where's my hiker legs?

[jefals]

I'm trainin with 50 pounds, 4.6 miles in 2.5 to 3 hours, 670' of climbing. 4 to 6 times a week. This is an out-and-back trail, with mostly gentle, short ups and downs, till you're close to the end.

Then, as I'm halfway up the mountain, it's 75 steep feet to the bottom followed by 150 steep feet to the top - which I repeat before continuing - down a ravine leading to a steady - maybe 45 to 55° -200' climb, then back down and around to the backside of a hill - the "Grande Finale" - a steep and somewhat treacherous 200' climb.

Except for grande finale, I try to do all the hills mentioned in that last paragraph without stopping to catch my breath. The 1st two, the 150' ones, I'm doing in slow, tiny but continuous steps till I get to the top. Usually my legs are burning at the top, but I'm not too out of breath.
On the next hill I also go continuously till I get to the top, and stride is a little bigger than before, as this one isn't quite as steep. When I get to the top this time, not only are the legs burning, but I'm also breathing hard.
Fortunately, there is a good place for sitting at the top of this one.
Once I've recuperated sufficiently, I head to the "grande finale". That one, I have to do in sections. The first part is steep, and I have to climb steadily, carefully finding the footholds until I get to where the angle drops a little. Gotta stop there, catch my breath, let my legs rest as good as I can standing up with 50 pounds on my back. Next is what looks like a third to a half of a football field, of more gradual uphill, followed by very steep (I don't know if it's 70° - it's close to the steepest angle a normal person can climb without climbing gear) - 25 to 35 feet.
So, I make my way to the beginning of that last steep part. Stop again to rest my legs and catch my breath. The last part up, there will be no stopping, once you get started. Your position at each step along the way is too precarious to linger.
When I finally make it up, I scramble to the shade of a huge oak tree, and I would love to just collapse and rest for a few minutes. But don't want to take the pack off, since I don't want to have to pick it back up again. So , I rest there, standing as best I can.
From here, it's a mile and a half of mostly gentle ups and downs back to the parking lot. At this point, tho, even some of the gentle ups are challenging.
~~~~~
So here's my question : Isn't this supposed to start getting easier at some point???

[LittleTrouper&Human]

nope. Because you see what happens, the moment you start to find this hike easy...you find a harder hike. So the hardness never stops.

[ldsailor]

I'm close to your age and have done 1,280 miles of the AT so far. Going up has never been easy and my section hikes have been hundreds of miles (750 last year). If I were you, I would keep doing what you are doing. At our age, it's easy to get out of shape fast.

I remember 21 years ago when in Montana. I hiked up a mountain - actually I pretty much ran up the mountain. I wish I had down the AT back then.

[jefals]

I'm close to your age and have done 1,280 miles of the AT so far. Going up has never been easy and my section hikes have been hundreds of miles (750 last year). If I were you, I would keep doing what you are doing. At our age, it's easy to get out of shape fast.

I remember 21 years ago when in Montana. I hiked up a mountain - actually I pretty much ran up the mountain. I wish I had down the AT back then.

Yeah, well 30+ years ago, I used to climb something every day after work in Phoenix called Squaw Peak. Very rocky. Lots of folks - youngsters, mostly, running up and down, and I always felt, "someday, somebody's gonna fall and when they do, it's gonna be serious"!

[jefals]

nope. Because you see what happens, the moment you start to find this hike easy...you find a harder hike. So the hardness never stops.

I guess that gives me some encouragement. I'm still waiting for this one to get easier, and seems like I've been waiting long enough...

[BuckeyeBill]

You say you are doing this 4-6 times a week. Do you know how much your pack will weigh on your hike? If so I would only add a maximum of 10 more pounds. Working out 4-6 times a week doesn't give your muscles time to rest and rebuild. Start out slow and work up to more time and distance. Trust me your may not be able to hike more than 8-10 miles a day if that. Your trail legs will come on as will your hiker appetite. Even bodybuilders only work one set of muscles a day.

[Puddlefish]

Training theory has changed in recent years among Olympic athletes. Work hard about a month... then take a week off to let your body heal a bit. This avoids hitting a plateau, where you don't seem to improve. It seems to work for me at my age. I'd guess it's even more important at your age.

[jefals]

You say you are doing this 4-6 times a week. Do you know how much your pack will weigh on your hike? If so I would only add a maximum of 10 more pounds. Working out 4-6 times a week doesn't give your muscles time to rest and rebuild. Start out slow and work up to more time and distance. Trust me your may not be able to hike more than 8-10 miles a day if that. Your trail legs will come on as will your hiker appetite. Even bodybuilders only work one set of muscles a day.

I was thinking maybe 35 on the TRT hike, more on PCT. But that's just a guess so far.
I did start slow and work up to where I'm at now. May be on a plateau.
There's a bit of a contradiction in thinking of this training as either (a) working out, vs (b) preparing for backpacking. Cause when you're backpacking, say on the AT, you're more or less doing about 5 days on and 1 day off, right?

[jefals]

Training theory has changed in recent years among Olympic athletes. Work hard about a month... then take a week off to let your body heal a bit. This avoids hitting a plateau, where you don't seem to improve. It seems to work for me at my age. I'd guess it's even more important at your age.

I know that doesn't work for me. I used to work out like that. I found, after a week off, I had lost way more conditioning than I felt I should have....

[Another Kevin]

On one hike I did with a few friends a few years back, we were bushwhacking in the Catskills from Winter Clove to Stoppel Point - up the Catskill Escarpment. About half way up, when all of us were puffing and sweating and cursing the spruce and blackberry and stinging nettle and laurel, one of the guys said, "Isn't it great that when you get to the top, you totally forget how much this s*ks?" [1] The resulting laugh was good for at least another 600 feet of elevation gain.

No, it never s*ks any less. You just get better at embracing the s*k.

[1] The '*' stands in for 'tin', of course. What had you thought it meant?

[MuddyWaters]

simply put

The best way to train to hike 20 mpd
Is to hike 19 mpd .

A few weeks straight of hiking 15 mpd nearly every day will give you some version of Trail legs. More than one or two days off a week will be counterproductive to developing that endurance. With endurance the body begins to regress and immediately when you cease activity. However the body also needs recuperation time for peak performance that daily activity doesn't give it. So there's a sweet spot for competition, in which you should taper off your training immediately prior... To competition.


There are threshold workloads you have to exceed to really make gains n endurance. Runners know you can't run 1 mile 3 days a week and be able to run a marathon. Nor will running that one mile with 10lb on back, replace running those 12-20 mile long days once in awhile. In running 3 miles seems to be a magic distance if I recall correctly. Once you can do that, you can begin building more time easier. In other words once your body can run 3 miles it can maintain running after that much easier at a steady pace. Or maybe I'm just full of it.

[fiddlehead]

I don't mind the uphills anymore.
Of course, I would never carry 50 lbs though.
I don't even want to carry half of that.
Anyway, I take is slow on the uphills to start.
Regulate my steps by my breathing.
Never get out of breath.
That's the theory anyway.
I am usually much faster at the top than at the bottom.
Training with a 50 lb pack sounds like a good way to injure yourself to me.

[Puddlefish]

I know that doesn't work for me. I used to work out like that. I found, after a week off, I had lost way more conditioning than I felt I should have....

Try going four weeks with your overly heavy pack, and one week without it then. Doing the same thing over and over will have you hit a plateau, which is what you've described.

[ldsailor]

There's a bit of a contradiction in thinking of this training as either (a) working out, vs (b) preparing for backpacking. Cause when you're backpacking, say on the AT, you're more or less doing about 5 days on and 1 day off, right?

Never did that - 5 days on and 1 off. Last year over nine weeks, I took 3 zero days and three nero days (hiked less than 5 miles).

[jefals]

simply put

The best way to train to hike 20 mpd
Is to hike 19 mpd .

A few weeks straight of hiking 15 mpd nearly every day will give you some version of Trail legs. More than one or two days off a week will be counterproductive to developing that endurance. With endurance the body begins to regress and immediately when you cease activity. However the body also needs recuperation time for peak performance that daily activity doesn't give it. So there's a sweet spot for competition, in which you should taper off your training immediately prior... To competition.


There are threshold workloads you have to exceed to really make gains n endurance. Runners know you can't run 1 mile 3 days a week and be able to run a marathon. Nor will running that one mile with 10lb on back, replace running those 12-20 mile long days once in awhile. In running 3 miles seems to be a magic distance if I recall correctly. Once you can do that, you can begin building more time easier. In other words once your body can run 3 miles it can maintain running after that much easier at a steady pace. Or maybe I'm just full of it.

Ok, I'm not trying to train for competition, so you're losing me a little on that one. And I hear you on the 15 mpd thing. I won't be doing that, tho, till I'm actually out there backpacking, if at all, cause my training hike is already 3 hours a day and that's all I want to do till I actually get "out there". Seems like in 15, out on the PCT for 19 days, we were carrying heavy loads going only 6 mpd, I recall kinda getting noticeably stronger towards the end. ..

[jefals]

On one hike I did with a few friends a few years back, we were bushwhacking in the Catskills from Winter Clove to Stoppel Point - up the Catskill Escarpment. About half way up, when all of us were puffing and sweating and cursing the spruce and blackberry and stinging nettle and laurel, one of the guys said, "Isn't it great that when you get to the top, you totally forget how much this s*ks?" [1] The resulting laugh was good for at least another 600 feet of elevation gain.

No, it never s*ks any less. You just get better at embracing the s*k.

[1] The '*' stands in for 'tin', of course. What had you thought it meant?

I wasn't sure. I'm glad you told me. I guess.

[jefals]

I don't mind the uphills anymore.
Of course, I would never carry 50 lbs though.
I don't even want to carry half of that.
Anyway, I take is slow on the uphills to start.
Regulate my steps by my breathing.
Never get out of breath.
That's the theory anyway.
I am usually much faster at the top than at the bottom.
Training with a 50 lb pack sounds like a good way to injure yourself to me.

I really wish I could backpack with 25 pounds! I've found if I leave something at home, I usually wind up needing it. Turns unexpectedly cold - no fleece. Rains - nothin but that lousy cheap poncho! Of course out here, there's often a large water carry and more days between food resupply.
Took a fall yesterday with that 50 lb pack, and there was blood involved. Scraped my knuckle! I guess there's always a silver lining - cause where I landed turned out to be a pretty good spot to sit and rest. (Of course, it would have been difficult to have gotten down on the ground there. Falling made it easy)!

[jefals]

I know that doesn't work for me. I used to work out like that. I found, after a week off, I had lost way more conditioning than I felt I should have....

Try going four weeks with your overly heavy pack, and one week without it then. Doing the same thing over and over will have you hit a plateau, which is what you've described.

Hey I went one day wo the pack. The next day, the pack felt like it weighed twice as much!
I hear what you're saying, and I've received and tried some of these training variations. Maybe I just don't completely get it and not doing things quite right. But I wonder if training might not be a "one size fits all " kind of thing. Maybe an ideal regimen for one person might not be the perfect plan for the next person ...

[Puddlefish]

Hey I went one day wo the pack. The next day, the pack felt like it weighed twice as much!
I hear what you're saying, and I've received and tried some of these training variations. Maybe I just don't completely get it and not doing things quite right. But I wonder if training might not be a "one size fits all " kind of thing. Maybe an ideal regimen for one person might not be the perfect plan for the next person ...

That's the thing about breaking through the plateaus. You get used to doing the same thing over and over, and you can manage it at a certain level, and that level never really changes after a while.

Are you asking for advice, or just humble bragging about carrying a 50 pound pack? Don't believe me, Google "How to break through a training plateau" If you're human, these ideas will work.

[jefals]

Are you asking for advice, or just humble bragging about carrying a 50 pound pack? Don't believe me, Google "How to break through a training plateau" If you're human, these ideas will work.

Not sure why I would brag about carrying 50 pounds. Plenty of folks would call me stupid for doing that - or - on the other hand, I've seen plenty of folks carrying more than that a lot easier than I can...