[pct-l] Training for a thru hike

[Donna "L-Rod" Saufley]

You can take your training to another level, and get prepared at the same time.  Instead of carrying just water (my favorite was someone training with bags of cat litter), carry the real stuff:  your gear.  Prepare your pack as you would for going out.  Get comfortable with not only the weight of your pack, but how it rides and feels with real (lumpy) contents in it. If it's not working for you on a training run, imagine how miserable it could be out on the trail miles from anywhere.  Simulate your food weight.  If you're planning to do some long stretches without resupply (as many do in the Sierras), figure how many days of food  and what it will weigh, along with the bear can. Also, for those long dry desert sections, how much additional water will you carry . . . train under that scenario as best you can. Can your pack handle the weight? Know the weight capacity of your pack.  People frequently damage packs putting too much into them (myself included), and many packs get replaced here at mile 456.4.  I found out my bear can didn't fit into the original pack . . . that would have been a real big surprise had I waited to learn this at Kennedy Meadows.

Progress to making your training expeditions longer -- actually camp overnight.  Set it all up . . . cook your dinner and eat it.  Does all your gear work as you want it to?  Do you like, and were you satisfied by, your food?  I kept a notepad with me and wrote down all the things I wanted to dump, modify, or add.  Then I went home and made the changes, and repeated the process.  Over time, I replaced or modified a great deal . . . plus the whole training prep was a lot of fun. Since free time is hard to come by, we sometimes go out late on a Saturday afternoon, make camp for the night, and hoof it back in time to feed the horses in the morning.

This is really an excellent time of year to be out there getting ready -- when the weather is rotten.  Prepare and train in the worst and you will always be ready for it.  In doing the 2,650 miles of the PCT, you will be out for three seasons, and will have some extreme weather along the way.  Those of you lucky people who live where there's snow on the ground:  snowshoeing is a great winter extension of hiking.  Snow camping is an excellent, capability building, experience and you can do it in your own back yard.  

A note for those who live in flat places:  find the tallest buildings in your area, and see if you can use the stairwells to train.  Most high schools have bleachers, which are good in a pinch for ascent training.  

I should note that I am a section hiker (though I did thru-hike the JMT in '06).  I still go through this type of preparation as I train for my section hikes. But then, if I admit to being neurotic, there would be many quick to second that opinion.

L-Rod

-----Original Message-----
>From: Matt <llipschutz at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jan 2, 2009 8:40 PM
>To: pct-l at backcountry.net
>Subject: Re: [pct-l] Training for a thru hike
>
>2009 will be my first long-distance hike, and as such I'm woefully
>inexperienced, but one piece of realistic training which has helped in the
>past: water.  Load your pack with water weight equivalent to what you think
>you'll be carrying (or a bit more, if you're up to it) and hike with that.
>When you are absolutely beat, exhausted, and burned out, you can simply dump
>some water and continue on.  This way, if you are unable to finish your
>hike, you don't need to worry about going back to find the weights you've
>ditched.
>
>Just a thought.
>
>-Matt
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