legs first, 15 km, 18 km, you work up to the 20-30 km range, you usually don't get to the 40 km walk, but if you have to, hopefully you're in trail shape.
We were not in trail shape, and we hit the wall.
I had a moment on that day, where I felt like a little kid and I just wanted to go home, I wanted nothing more than to hug my wife and kids, I wanted Caitlyn to give me one of her great big hugs more than I wanted water or rest, and way more than I wanted food.  It was a crisis point, but there was no choice but to put one foot in front of the other.
Life is like that a lot of the time, just putting one foot in front of the other, keep walking, no matter what.
We arrived in Melide and I was too tired to even eat, I tried and couldn't get more than some bread and a few bites of meat into me.  There was, however, a rather euphoric sense of accomplishment.  We had done something that not many other pilgrims could match, even some of the hard-core old men who were on their third Camino, only boasted long runs in the low 30s, but we had done 40.
My feet had blisters, my body was absolutely spent, but the wall had crumbled and I had not.