I start my "official" training Monday. (Let me know if you want to take a walk. I'll be doing a lot of it and would love the company.) There are 4 phases to the training.
Phase one works to increase the mileage my body can handle. The first week requires hiking 16 miles total with an 8 lb pack. For the next 18 weeks I will increase my weekly mileage roughly 10 percent until I hit 90 miles the first week in June.
The second week in June I will attempt back-to-back 50 mile days over the weekend with my complete gear. The start of phase 2 is my first body and gear shake-down. Can I do 50 mile days and will my gear work for 50 mile days? The next 3 weeks I'm hoping to continue 100 mile training weeks but I'm not sure my body will hold up. I'll have to wait and see. The final week of this phase, July 9th, I plan to hike 3 back-to-back 40 mile days. This is my final gear shake-down and the end of my high mileage training.
The 3rd phase encompasses the next 3 weeks. My hiking mileage will decrease putting an emphasis on sleep deprivation training. I plan to pull at least 1 or 2 all-nighters per week, probably while hiking. Anyone up for all-night hikes? :)
The final phase, the week of August 6th, is a recovery week leading to my record attempt the week of August 13th.
Note: August 13th is probably not the week of the attempt. I needed a date to focus my training schedule around so I picked August 13th. There are a number of variables I still need to work through for the actual date and my training schedule will adjust accordingly.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I was a little torn on how much time to leave for recovery. The problem with sleep deprivation in my experience is that if you "fully recover" you loose the benefits of the "training". Do you experience that also?
I am planning some hiking all nighters throughout the training in addition to the specific sleep period.
I'm leaning toward the end of August unless I have to go earlier. The passes will be clearer and fewer mosquitoes. Plus, you are correct, the moon would be a nice companion.
From my experience the best training for all-nighters is remaining focused and occupied during the entirety of them. They always got easier to pull off, and I felt like I was more coherent throughout and afterwards the more I did (as long as I recovered between them). That is to say, it seems that since you've done plenty of all-nighters, although probably not recently, you're mentally prepared. You might need a few prior to recharge acquaint you mind and body to the experience, but let's just say you know what to expect.
You probably don't know what to expect how you'll respond while hiking at high altitude. That you should do prior, but like I said, I think you can do that throughout the training, not necessarily right before. While training for that, you'll want to impress upon yourself (since you might not be as cogent as you'd like) the need to drink buckets of water. Perhaps you'd want to borrow my ipod shuffle to listen to during those times. I've found talking helps immeasurably. Maybe that's the all-nighter silver bullet: Have enough unresolved issues before you leave, just to give you something to talk to yourself about.
Post a Comment