[pct-l] Fit for a thru-hike?

[gwschenk at socal.rr.com]

>From reading journals and meeting people at the kickoff and on the trail, I think a lot of people fail because they aren't hikers. They decide to hike the PCT with little or no experience hiking or backpacking. Their feet aren't ready, the muscles supporting the knees aren't ready, their back isn't ready, they haven't learned the signals the body sends out. The best training for hiking is...hiking. Lots of it.

Having said that, it's very cool to see absolute rookies finish the trail! And that seems to happen quite often.

Gary

---- Paul Bodnar <paulbodnar at hotmail.com> wrote: 
> 
> I agree I would guess that most hikers fail within the first 500 miles.  I am still collecting data on this so I can't back up my hunch with statistics.   
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> I think the lack of training has a lot to do with hikers leaving the trail... If you are hiking with the herd (and most hikers do) you will feel the temptation to keep up with other hikers even though your body may tell you to slow down.  The social pressure to keep up with other hikers, the critical timing constraints of a thru hike (about 20 mile days on average) and the lack of physical fitness are all contributing factors to why hikers fail a thru-hike.   You can't do anything about the time constraints of a thru-hike.  All thru-hikers will have to average about 20 mile days to finish a thru-hike.  There will always be social pressures to keep up with certain hikers, we are human....and we like to socialize (well most of us).  But we can change our physical fitness and I think we are at that critical time.  If you don't start getting into shape now you will have a hard time dealing with the 20 mile days.  
> 
>  
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> Imagine meeting the coolest (hottest) person in the world and not being able to hike with him/her because you failed to get in shape.  Starting a thru-hike out of shape is one of the best ways to reduce your enjoyment and increase your chances of failure.  
> 
>  
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> Paul
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> > I'd bet the majority of that 15% get those injuries pretty early on, and
> > it's not so much from lack of training as overdoing it from the start. [...editied out] But,
> > yeah, getting in shape ahead of time would be good too. My plans to whip
> > myself into shape ahead of time for this hike looked great on paper, and
> > that's still where they are. Doh.
> > 
> > P178
> > 
> > > About 15% of hikers leave the trail due to injury and physical training
> > could potentially eliminate this.   
> 
> > Paul
>  		 	   		  
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