I have always been what I consider to be an overplanner. When I travel, be it for vacation or family visits, I always have a solid itinerary. I'm fine with it if plans change, but I just really like to have the days planned to make the best use of the time I have. I am in the process of planning my 2015 Thru, and had pretty much decided to only plan for gear, physical fitness preparation, mental preparation, and safety. I had decided to do this differently than the rest of my trips, and to NOT plan each day's mileage, resupply points, zero days, etc. I wanted to figure things out as I went and to just let things happen as they will. However when I told this to a friend who has completed an AT thru, she pretty much acted as if I am insane. She was grilling me on every aspect of my preparation, and implied that I am not going to be ready by March or April.
I know everyone travels differently and to HYOH and all that, but how many of you think it is important to plan resupply stops? Am I being completely naive in not having any mileage/resupply plans? I don't have a timeline of when I need to finish (other than before Baxter closes), so I didn't think it was important.
Also, the other issue she had is that I am mainly focusing on training in the local "hills". There are a lot of little mountains where I live (coastal Maine), and they are conveniently 15 min from my house. The elevation gain is generally about 1000'/mi. I do plan on driving the two hours up to Acadia a couple of times to do some bigger mountains, but getting the time away is not easy. So other than hiking the local hills, I also take a spin class, do core/upper body strengthening, and squats and lunges. I do have about 25 lbs I need to shed before I leave, and I am working on that. My friend was very clear, and said that the Camden Hills "aren't going to cut it" training-wise. This is someone who I thought would be supportive of my decision to attempt a thru-hike, so I was surprised at her reaction. She thinks I need to at least hike Mt Washington a few times this summer to get a better feel for my ability to do this. I disagree with her, but I also don't want to dismiss her advice, seeing that she has completed a thru and I haven't. So does she have some valid points?