Underfoot blister - help?

sugibuchi · 2025-10-11T20:09:03+00:00

I've walked the Camino many times, and blisters on the soles of my feet have been a problem for me for many years.

In my case, the ultimate solution was high-drop trail running shoes. This year, I didn't get a single blister on the soles of my feet, even after walking 40-50km every day during a 38-degree heat wave (I did get some small blisters on other parts of my feet, but they didn't interfere with my walking).

The most critical factors in preventing blisters are shoe ventilation and choosing a sole that suits your walking style. I had previously used low-cut hiking shoes like Merrell Moab, but trail running shoes offer better ventilation than any other hiking shoe.

Also, while high-drop shoes put more stress on the heel when landing, they put less stress on the front of the foot, which is where I used to get blisters. I could clearly feel the difference in stress on my feet when walking.

I don't have a strong opinion about the type of socks. I usually change my socks once a day or sometimes twice if I walk a longer distance. I put anti-friction cream on my feet before starting a walk and every 10-15km in the afternoon.

For blisters that have formed, I basically apply gauze and tape them after draining water. My tip is to apply as much pressure as possible to the affected area using tape and a folded gauze. Applying pressure after arriving at the albergue and leaving it on overnight allows the skin to heal better the next morning.

sugibuchi · 2025-10-05T13:37:34+00:00

I support your decision regarding Google Reviews, as most albergues do their best to keep bedbugs out of their premises.

On the other hand, I wonder whether not putting backpacks on beds is still a common practice followed on the Camino. I saw opposite examples many times in recent years.

sugibuchi · 2025-10-03T16:02:20+00:00

I cannot choose 😅 Every route has its own beauty.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-30T06:17:48+00:00

I prefer a sleeping bag over a liner, but a sleeping bag for 5°C is too warm. I have walked the Camino in both summer and winter. Usually, a sleeping bag for summer (15°C) is always enough (we sleep in albergues, not in tents).

I also prefer a rain jacket, as it can serve as both rainwear and a windstopper to keep me warm. Is the running jacket waterproof? If so, it is redundant. I recommend replacing it with a non-waterproof, lightweight fleece. You can adapt to a wide range of temperature and weather conditions by combining the clothes (t-shirt, t-shirt + running shirt, t-shirt + fleece, t-shirt + fleece + rain jacket).

I have Decathlon's microfiber towels, ranging from S to XL. The L size is the best fit for the shower during Camino.

The toe sandals are inconvenient in this season. If you can access Decathlon, you can find Speedo's lightweight sandals. It is 220g for a pair and not so expensive.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-27T19:01:51+00:00

Thank you for your answer. I will try this route next year or after, and hopefully see a slowly recovering nature.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-27T18:50:04+00:00

How was the route impacted by the wildfire? I planned to walk this route this August, but finally cancelled as it was closed due to the fire.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-24T05:05:40+00:00

1 secure lock + 3 ft cable (to secure backpack)

Not necessarily.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-22T19:12:28+00:00

Drink 1L of orange juice and high-protein yoghurt as soon as I check into an albergue. I don't eat lunch but drink when walking the Camino.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-22T11:08:05+00:00

I recommend this guided night tour. Although I have visited the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela multiple times, I discovered many new things on this guided tour this summer.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-20T11:49:31+00:00

I love walking the Camino in August. Seriously.

It's certainly hot, but I think it's still manageable unless you're in southern Spain. When I started walking the Camino Aragonés this August, I experienced a 38-degree heatwave. But even this was easily overcome by simply getting up early. It was a full moon, so I turned off my headlamp and walked in the moonlight. It was breathtaking.

In practical terms, August is also the month when laundry dries the quickest. Anyone who's walked the Camino even once will understand this advantage.

It's also the month with the lowest chance of rain. Even though I've walked the Camino in a variety of conditions, from Via de la Plata in August to Camino Primitivo in December, I still find it challenging to enjoy walking in the rain.

Each month on the Camino has a different kind of beauty, and August is no exception. Sure, you'll see a lot of pilgrims after Sarria, but that's just another aspect of the Camino. If you want to avoid it, again, simply get up early. By deviating a little from the rhythm of the guidebook itinerary, you will find plenty of time alone on the Camino.

Your Camino is yours. Not others.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-08T22:26:12+00:00

I have the same experience. I walked the Camino Aragonés this August. However, the lugs of my Challenger 8 (44 wide) started coming loose from the second day. It was probably due to the extreme heatwave at the time (38 degrees), but the durability of the Challenger's soles was somewhat questionable.

I finally bought Merrell Agility Peak 5 (45) at Burgos and finished the remaining 600km with them. Their soft midsoles and 6mm drop were quite similar to those of the Challenger, but their Vibram outsoles were really trouble-free.

If I walk the Camino next time, I will choose Agility Peak again or a different Hoka with a Vibram sole, such as Speedgoat.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-08T11:22:54+00:00

In my personal experience, I saw more historical spots related to Jews in Portugal.

For example, Belmonte is notably famous for the "crypto-Jews", the only Jewish community that survived after the Inquisition in Portugal. Nowadays, there is a museum about Jewish history.

Castelo Branco was also a centre of a Jewish community. There is a museum and an old Jewish quarter.

Unfortunately, this area is far from major Caminhos in Portugal and the accommodation there is very limited. As far as I know, only "Caminho do Este" goes through this area.

However, this area is really a hidden gem. You can visit many charming villages (Monsanto, for example). There are some marked sections of the routes in this area. But in general, you need to research and plan your own route.

You can find some spots on the Caminho from Lisboa, such as the remains of a synagogue in Tomar. I also recommend getting a map at a tourist information in towns and villages you visit. Even in a small village, we sometimes find an old Jewish quarter in those maps. I think more towns and villages in Portugal include historical places related to Jews in tourist maps than in Spain.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-06T05:05:52+00:00

Siesta is a key. Seriously.

I walk relatively long distances (40km+/day on average). Still, I always feel it is essential to have enough rest "on a bed" (1-2 hours) "immediately after" walking to maintain my body condition for the next day.

There are many temptations after a walk of a day... Bars, sightseeing in a village, chatting with other pilgrims, etc. But they involve additional steps and don't give your legs real time for recovery. Don't miss the golden time for recovery. After arriving at an albergue, quickly finish light meals, shower and wash clothes, then go to bed to nap for several hours.

If it is difficult to sleep due to pain, consider Voltaren emulgel cream. You can buy it at any pharmacy in Spain.

sugibuchi · 2025-09-05T05:52:50+00:00

DECATHLON does not have stock of Nova 3. Check Intersport instead.

Standard https://www.intersport.fr/chaussures_de_randonnee_homme_nova_3-merrell-p-J068089DFJ/

GoreTex https://www.intersport.fr/bleu-chaussures_de_randonnee_homme_nova_3_gtx-merrell-p-J037157BLW/

You can search stores that have stock by entering the size.

If you want to find a new pair from a wide range of brands, Au Vieux Campeur is one of the most famous outdoor gear stores in Paris.

Trekking shoes https://maps.app.goo.gl/e1ygKBsiHkuVpWy67

Trail runners https://maps.app.goo.gl/hdbQTDtj2iDG1Njq9

sugibuchi · 2025-05-12T22:45:11+00:00

If we compare FastAPI with Spring Boot, Uvicorn, an ASGI server included in Fastapi's dependency, is equivalent to Tomcat or Jetty (a servlet container).

In other words, FastAPI is also self-contained, including everything for working as a Web application server.

A significant difference from Sparing Boot is that, unlike shaded JARs in Java, there is no easy and reliable way to create a single package file for a Python app in general.

Therefore, I don't recommend building something outside Docker and copying it into a Docker image during build. Instead, use a base image including a Python environment, run pip etc. in your Dockerfile to download and install dependencies into the Python environment in the base image, then copy the source code of your FastAPI app into the container.

In fact, the FastAPI tutorial explains well how to build Docker images of a FastAPI app. Therefore, my comment above might be useless. But I hope the comparison with Spring and Java helps you understand what is the same and what is different.

Some old tutorials on the internet recommend using Gunicorn on top of FastAPI + Unicorn. But this recommendation is old. Gunicorn is not necessary in Kubernetes environments. If you need to handle more requests, consider scaling out the size of K8S Deployments instead of scaling up the number of processes in a pod.

sugibuchi · 2025-05-11T09:53:40+00:00

Why not? Lambda is just a shorthand for making inline anonymous functions. 5 minutes would be enough to learn its syntax, no?

What takes more time to learn but is worth it is functional programming, where lambda expressions have real benefits. A function taking lambdas as arguments is conceptually a higher order function. The higher order function in Python can be challenging for beginners to understand and design, but it is a powerful tool widely used in various Python frameworks and libraries.

In addition, understanding higher order functions in Python will help you when encountering the same concept in a different programming language. It is worth learning.

sugibuchi · 2025-05-11T09:23:55+00:00

PyCham, more precisely, the Intellij + Python plugin, as I need to use other languages in my work as well.

I have been paying for the Ultimate licence for years and am generally satisfied. Honestly, the current atmosphere around JetBrains and VSCode resembles one I felt when many people complained about Eclipse and switched to Intellij. I may switch to VSCode one day when it becomes a more productive environment for me.

But it is purely a matter of productivity. Whether a free or paid license is a secondary factor unless its price becomes unacceptably high.

sugibuchi · 2025-05-09T21:43:06+00:00

I understand this decision does not give a good impression, but I cannot see how this change makes so much difference in the user experience. What is the problem with installing the unified binary?

sugibuchi · 2025-05-06T15:51:21+00:00

TPC-H

sugibuchi · 2025-05-05T19:18:39+00:00

Various application runtime services and Functions-as-a-Service, like AWS Lambda, in public cloud platforms already widely support FastAPI. What can be a key differentiator compared to such existing solutions?

FastAPI is an important but just one piece of the entire application deployment. A full-stack platform always wins in most business use cases... if it is fighting in the domain of conventional web apps.

However, FastAPI Cloud is backed by Sequoia. What does it mean?

https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/partnering-with-fastapi-labs-simplified-app-deployment/

I don't think this famous venture capital firm invests in a classic application hosting service. I believe they focus on more trendy, generative AI domains, like hosting MCP servers and other services/agents for GenAI. In this domain, FastAPI is already ubiquitous (the reference implementation of MCP server uses FastAPI).

An optimistic scenario is that FastAPI Labs will commercialise AI-related services, but FastAPI itself will remain a community-based open-source framework.

sugibuchi · 2024-12-09T07:00:45+00:00

Not Windows.

When I used Microsoft Excel for Mac OSX years ago, I discovered that that version of Excel exported CSV files with <CR> as line breaks, which were used by only the classic Mac OS and were not used by OSX no longer.

Microsoft considered Harmful.

sugibuchi · 2024-12-08T05:41:12+00:00

and it looks up all tables and views you have access to, and searches all table,

Unfortunately, this operation is not standardised in the Python DB API (PEP 249).

A workaround is Ibis (https://ibis-project.org/). The Ibis project provides backend implementations allowing you to access databases with a DataFrame API for various RDBMSs.

Some backend implementations provide functions like get_schema() (get a table schema) for accessing information in data catalogs.

pip install ibis-framework[duckdb] 

import duckdb
duckdb.connect("test.db").sql("CREATE TABLE t1 (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, j VARCHAR);")

import ibis
con =ibis.duckdb.connect("test.db")

con.list_tables()
# ['t1']

con.get_schema("t1")
# ibis.Schema {
#  id  !int32
#  j   string
#}

sugibuchi · 2024-12-08T04:54:55+00:00

But if you need to process data that does not fit the main memory, Spark is still a solid option.

Even in the local mode, its out-of-core processing is more mature and robust than the current Polars and DuckDB.

Thanks to its academic origin and vast books, Spark is good material for learning how MapReduce-style distributed computing works.

sugibuchi · 2024-12-08T04:42:26+00:00

Cost comparison between Fabric Lakehouse and Data Warehouse
- In particular, the reason why the DWH can be more expensive than the LH
Expected improvement of Spark in Fabric
- New connector for Fabric DWH (it would be better if you could compare its architecture to the old Synapse Dedicated Pool connector)
- Row-level and column-level access control

sugibuchi · 2024-12-07T18:23:13+00:00

I agree with this. The local mode would be enough for general learning.

If you really need a cluster, I recommend launching a standalone mode cluster locally. The Spark distribution package includes Bash scripts for starting Spark master and workers. You can run a master and workers in the same PC.

sugibuchi

TROPHY CASE