I am staying in Mammoth lakes (roughly 8K elevation:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_Lakes,_California). Same as my staging area for Dana hike a while ago as well. I will also walk around a bit on the day before the hike at whitney portal.
I'm fairly active (work out 30 min a day 5-6 days a week). My bag is about 18 pounds. The weather will be ~65 at the base to ~42 at the top. So not too cold (don't know if it helps or hurts).
I have run about 400 miles this calendar year and still am pretty sure I got the beginning stages of AMS. Most will tell you your level of fitness has nothing to do with it.
I AM susceptible to mountain sickness, so I worked REALLY hard on hydration and nutrition on the way up, and even days before the trip. At the summit, some experienced hikers taught be about paying attention to your breathing, taking lots of rapid shallow breaths when I started to feel head pressure etc. This could be nonsense, but it seemed to help.
