9 mile style

Very good first half of the week...

I got in all my scheduled training and exchanged my basic core workout routine with the patented Staylor's Stability Sphere Success System aka 5S.

I had also been planning on some extra credit work today for my pre Thanksgiving workout and it worked out nicely.

The set up is this: In training for Handies I understood that it was going to be an 8 mile hike but for training I was doing a 4.5 mile hike.....sound stupid yet? :( To make it worse I was not wearing a pack in training and would need to carry a 17# pack on the climb. My reasoning was that I understood two things.

1)Half of 8 is 4...I trained the 4 miles to get up.
2)My desire to make it back home would assure me that making the second 4 was a given.

I gave no thought to the Pack other than I needed it and was going to carry it.

Well, in retrospect I under trained for Handies and determination accounts for a good 75% of my success there. One of the lessons I learned was that I didn't want to repeat the mistakes I made there because mistakes = pain on the mountain. My next route looks like it will be 7 miles with an 18# pack so rest assured I will train a minimum of 10 miles with a 25# pack long before I step foot on my next 14er.

Today was my first run of that type of training and I got up early and did 9 miles with a 15# pack. I would have carried 20#'s today but the pack I was using is insufficient for it. In addition to just hiking it I used liquid nutrition on the walk as well as follow up protein post workout. I'm working to make sure my nutrition is better for my next climb than it was last time. It turns out I suffered a lot more on the mountain than I needed to if I'd only taken the time to add a few scoops of powder into a few water bottles and done a bit more planning.....I'm working on that.