[pct-l] 20 mile days

[ronyon at comcast.net (Ron Smith)]

I agree with what you say about running. This would be equally true for
hiking, except I think another factor comes into play for hiking, which
is pack weight. If a 160 lb hiker and 200 lb hiker both carry a 40 lb
pack, the pack weight is 25% of the 160 lb hiker's body weight but only
20% of the 200 lb hiker's body weight. This translates to a smaller %
extra burden for the heavier hiker's muscles. The reason I bring this up
is that I have observed on the trail that many of the fastest hikers
tend to be bigger (but not real big) people carrying light packs.
However, put those same people in a 10K road race and they probably
wouldn't fare as well, since their body weight would work against them
there.
Ron

> -----Original Message-----
> From: dude [mailto:dude@fastmail.ca]
> Subject: RE: [pct-l] 20 mile days
> Just as a side note to this response, I had a 2:20 marathoner tell me
> that every pount of bodyweight that you carry will add 2 seconds per
> mile to your pace.  For example, if you are trying to run 20 miles and
> you currently can run 20 miles at a 8 minute pace, then you lose 20
> lbs, you should be able to run at an 7:20 pace (20 lbs x 2 seconds =
40
> seconds).  If you calclulate how much faster that is over the entire
20
> miles, it come out to 13.333 minutes faster.  That's very significant.
> it probably works very similar in hiking.  if you lose weight, you
will
> use less effort to do the same ammount of work.
> peace,
> dude