Could anyone please guide me to training advice (trying to convert myself from a cyclist to a somewhat speedy 62 year old backpacker)?
I have good cardiovascular function from cycling but my muscles are developed all wrong for hiking or so it seems.
I have ordered Liz Thomas' book, "Backpacker Long Trails: Mastering the Art of the Thru-Hike" and have done a lot of searches on WhiteBlaze but most just seem to suggest going to the gym, stretching, or yoga. I have read many AT blog posts and most seem not to prepare their bodies for the rigors. I am probably wrong but my experience with ultra distances on a bike tell me that strength work, stretching, and yoga won't be a ton of help on the trail. No substitute for actually hiking to prepare for hiking...?. Could be bias, I hate the gym. Maybe, I just have to hike and hike? I think picking gear is easy and highly personal, saying this because I do not have gear at all nor do I think it is all that important to success. 90-95% of it is the body and mind. I bet people could go from Ga to Maine with 70 pounds of junk on their back. I say that because that is the reason I just now focus on the engine and mind before buying my junk. Anyway, I started walking in the woods during the epidemic after I started feeling better. I had always wanted to walk the AP since spending 4 weeks backpacking the San Juans in my early 20's. I belonged to the Mountain club in college and we did day hikes in the White Mountains although I did not have time to do many of these weekends, I enjoyed it. I have not hiked since then although I probably have a few hundred thousand miles on a bicycle and have done lots of loaded touring all over the world, ultra racing, am knowledgeable about training on a bike, and admittedly am a pretty lousy camper. I am posting in this sub-forum because my intent is to develop my ligaments and muscles and walking ability sufficiently to go from Ga to Maine completely fit for the task from the start and this would be relatively speedy for an older fellow although my focus is not on time at all. I am committed to not going to get fit on the AT. I want to start fit. My perfect day would be waking just before sunrise and seeing the sunrise as I walk off into glimmering cobwebs. Stopping briefly several times per day. Eating before camp (no stove) and then making camp not too long before sunset. Say 9-12 hours of walking and 3-6 hours per day of smelling the roses. I have no interest in the towns or partying or laying around camp 5 hours waiting for hiker midnight. Just walking and looking at nature. Slow is never fun for me, I say that because that is a common saying with bicycle tourists, too. "Why so fast? Slow down." Some might think someone doing 100 or 150 miles per day is going hard when in fact they may be going easy for them and just riding their own ride - I know that I just enjoy being out all day instead of leaving at 9 am and finding the new camping spot at 3 pm. I am a lousy camper and that is not the fun for me. I don't even bring a stove bike touring anymore unless it is going to be very cold and remote. I'd like to be fit enough to walk most of the day and this a long, long way away for me now. I am not sure if I would break the AT into segments over a couple years or do it in one thru hike. I would prefer to do it as a thru hike if I could get my body ready. I simply cannot spend 6-7 months straight on the trail but 3-4 months would be ok. I know how few do it in 90-110 days. If I can walk 10 hours per day, it is hard to imagine not covering 20+ miles on average even with a Nero here and there to resupply. I would expect to be carrying extremely light but sufficient and safe gear. I know and have experience with the mental challenges dictated by such a pace. I would be leaving Georgia second week of May 2021. The above drivel is my attempt to answer, "why"
My hiking fitness progress seems very slow. My ligaments and joints are slowly getting stronger from all the hiking but they still get a little sore in odd places and I am not even walking that much. The muscles and ligament use is very different from cycling. This is my approach so far....I am in what would be called a "base" period from a training perspective. I am walking 5-7 days per week and around 30-35 miles per week with 5-7,000 feet of ascent with 10.1 miles in under 3 hours being my longest hike (yesterday.), it was the first hot and humid day. Like yesterday, my left ankle suddenly started to hurt a little even though I did nothing to it. Mysteriously, the pain went away in 20 minutes of slower walking. Go figure. I am probably going to do an easier 4-5 miles today. I go out to enjoy the walk and like it. Most of my walking is on trails, some on very, very rocky river bed to strengthen my ankles and practice foot placement. I have slowly increased the weight of my rucksack to where it is now about my anticipated base weight plus 1.5L of water. I have been at it for 7 weeks. Does a good "base" take 6 months for a Newbie? 3 months? 9 months? People who have hiked their whole lives have developed the muscles and ligaments that make getting ready for a long hike pretty easy or at least that is how it is for bicycling. They could probably just hit the trail and ease into it. A Newbie Cyclist can't just go from 30 mile rides to a century in a couple weeks whereas a lifelong distance cyclist could ramp the miles up very quickly. I guess my problem is I have no bench marks in hiking like with cycling. Is 20 miles backpacking like a Century (100 miles) on a bike or is it more like a Double Century?
I have lots of time on my hands but am not sure what to do in terms of becoming a backpacking from a fitness perspective. I know many will laugh because I am clearly overthinking it. Being locked up in the house during a pandemic will do that to you. Maybe I should just keep walking 5 or more days per week with the pack at base weight plus water and do one longer and longer hike per week, increasing that "long day" by 1-2 miles per week. Take an easy week every 3rd or 4th week. When that "long" hike gets pretty long, start increasing the distance of the hike on the day subsequent to it. Back to back long days and then feeling good on day 3 being the objective. I am sure I could do 20-25 miles today but that would ruin me for a month or more. I'd like to be able to do back to back 20-25 mile days and still feel eager to hike on day 3. This might take 6-9 months of building. I had hoped to be fit enough later in the summer to go from Lehigh Gap to the NY/NJ border or maybe even the Long Trial as a bit of a test, presuming the virus bans would be lifted (?). I can't see myself being fit enough by late summer to be honest. I am now considering upping my game by doing hill repeats on rocky terrain (I hate the gym and cannot see myself doing yoga....they are all closed due to the virus anyway), the hill coming out of one creek has about 150-170 vertical and is 10-34%. This would be somewhat equivalent to interval training in cycling that I am used to doing. I am not sure what to do but I need to either be more patient or step it up so to speak. My lungs and heart are good for an old man. I am thinking the rugged terrain coming out of the creak carrying a backpack would be like my weight training and intervals all in one package. My gut feeling is my legs are not yet ready to do these hill repeats. I dunno.
Apology for the long winded post and if this is in the wrong sub-forum but this sub-forum is the only one that seems geared towards fitness and folks who could maybe help me or at least would not tell me to slow down and smell more roses. My heart rate is only 90-100 BPM on my hikes (low 90's average), I am really not going hard at say 3 mph walking, I just want to be able to go long to enjoy the whole day instead of being stiff and sore from backpacking half a day on trail or worse, getting overuse injury, blisterers, etc. Thanks for any tips. Again, sorry for so many words.
Maybe just keep increasing distance slowly and be patient? Forget intervals up and down the rocky hill?