this didn't post friday
Jul. 30th, 2011 01:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lauralh• Due to gas prices still not really going down, we're going to stay a bit closer to home this weekend. Probably take the Pratt Lake or Ira Spring trail off 90, find a nice lake and set up for the weekend.
• I downloaded "Backpacking Strategies: Hiking more than 20 Miles a Day" to see if there was anything good in it. Well, I already knew about lightweight backpacking, and mostly knew about training (just do it), but not about night hiking.
Actually, he mentions one thing about training which is very interesting: shock sessions. This is pushing your body past its limits by 50% or more, and then recuperating for a week. He claims your muscle memory will then suffice. I think this is more or less what Reg and I (accidentally) did with Colchuck. We'd always kept our backpacking trips short, not always on purpose, but even if we'd done all our plans all the way, we would never have gone higher than 1500ft or so in a day. Whereas this day hike was 1200ft in 3 miles or so?
I have noticed on my walks since then that everything seems easier. I've walked from my house to the high point of Golden Gardens (85th & 32nd), a little over two miles uphill, and in the past I have felt like I was going to die. But this weekend I did it and got to the beach and felt fine.
So that's part of the strategy for this weekend. It's again going to be more than we've done before, but as we're camping, we can just push ourselves and stop, instead of having to turn around and go back.
• The other parts of the strategy include going slow, taking lots of breaks over switchbacks, and cooking dinner then hiking another hour before pitching the tent. (I'm not hardcore enough to need to cover 20 miles in a day, but we do go very slow uphill.)
• I lost weight last year, then gained it back over summer/fall/winter. I'm sure I mentioned this before, but yesterday I got some concrete evidence of losing weight now. I pulled out a pair of shorts that I wore after our first backpack of the summer, by Lost River. They were really tight; Reg teased me at the time - "That's not a camel toe, that's a moose knuckle!" And now they fit quite comfortably. My Modcloth skinny jeans do as well.
• I downloaded "Backpacking Strategies: Hiking more than 20 Miles a Day" to see if there was anything good in it. Well, I already knew about lightweight backpacking, and mostly knew about training (just do it), but not about night hiking.
Actually, he mentions one thing about training which is very interesting: shock sessions. This is pushing your body past its limits by 50% or more, and then recuperating for a week. He claims your muscle memory will then suffice. I think this is more or less what Reg and I (accidentally) did with Colchuck. We'd always kept our backpacking trips short, not always on purpose, but even if we'd done all our plans all the way, we would never have gone higher than 1500ft or so in a day. Whereas this day hike was 1200ft in 3 miles or so?
I have noticed on my walks since then that everything seems easier. I've walked from my house to the high point of Golden Gardens (85th & 32nd), a little over two miles uphill, and in the past I have felt like I was going to die. But this weekend I did it and got to the beach and felt fine.
So that's part of the strategy for this weekend. It's again going to be more than we've done before, but as we're camping, we can just push ourselves and stop, instead of having to turn around and go back.
• The other parts of the strategy include going slow, taking lots of breaks over switchbacks, and cooking dinner then hiking another hour before pitching the tent. (I'm not hardcore enough to need to cover 20 miles in a day, but we do go very slow uphill.)
• I lost weight last year, then gained it back over summer/fall/winter. I'm sure I mentioned this before, but yesterday I got some concrete evidence of losing weight now. I pulled out a pair of shorts that I wore after our first backpack of the summer, by Lost River. They were really tight; Reg teased me at the time - "That's not a camel toe, that's a moose knuckle!" And now they fit quite comfortably. My Modcloth skinny jeans do as well.
