[pct-l] Preparation -- Physical Training (repost)

[Eric Martinot]

[Doesn't seem to have posted to the archive originally....]


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