Question: How does one train to hike 2,650 miles?

Answer: You can’t! The best way to get your body in shape for walking 20+miles/day with a fully loaded pack is to… walk 20+miles/day with a fully loaded pack. Since I have a job  that I’d like to keep for the time being, this just simply isn’t possible. Instead I’ve been trying to increase and vary my workouts so that when I start I am overall pretty fit, with the hope that it translates to less discomfort on the trail.  I’ve read that starting the hike without a base fitness level can lead to one or more of the following (all things I’d like to avoid): overuse injuries, dropping out in the first 200 miles, extreme mental strain.

With all of this in mind, I’ve been tweaking and adjusting my usual workouts so that I’m increasing both my strength, cardio, and number of miles/week on my feet. What works for one hiker, doesn’t work for others, so it’s taken me a lot of reading and sifting through lots of advice to get a workout plan that suits me well.  For those that are curious, my typical weekly schedule is below. In order to get it all done, I usually have to do several of these things per day, so it adds up quite a bit of time and energy. As such, I try not to be too hard on myself when I feel the need to skip something.  Rest is also extremely important when training, and I try to listen to my body when it’s telling me that I’m doing too much!

Walking to/from work with lots of water in a backpack–  I live ~2.5 miles from my office, a distance I usually travel by bike.  By simply walking to work, I’m now walking 5 miles/day without much thought or effort on my part.  Yes, my 30 minute round trip commute has now tripled to 1.5 hours, but it allows me to easily get miles on my feet.  Added bonus– there’s a delicious cupcake shop along the way that I now get to stop and eat at on my way home on days when I’m in need of an energy boost… so this is basically me now, everyday:

Running– I’ve struggled with shin splints in the past, and this is a very common ailment on the trail.  As such, before work, I’m running 4 days/week to increase the amount of impact my legs are used to and increasing my mileage by 10% each week (this is the amount my physical therapist told me was generally how quickly you can build up in miles and avoid shin splints).   I started this build up in June, when I was at 1 mile of running per week (seriously… shin splints are the worst).

I’m currently at ~13 miles/week, and plan to be running around 35 miles/week by the time I start.

Incline on treadmill/stairclimbing– Before my strengthening workouts, I will do 20 minutes on the stairclimbers or on a treadmill with an incline to warm-up.  I’m planning to add a backpack to this as well, I just keep forgetting to bring it to the gym!

Weights/strength training– After work, I do 3 days of strength training.  I was doing 5 days a week in the fall, but I needed to scale it back in order to increase the amount of time I could spend on cardio I can do during the week.  My new 3-day training schedule has 1 day of legs (lunges, leg extensions, leg curls, step ups with added weight, leg press, 60 second wall squats, single leg deadlifts, leg swings w/ theraband, crab walks with theraband, and balancing on a bosu), a core day (bridges with kickouts, leg raises, scissor kicks, plank (30 seconds per side, and 30 seconds of regular plank), oblique crunches, crunches, twisting crunch, and super crunches), and 1 day of upper body strengthening (bicep curls, bench press, chin ups, seated rows, shoulder press, pallof press kneeling on a bosu, wide grip lat pulldowns, narrow grip lat pulldown kneeling on a bosu, cable cross over, triceps rope pushdowns).

Krav Maga- My parents are especially concerned about my safety on the trail with regards to other humans, so in order to try and help ease their minds a bit, I’ve been learning how to beat the sh*t out of would-be attackers.   These courses are way different than anything I’ve ever done before, as I tend towards meditative solitude for my workouts (yoga, running, swimming, hiking) , but they are actually incredibly fun.  A few of the things I’ve been practicing– how to break a choke-hold, how to properly elbow/punch/knee/kick someone in order to disable them, and also how to stab peoples eyes out with my fingers (okay, I haven’t actually gotten to practice this one yet, my instructor said something something blindness something as the reason. Any volunteers?)… all in all, interesting stuff!

Hiking- On the weekends, if I’m not taking some sort of survival course, I’m out on the local trails with a fully loaded pack on my back.  I try for at least 20 miles/weekend and also like to go to the trails with a lot of elevation change.

Skiing-  While skiing doesn’t really help towards my overall fitness goals, it’s what I do to keep me happy during the winter.   Despite our epic snow storms, I’ve scaled back this year to allow for more hiking on the weekends, but I’ve definitely skipped a few hike weekends to ski instead.

Yoga- I’ve scaled back from the more difficult yoga classes I typically take, and have been instead doing easy/flow yoga in order to help with recovery/rest.  I always have one day (usually Fridays) dedicated to resting, and I’ve found that doing some stretching on that day really helps my weekend hikes seem easier.

Foot/ankle strengthening- Last, but certainly not least, I do strengthening exercises for my feet/ankles at least two times per week.  These are my favorite exercises because they can be done at home and on the couch while eating or watching tv… seriously, this new workout regime is tiring, and I’m really enjoying my couch potato time while I still can!  These exercises are mostly with a theraband: winging with my toes pointed, winging with my foot at 90 degrees, picking things up with my toes, flex and point, dorsiflexion, and doming. Doming is, no joke… the HARDEST exercise out of all others done during the week, both mentally and physically.  When I first started doing this, I basically spent an hour staring at my foot just willing it to move in such an odd and alien way, as if some Jedi mind trick à la ‘using the force’ would help.  Eventually I gave up and just moved it with my hands and tried to keep it from falling. At some point I hope to be better at this, but this is basically me talking to my foot every night right now: