Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion Winter Training Motivation for Spring-Summer Hiking

Ice-climbing in downtown Oklahoma.

Wazzu, sorry about the partial detour with the ice climbing stuff. All my fault I think.

I'm alot like you in that I pretty much take Nov. and Dec. off. My big trips are usually in Sept-Oct. Having trained (hopefully) long and hard up to that point, I don't feel guilty about a couple of months of no working out. Plus, with all the holiday food, drink, and friends I'm well occupied time wise. And then there are the leaves. I live on a 1 1/2 acre heavily wooded lot. White oak, red oak, three species of hickory, sweet gum, black gun, pines, mulberry, dogwood, magnolia, and alder along the creek. Lots of leaf raking to do.

However, by mid Jan. boredom and a thickening waist prompt me to get off my ass. I'll head to the gym, do a little running, a little biking, a little hiking and soon a sort of routine falls into place. I guess upcoming trips are what keep me focused. If I need some spark to get me going on those days when I'm trying to talk myself out of a workout, a favorite piece of music or song will do the trick. That, or the thought of Bulldog outperforming me on some of our local hikes.

John

Last time I looked, you were keeping up pretty well - and me with a 10-lb daypack pack while you were lugging 40 pounds of birdseed. Don't think we need to worry 'bout that!

Speaking of which, that birdseed-weighted training pack is a great idea John. I bought 30 pounds of it and broke it up into six 5-pound baggies that I shuttle in and out of my packs as my training dictates. Good call!

Gonna try and hike up Kennesaw Sunday before all the snow melts. Give me a shout if you want to go.

Oh yeah - if you guys haven't figured it out already, catpappy is a botanical wonder. Hike with him amd he'll name and categorize every plant or tree you pass. Reminds me of a certain Moose . . .

EXERCISE FOR PEOPLE OVER 50

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface, where you have plenty of room at each side.

With a 5-lb potato bag in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides and hold them there as long as you can.

Try to reach a full minute, and then relax. (Feel the burn)

Each day you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer.

After a couple of weeks, move up to 10-lb potato bags. (Feel the strength in your arms).

Then try 50-lb potato bags and then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb potato bag in each hand and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I'm at this level.)

After you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each bag.

It sounds as if many of us are fair-weather mountain people and tend to back off the mileage once the winter arrives. That's one of the things I envy about winter mountaineers - they are probably in the best shape of their year by spring, then the summer stuff is a piece of cake compared to all the ice and snow work they've done.

I've spent the past 6 or 7 winters swearing I would not drop off the hiking mileage and fall out of shape, but almost every one ends that way for one reason or another. I think the reason that I've stuck with my plan so far this winter is that, aside from focusing on hiking first and having a couple of mountains very close by, I have established a personal goal to reach at the end of each month for the route I train on. I keep a detailed hiking log and record my times and splits each trip to the mountain. That record-keeping has been a big motivation in sustaining my training.

When I settled on this 6-mile, 1700 foot-gain route back in August as my basic twice weekly workout with a 15-pound pack, I was completing it in about 2 hours, 10 minutes. My goal was to cut that to an hour and 45 minutes before the end of the winter. I actually hit that 1:45 threshold by November, and am now at 1:39. As I'm now at the point of very diminishing returns, averaging 3.5 mph, I needed a new challenge to keep me competitively focused. It was either more distance or more weight. I chose weight since my workout time is currently limited, and have added 5 more pounds (in the form of birdseed - thanks catpappy for that idea). Once I'm hitting my 15-pound pack best time with 20 pounds, I'll either go to 25 lbs or add distance. Distance probably won't come till spring though, when the days are longer and I can start earlier in the morning or go later into the evening. I'm fine with hiking in daylight when the temp is reasonable (40 or better), but hiking by headlamp in wind chills in the teens just doesn't float my boat.

I'm sure some people think it would be unbelievably boring hiking the same route twice a week, but for me it's not. It's all how you look at it. This is my twice-a-week workout, and the experience of being in the woods, on a mountain, with deer crossing my path occasionally beats jogging city streets, looking at the same gym interior, or any other surrounding for a typical workout regimen. Aside from the personal competition against the stopwatch, I've also built a degree of trail-vanity that pushes me to work hard at it - I haven't been passed on this route in over 3 months except by a few trail runners, and certainly no one carrying a pack. I'm sure a lot of folks hiking this mountain think I'm nuts the way I fly through its trails, which are very rugged, rocky, rooty, and steep (that's where expertise with trekking poles can let you move a lot faster than someone without them), but I've met a number of regulars that are out there doing the same thing, either training for an AT through-hike or a backpacking trip out west. I ran into my doctor out there a few months ago - he was training with his son for an October Grand Canyon R2R2R.

For me, the bottom line was sort of like wazzu's - I had to find some competitive push that would keep me from falling into the winter doldrums and give me the incentive I needed to stay at it over the colder, darker months. This has worked for me so far, and is really exciting for my wife, who spends most of the year doing fast walking around our extremely hilly neighborhood. She joins me about every other trip out there. With a 7-lb pack, she can generally keep up with me, even on the hardest pushes. When that happens, I always remind her that she's 9 years younger.

Once I have this nailed, wagga, I'm going to start adding potatoes to my sacks . . .

The birdseed seems to be a good idea. If you get lost or stuck out there you should have food for a few days. In fact, after that much birdseed you could probably fly home...

Gary, there are a couple of good workouts waiting for us up in the Smokies.

Baxter Creek Trail to Mt. Sterling
6.1 miles and 4200' elevation gain.

Rainbow Falls Trail to Mt. Leconte
6.8 miles and 4000' elevation gain.

John