Last time I went backpacking for an extended period of time, I had a difficult time. Since I am starting in Glacier National Park and then slipping in to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, I need to be in top shape right away. Last time I thought I was in shape, but I am taking no chances now.
Previously, I relied on the classic gym gear that was available at my local Anytime Fitness: Treadmill, stairmaster, bikes. Also, I added bike rides and training backpacking hikes. I learned the hard way this was not enough. There were two shortcomings. First, I live in the Midwest, so I train at around 1,000 feet above sea level which does not help with the altitude of the CDT. Second, I trained according to what I thought was enough time, but the distance between water sources does not care about time.
This time, I am training a bit differently. The biggest difference has been adding in running. I have always disliked running for running’s sake. I can trace back early signs of this to coaches who meted out running drills as punishment for poor performance. Likewise, in high school, the basketball coach required us to do cross-country if we weren’t doing football. As an adult, I also spent 27 years smoking instead of running.
I started running last fall. I started small and have challenged myself. The first challenge was to get myself in shape so that I could enter a half marathon for which my wife had trained. I finished and gained confidence I could maintain an elevated heart rate for a period of time.
Since then, I have run a 25k trail run and another half-marathon. These events have helped me stay motivated until I start backpacking. I am under no delusion that I am fast. Indeed, the last half marathon placed me almost exactly in the middle of the field. It is tough being older and watching younger folks pass you by. There is still some of that latent alpha male stuff which makes me want to sprint, but then I catch myself and recall this is just training.
As an aside, organized races are quite interesting. There are electronics that keep track of your time and pace. Then, the results are parsed down in to smaller subsets so you can compare yourself to similarly situated runners. For example, the last race I was in had me listed as “MAST” which I took to be the euphemism used to describe senior age runners. Imagine my surprise when in fact it meant mastodon which incorporated not just my age, but my girth as well. I quickly got over the embarrassment when I realized that I was a relatively swift mastodon.
I have been doing longer runs on the horse trails around some of the parks. This helps with the ankles and feet getting used to uneven surfaces. I hope to get in a few more long ones (20+ miles) before I get on the Amtrak train to Glacier.
So, while running has helped my cardiovascular and endurance, I still can’t do anything about elevation. I did hike/run the mountains in Arizona when I visited my mother a couple of weeks ago. Other than that, I do intend to spend a few days at Glacier just hiking open trails to get some exposure to higher elevations.
Time will tell whether the training has been sufficient to help me backpack over the hill.
backpacking over the hill 