[pct-l] Preparation -- Physical Training
Eric Martinot
eric at martinot.info
Thu Jan 12 19:40:10 CST 2012
It seems to me there is a wealth of good information on this list
about gear, resupply, logistics, hiking strategy, etc., but very
little about the process of physical body conditioning in preparation
for a thru-hike.
I often think that some of the knee and foot problems and other
injuries that many thru-hikers experience comes from inadequate
physical conditioning coupled with stubbornly long miles in the early
days and an attitude of "I'll get in shape as I go along." This seems
dangerous to me, or at least responsible for some aborted hikes and
unnecessary misery. Beyond muscles and aerobic capacity, even just
developing adequate callouses on your feet takes awhile, to reach the
point where the feet feel fine the day after a hard 20-mile hike.
Same for knee resilience. Same for hands and arms and hiking poles.
In my view, you want to be able to build all that up over time, with
rest days in between hard hikes, before you subject yourself to that
stress every day continuously.
Yogi's planning guide has a nice 3-page section on thru-hike training
(p.64). I wonder what other posters might have to share on this
topic. Yes, everyone's needs and opportunities for training are
different, but in the end, we all make specific choices about what to
do.
In my case, to prepare for PCT section hikes in past years I tried to
do 3 months of a weekly 15-20 mile training hike with significant
elevation gain, plus aerobic cycling mid-week. To prepare for a 1600-
mile thru-hike I did overseas, I did about 3000 miles of cycling in
the year before the hike, and then about 4 months of weekly 18-mile
3000-ft gain training hikes and some shorter hikes mid-week in the
evenings. There was a standard hike I did, and it started as a
grueling 8-hour ordeal but after a few months was down to an enjoyable
6 hours. I also made sure to break in both pairs of boots I was
bringing, putting 100 miles on each pair before starting the thru-
hike, to condition my feet to the boots.
Now I'm preparing to finish the PCT this year, the 1400 miles I
haven't done yet. This time I'm doing about 3 months of twice-weekly
15-20 mile hikes between now and April, in the boots I'll actually be
wearing, and using poles, and maybe a full pack towards the end.
(Bringing a full pack on training hikes is something I've avoided, and
suffer in the early days of the actual hike because of it.)
Eric
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