Back in 2005, when we were total newbies at thruhiking, we thought that the most important thing to work on when training for a long hike was to do MILES–lots of miles.  At that point in time, we thought it was a big deal to do 15 miles in a day.  So we did our best to do hikes that were at least…gasp…12 to 15 miles long.  Sometimes we even pushed to 20 miles.  I will never forget one late afternoon when we’d been hiking all day in Sugarloaf State Park near Sonoma, and we were totally wasted because of all the hills, even though we were only carrying lunch and water in a daypack.  We were collapsed under a tree to rest, but still determined to get in a couple more miles, and I naively said, “The PCT couldn’t possibly be THIS tough.”   Boy, was I in for a shock.  It was WAY tougher.  Especially on feet.  Fixit had endless problems with his feet all the way from Mexico to Canada that year.  But we kept going anyway–it took us 5 months, and the first snows had arrived by the time we finished in October.

In 2010, we said, “Now we know better!” and  trained with WEIGHT, carrying our PACKS.  Turns out that mileage, though helpful, is not as important as weight.  That approach plus custom orthotics worked great–I for one was able to hike the whole PCT without any blisters or foot pain at all (except for the lava walking north of the Sisters in Oregon–owwww!)   The other aspect of training we learned was to hike on HILLS as much as possible.  And rough trail is good, too.

This time, we started training way early.  Back in April of 2015, we began to carry more weight, even in dayhikes. In June we climbed Mt. Whitney (entering from Cottonwood Pass) and Fixit set his new personal record for the John Muir Trail (7 days and 11 hours, not bad for a 75-year-old!).  After that, we continued to slowly add more weight, then did the Tahoe Rim Trail in August (in 7 1/2 days, not bad for a 75 & 67 year old).  Since then, we’ve been being as diligent as we can, building weight till we routinely carry at least 20 pounds, and aiming for around 30 miles a week, part of which comes from an all-day hike.  And now we’re a year older, too, so when we start at Crazy Cook, we will be 76 and 68 years old.  All the more reason to seriously train!

We live in the  North Bay area of San Francisco Bay,  and that means we have awesome choices for hiking.  This is a hikers’ paradise–our favorite trails are in Point Reyes National Seashore, Annadel State Park, Austin Creek Redwoods State Park and Lake Sonoma.  All of them have lots of big hills and plenty of rough trail.   That’s where we go when we are doing an all day hike.  On short days, we take a couple of hours to hike at Helen Putnam Regional Park, west of Petaluma, where there are big hills and some rough/muddy trail.  A couple of weeks ago, I was training in Helen Putnam Park, and met 4 forest firefighters who were wearing all their protective clothing, and carrying a bunch of gear.  They looked at me with my pack and said, “Looks like you’re training for something!”  I said, “Yup!  The Continental Divide Trail–New Mexico to Montana.  Looks like you’re training, too!”  They said they were, and headed for what’s locally known as “The Face”, a very steep bald hillside.  I had just finished climbing The Face twice, and was aiming at another hill, but I looked back to see how they were doing.   Plod, plod–all that firefighter stuff is heavy!  And it was a slightly ominous reminder of fire season–in 2010 we had to go around 10 miles of the PCT in Oregon because of a forest fire.  It reminded me to pray for the guys and gals who willingly go out to face the danger of firefighting so that the rest of us can be safe.

So training for us is:  carry weight and look for nice big steep hills and rough trail.  And on non-hike days, I do exercises to strengthen my core as well, plus stretches.  It takes time and tiredness…but right now, it feels so good to feel so strong.