Back to Regular Hiking Training

The temperatures have moderated, the ice and snow are gone, but the heavy cloud cover remains. Without sun, there are no "pretty" hikes. The clouds, however, are gorgeous.

I'm back to my fast-stepped mountain hikes. My favorite is a 6 1/2 to 7 mile round trip. Half of that is a 500-700 foot climb, then the second half is flat and downhill. To motivate me, I took an mp3 player and Stevie Nicks, Barry White and other 112-130 bpm songs. It's tough to keep that pace uphill and for that long. Hills provide good training, and fast pacing makes it so, plus the sentiment of "My Everything" when applied to a Higher Power is uplifting and thus further motivational. This fast-paced baseline/calibration hike keeps me breathless but usually results in around an hour and 42 minutes, including breaks. The resultant computation is 3.8 mph overall, which is a blazing fast hike, although not a run.

It provides good training but, this early in the season, tires me and makes me sore. It is a prelude to longer hikes, which have to be fast in order to get them done in a day. My favorite local long hike is Flat Rock at 14 miles and 2400 climb-feet in a leisurely 7 hours. Reaching Red Lizard is even more challenging. These long local hikes themselves are training to be able to hike the real mountains in Rockies, Yosemite, Whites and wherever.

Challenge and training go together.

- © 2011 by Willy