[pct-l] Training

[steve_peterson at sbcglobal.net (Steve Peterson)]

Ah, but read the next paragraph! To wit:

"Although this may seem to offer evidence that anyone in any condition can 
successfully complete a long hike, it does not say that the chance is equally 
good regardless of the hiker's starting condition. If all who attempted the trip 
had been queried the day they started, the results would have been very 
different. What the data do say is that among 136 long-distance hikers who 
survived at least several weeks, and usually much longer, a remarkable "trail 
conditioning" took place, putting all the hikers on a more or less equal basis 
once the first month was past."

This corresponds with my own thinking on this issue which I expressed in my 
earlier post: you can't (generally) get in the ultimate shape before the 
hike--but you'll raise the odds of succeeding if you get in good enough shape to 
make it comfortably through the first few weeks.

Let me also add that in saying the above, I do not in any way mean to lessen the 
importance of the will to endure--I think that's huge. But sometimes being in 
better shape can lessen the amount of will-to-endure that is needed. All this 
stuff works together: will, fitness, food, gear, planning, sensible hiking 
practices, luck, etc. No one thing will guarantee success, but improving each 
one raises the odds a little. Sometimes, of course, having more of one can 
compensate to a certain degree when one has less of another. But in the final 
analysis, given the huge percentage of people that drop out, it would seem that, 
unless one doesn't care too much about finishing, it behooves one to raise the 
odds in as many ways as one can.

--Steve


StoneDancer1@aol.com wrote:
> A lot of good advice has been kindly given and well recieved.  As to  those 
> who somehow seem to condition  too ittle and always start out in  the hold  
> (not like me, of course, heh heh), despair not.
>  
> Roland Mueser, in his book, Long Distance Hiking: Lessons Learned From The  
> Appalachian Trail  extensively questionaired 136 thruhikers in  1990-1991.
>  
> He found that in one month, those hikers who had started in poor shape  were 
> hiking as fast and as long as those who who had pre-conditioned... that  
> physical condition "was not the sin qua non for staying on the  trail."(p.31)
>  
> Time and again it has been shown that the will to endure, the will to  
> succeed, is, in fact, the sin qua non for staying on the trail.
>  
>  
> When it's hot, be hot.  When it's cold, be cold.
> "No Way" Ray  Echols
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