Happy Birthday, USMC!

Just a quick note to wish all Marines, current and former a Happy Birthday!  If you have one as a friend or family member, pass him or her some Birthday cheer.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately...I've been killer busy with work, and not much time for workouts.  I've been making the time for gym workouts three times a week, but that's been about it until yesterday and today.

I'll get back to the regular posts when things lighten up some.  Stay tuned!

Week 14 - Run in Phoenixville, Hike in Maryland

This was one of those weeks that I sat back in “maintenance mode” due to special events for the week. On Thursday I got together with a couple of the guys in Maryland for a hike at Gunpowder Falls State Park in Sweet Air, MD. On Saturday my wife and I ran the Citizen’s Advocacy run in Phoenixville. Each event required that I not embarrass myself, so I kept the cardio light for the week in order to be fresh for them.


Week 14: current weight 165, +5 lbs. from Week 1

Monday: Chest and shoulders weights
Tuesday: Back and arms weights
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Hike in Maryland, 6 miles, 40 lbs. pack
Friday: Off
Saturday: 10k run in Phoenixville, 56:20 time
Sunday: Off (sick)

The hike on Thursday was great. The Boston member of our team, Rich, was down in the Maryland area for a conference for the week and he had Thursday available. So I packed my stuff and headed down to Brian’s house (in northern Maryland) for the afternoon. The trail was great, mostly fast paced with lots and lots of hills. It was a short hike, but the work out was very good and well worth going down for. Plus it was fun hanging out with the guys for the afternoon.

On Saturday morning, my wife and I headed down to Phoenixville for the Citizen’s Advocacy run. I was happy with my 56:20 time, considering I’ve done zero speed training work. I did my typical “start too fast and pay for it later” deal that I always do with organized runs, even though I tell myself for the hour beforehand not to do that. The hills going over the ridgeline that runs north of town (twice) tore me up pretty hard, but my cardio was recovering very quickly and I was able to take full advantage of the downhills immediately after. I do enjoy these kinds of runs, and I leave open the possibility of training specifically for them in the future…but right now the training schedule for the big hike just doesn’t allow for the time for it, and the two training styles while not mutually exclusive aren’t very compatible.

Now I’m just hoping to kick this cold that hit on Sunday quickly so I can get a solid training week for Week 15.

Gunpowder Falls State Park, Sweet Air Maryland

The Boston member of our team, Rich, spent the week down in Maryland presenting at a conference in Bethesda.  The conference let out on Thursday midday, so I took a half day, drove down to Brian's house in northern Maryland to meet up with them and the three of us took a stroll around Gunpowder Falls State Park.

It was a beautiful day, with temps in the lower 70s and bright sunshine.  We did a little less than 6 miles in hilly terrain.  The trail we did was the "Boundary Trail", which pretty much follows the edges of the park.  The trail was nice and hilly, wide enough for two walking abreast for much of it, with a mix of your standard forest bed and slightly rocky areas.  It made for a nice pace, quicker than the Pinchot Trail (outlined in an earlier post) due to better footing, but wetter because of the river we had to cross.  Sloshy boots are no fun, but happily it was near the end.

There was one *monster* hill that we did.  We had to take a slight diversion off of the main trail to do it because the trail didn't actually go up the hill, but it was big and it was there and we decided we needed to hurt ourselves a little bit.  It did, too.

That's Rich on the left, and Brian on the right.  I don't usually use a walking stick (no need where I've been hiking) but I was sure glad on a couple of occasions that Brian had his.  It was very helpful for balance on submerged moss-covered rocks on the few river crossings we needed to do.

Tomorrow, my wife and I are doing the Citizen's Advocacy Pheonixville run.  I like the bigger organized runs, it's fun to get out there with a bunch of other people all doing the same thing.  I'll update how that goes in next week's post.

Week 13 - A Heavy Week

I was very pleased with the week 13 workouts. I didn’t end up doing as much as I had planned in the beginning of the week, but the week still came off great. In the original plan for the week, I had intended to hike home on Wednesday with the 60 lbs. pack, turn around for the double hike on Thursday, and repeat it on Friday. As it turns out I probably would not have been able to do the second double on Friday and would have had to modify, because Friday morning I had some significant aches and pains from the double on Thursday. Had I done the Wednesday afternoon hike as well, that would have been that much worse.

Week 13: current weight 165, +5 lbs. from Week 1

Monday: Chest and shoulders weights
Tuesday: Back and arms weights
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Double: hike to/from work with 60 lbs. pack (12 miles total)
Friday: Off
Saturday: Chest, shoulders and arms weights
Sunday: 18 mile hike w/ 40 lbs. pack

What’s getting me is the time investment. I have very little room for alterations in work/home schedules and still be able to get a hike in. The six miles with 60 lbs. takes me between an hour and a half and 2 hours to complete, depending on energy and pain levels, so it varies. On Wednesday, I ended up working a bit late and had to scrap the hike.

Mentally, I’m extremely pleased with progress. Simply being capable of hiking the 60 lbs. pack is a solid indicator of my progression, and having that evidence makes me want to use it to greatest effect.

On to the weekend hike: I completed, for the first time, the entire Perkiomen Trail. Of all of the signs on the Perk Trail, “Welcome to Green Lane Park” is the best. After 18 miles, that sign looked like it was gilded in pure gold.

My wife kindly agreed that she would come pick me up at Green Lane, so Sunday morning I packed my stuff and drove down to mile zero on the trail, left my car (idly wondering if it would still be there six or so hours later) and started heading north. I immediately noticed that the work with the 60 lbs. pack was already paying off, as 40 lbs. felt just plain light and stayed that way for the next 12 miles.

Unfortunately Jeff is still down with a knee injury, so he didn’t get to hear the angels singing and the trumpets blasting as I strolled into Green Lane. He has an appointment with a specialist this week to check out his knee. We’re hoping for good news on that front, but Jeff doesn’t have reason to believe that it’s anything serious.

Overall the 18 miles was fairly hard, and I got good work out of it. On the last 6 miles, the 40 lbs. didn’t feel light anymore. But I have to admit that it just wasn’t as hard as most of the earlier hikes were, and certainly nowhere near as hard as last week’s 12 miles with 60 lbs. was. The weather was terrible, at 39 degrees and rain, but I signed up for enduring that a while ago and I was ready for it. I looked like the little brother from “Christmas Story”, with winter weight pants, an undershirt, an overshirt, a waterproof lightweight jacket, gloves, winter cap…the whole works. I was still cold, it still sucked, but none of my fingers, toes, ears or my nose fell off so I have to count it as a “win”.

Take a peek back on Friday this week, as I may have a mid-week update.  Our Boston area team member, Rich, is planning on being down in the Baltimore area this week, and we all hope to get together on Thursday for a hike.  If we get to do it, I'll throw some pictures up of the group.

Weeks 11 and 12 - No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam

Missed a post last week, sorry about that. I had one of those ridiculous work weeks, and didn’t even have time for workouts for most of it, much less spending the time on a post. So, I’ve included two weeks in this update.


I had resolved to hit it hard on Week 11, and hit it hard I did. I started off the week with my first “double”, a run home and run back in the next morning. I’m happy to say it went extremely well, and did have the effect I was hoping in that it was a serious endurance test. The run home was fine, the run in the next morning a different thing altogether. It still went well and I finished strong, but the 18 lbs. pack felt more like 30 the next morning coming off the run the night before. Wednesday was to be a light day in preparation for another double on Thursday/Friday. I got a good solid weights workout in on Wednesday as intended, but work interrupted the double.

I ended up working through the weekend and into the next week, so it sent my workout schedule south for the week.

Week 11: current weight 161, +1 lbs. from Week 1
Monday: Run home from work w/ light pack
Tuesday: Run to work w/ light pack
Wednesday: Chest and shoulder weights
Thursday: Off
Friday: Off
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off

On Week 12, I picked up where I left off, repeating the weights workout of the Wednesday prior, and finishing up the work week with another double, this time a run home on Thursday and a hike in on Friday morning with a 57 lbs. pack. The 57 lbs. pack is a different animal, and I was extremely pleased with the workout. I used a hard pace for it, enough to get a breathing rhythm just below what I have when running with the light pack. The 57 lbs. allowed for that pretty easily, which the “lighter” pack (42 lbs.) doesn’t really do. So I did get quite a bit of cardio out of it considering a good hour and a half of hard work for the 6 miles.

Where it really shined though was the muscle workout. The fatigue level was perfect, as by the end of the 6 miles my legs and shoulders were fairly screaming for me to stop. It felt good as it was a nice chilly morning and the work level was enough to get my body temperature up to the point that I just didn’t feel the cold.

Week 12: current weight 162, +2 lbs. from Week 1
Monday: Off
Tuesday: Off
Wednesday: Chest and shoulder weights
Thursday: Run home from work w/ light pack
Friday: Hike to work w/ 57 lbs. pack
Saturday: Off
Sunday: 12 mile hike w/ 60 lbs. pack

I took Saturday off in preparation for Sunday’s hike. I really felt like pushing myself, so I went for broke and stuck with the 57 lbs. pack, with an eye on making it the full to work/home cycle. I’ve been thinking that that cycle would be good for winter workouts, and I wanted to be sure that I could handle it. I was still just a little sore from the big pack on Friday, but not enough to slow me down or cause me any concern. Sunday was one of those days that make you really happy to be outside, and the Perkiomen Trail was awesome…just a great place to be on a Sunday morning. It was just cold enough that the trail was near deserted.

The first four miles were a bit harder than I expected them to be, and I found myself wondering at the first break if I was going to make it back home again. I dismissed that pretty quickly though, as I had just done the 6 mile leg into work with the same pack on Friday morning without a break, and knew that I had a lot left in me. By the time I got to work, right at the 6 mile point, I was wondering again. That’s when I realized that my pack was several pounds heavier than Friday morning’s pack, as I forgot to account for the full Camelback that I added that morning. I don’t tend to take it when I’m doing a 6 miler, but I had packed it Sunday morning because of the longer planned hike. I started contemplating calling my wife to come pick me up, because my legs and shoulders were telling me that I just wasn’t going to make it another 6 miles.

It dawned on me at that point though that when we’re out there in New Mexico, there is no calling my wife. One of the phrases coined by the heroes of the real Death March that is still used today when discussing the events of 1942 is “No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam.” That’s the first time that it’s really hit me that there is no “out” on the Memorial March, short of taking a medical drop and not finishing. Here was an opportunity to exercise the mental part of preparing for this thing, in a comfortable (?), controlled way that the real Death Marchers didn’t get to have. I resolved to reach down and grab some and finish the goal for the day.

And I did. It was the hardest hike I’ve done since a twenty miler on Parris Island, SC on a snowy morning nearly twenty years ago. That hike was during Boot Camp, in mid December in 1989. We had 8 inches of snow that morning, the first significant snowfall on Parris Island in 15 years, and we were humping in it. The effort level on this week’s hike easily matched that when factoring in the fuzzy memory from 20 years ago factor. It feels good to think you’ve done something that was as hard as something done by a 20 years younger you.

So I’m going into Week 13 feeling really good about things.

Week 10 - A Light Week

Every year on April 9, the captured soldiers are honoured on Araw ng Kagitingan ("Day of Valour"), also known as the "Bataan Day", which is a national holiday in the Philippines. During the 1980-1990's, the Boy Scouts of America [Philippine troop] would reenact this march every 2 years along a portion of the initial route in Bataan taken by the soldiers. The march was about 10 kilometers in length.  -  Wikipedia

Every once in a while I stop and think about the training we’re doing, and why we’re doing it.  We all have our reasons, but one I think we share is the concept of being a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves, and joining those in the past who have honored the Bataan Survivors, and our heroes in general.  Doing something like this, at least once in your life, helps put and keep things in perspective.

You’ll notice from the stats for the week below, that my current weight is on an undeniable decline (from peak weight so far), despite the couple of months of time in the gym.  Not a bad thing at all, just surprising to me.  I’m figuring at this point that much of the weight I’ve carried around since leaving the Marine Corps was “hidden”, i.e. other than the spare tire I added to over the years, which is pretty much non-existent these days.  There’s no doubt that my body shape has changed, so it’s not that I’m not getting good results from the work-outs…it seems more that I wasn’t quite where I thought I was going into this.  I knew I wasn’t in great shape, but I was certainly feeling better about my activity levels for the year long lead up to this heightened workout regime, and I suppose I figured that I was “just about there” going into this.  I now figure that I was dead wrong on that score, and am now looking forward to seeing how the rest of this works out and am going to do so without pre-conceptions of just what that will be.

Week 10:  current weight 162, +2 lbs. from Week 1

Monday:  Off

Tuesday:  Run to work w/ light pack

Wednesday:  Chest and shoulder weights

Thursday:  Run home from work w/ light pack

Friday:  Off

Saturday:  Off

Sunday:  Off

I had big plans for Thursday/Friday.  I intended to run home on Thursday and turn around and run right back in on Friday morning.  That didn’t work out well though, as when I got up on Friday morning I had pretty significant pain in the lower legs, left knee, and right ankle.  So I scrapped the Friday morning run and hitched a ride with my wife back to work (and my car).  I didn’t feel that the risk of an injury was worth pushing it at that point.

 That’s okay though, as I’d been tossing around the idea for a while of toning it down for a week to let my body catch up some.  My theory is that the past couple of months have piled up a series of minor “accumulated” injuries, and that it’s likely that I’m not giving myself enough time to recover from them.  I have certainly done my part in propping up the stock value of various over-the-counter pharmaceutical companies recently.

That said, I’ll get back to it and hit it hard next week, with hopefully two back to back runs.  As of now I’m planning on Monday evening/Tuesday morning, and Thursday evening/Friday morning runs.  That’ll be about 24 miles for the week, which I’m looking forward to being able to say that I’ve done.

I’m getting happier with upper body strength as I feel I’ve caught up to what is needed for the hikes that we are currently doing.  Obviously I’ll need to continue to build that as our hikes get longer, but I no longer feel that I’m behind in that department, so there will be less emphasis on the heavy weight lifting time, and more emphasis on the feet toughening and endurance building (back to back runs, etc).

We’re getting into the season when I enjoy being on the mountain bike far less (back to me being a wuss and not liking being cold).  My tentative plan right now is to replace (or nearly so) the mountain bike riding to work with hikes to work with additional weight.  I’m thinking right now that bumping the pack up to 55 lbs. may make up for the fact that the hikes to/from work with the “regular” weight heavy pack weren’t feeling like a real workout.  Plus, the heavier weight should help with the foot toughening and maintaining the increased upper body strength…that 55 lbs. will sit somewhere, much of it on the shoulders.  My only serious hesitation with this idea is the time commitment.  It takes much longer to walk to work than it does on the bike, and with playing Taxi Dad, afternoon responsibilities with the girls and lots of stuff like that, I may be hard pressed to get more than one of these hikes in per week.  We’ll just have to see how that works out.

We didn’t do a hike this weekend, and I missed it.  Instead, Ingrid and I headed down to Baltimore for my 20^th High School reunion, which was fun.  Overall though, I think it was good to have a complete weekend off, and a light week to boot.  Going into week 11, I’m feeling well rested, all healed up, and enthusiastic about hitting it hard this coming week.  Our end of week hike goal is 17 miles.  That number is sounding more and more intimidating each week.  But, you know, we did 16 last week, and 16 the week before…adding one mile to that can’t hurt that much, can it?

Week 9: The Team Gets Bigger and Badder

The team had some really good news this week. It seems that we’ve grown! The Baltimore member of the team, Brian, was chatting about what we’re up to at a family gathering, and his brother and his brother’s best friend were so interested they committed on the spot. So, welcome to the team Jonathan and James! I’ll be doing a post in the near future identifying all of the team members and talking a bit about them.


Wow, we’re more than 2 months into training for this thing. It’s paying off nicely with noticeable improvements in the core areas that I’m working on, both strength and endurance. My secondary work areas are improving nicely as well…namely the distinct lack of blisters which may be attributable at least partially to new gear, but I think mostly because of the work we’ve done up until now. The 40ish lbs. pack (35 lbs. rice + frame + water) is feeling lighter and lighter each week, and the endurance improvements are showing up on the hikes themselves and even more-so on the 5.74 mile runs into work. Over the past year, that run (with the 18 lbs. pack) has been taking me between an hour and an hour and 10 minutes to complete. On Tuesday morning this week I completed it in just under 49 minutes, and on Friday it went in about 54 minutes.

Week 9: current weight 164, +4 lbs. from Week 1
Monday: Off (needed recuperation from the 16 miler on Sunday)
Tuesday: Run to work w/ light pack, chest and shoulder weights
Wednesday: Back and arms weights
Thursday: Off
Friday: Run to work w/ light pack
Saturday: Moving day in Baltimore (Off, sort of)
Sunday: 16 mile hike w/ heavy pack

I’m not sure what to think at this point on weight fluctuation. I was right at 160 on week one of the training, and shot up pretty quickly to 168. I attributed that to the addition of the weight training, which seems reasonable. I was expecting however that that trend would continue and that I’d continue to put on weight overall…but that seems to have slowed down in the past few weeks and even begun to reverse itself, despite the fact that shoulder, back and chest strength continues to go up significantly and that I’m continuing with and increasing the weight training. I guess I’ll have to see how that plays out, but it’s interesting to pay attention to.

I found some posts on the Internet this week made by some guys on the CrossFit forums (www.crossfit.com) who have competed in the past on the Bataan Memorial Death March. And by compete, I mean compete…more than what we’re doing. They go for time. Apparently in order to do any serious time competition in the Heavy Division, you have to actually run it. The posts that caught my attention were discussing the training these guys do each year to get the best running times with the heavy pack. I can’t imagine running this thing with the pack. Just the amount of damage it would do to your body I would think would be prohibitive. I do believe that I will be more than happy to simply complete it.

Perhaps in the future, with a year of this under our belts we’ll re-evaluate and see if we’re interested in more than crossing the finish line. One thing that the team has been discussing is that in the 2009 event, we could only find reference to a single Civilian Heavy Division Team finish time. Lots of military heavy teams, but slow on civilian. Seems to me there should be some competition there for those guys. They must be lonely.

I was encouraged to see however that the main training issues that these guys were discussing on the CrossFit forums were things that we have gone over and accounted for in our training plan. The biggest amongst these is the need to train for the sand, and the uphill work. Hopefully we’ll have plenty of snow this year giving us the opportunity to do just that without too much travel. The guys on the CrossFit forums specifically mentioned using snow to train in and how helpful it was to them.

The hill work, on the other hand, I’m still pretty dubious about. Hell’s Hill is a non-issue now, but less and less I’m feeling that that really means anything for the upcoming March event. It’s just one hill, and while steep it’s only about ¼ of a mile long. The White Sands hill is somewhere around 6 miles long. Completely different kind of beast I’d think. I guess we’ll see. If lack of long hill training ends up as an issue, and we do this thing again next year (if we live) then we’ll have a solid training goal for next year’s event.

Week 8 - Gear!

I’ve been doing some more reading about the Bataan Memorial Death March, and thought I’d share a bit. It has been held annually since 1989, with the exception of 2003 when it was cancelled due to the many military deployments that year. The first year, there were about 100 participants, and that number has grown to more than 4,000 for last year’s march. I wonder how many will be there with us next year, if it continues to grow each year? I’m looking forward to the challenge of completing it.

Week 8: current weight 165, +5 lbs. from Week 1
Monday: 36 mile bike ride w/ no pack (also reported last week)
Tuesday: Shoulder and back weight training
Wednesday: Bike to work and home w/ light pack, back and arms weight training
Thursday: Day off
Friday: Day off
Saturday: Day off
Sunday: 16 mile hike w/ heavy pack


I’ve swapped out the various canned goods for three 10 lbs. and one 5 lbs. bags of rice. This 35 lbs. plus the weight of the pack itself and water put me into that that comfort zone that I’m carrying enough extra to make a difference. The cans were annoying when trying to get my camelback in my pack, and the salad dressing bottles kept poking me in the back on hikes. Bags of rice are actually one of the items that the Bataan Memorial Death March website recommends for donation, so that’s what I’m going with.


I got my new hiking shoes in. Merrell Chameleon 3 Ventilator Mid Gore-Tex Hiking Boots. Yut. They’re really nice boots, again an REI purchase. Unfortunately, I didn’t get them early enough in the week to be able to do a test hike to work and back on them so I had to “break ‘em in” by wearing them for a few days while helping lift heavy things for my aunt’s upcoming move next week. This was the reason for the several days off at the end of the week, I had to work in a trip down to Baltimore to help out.


They held up great on the 16 miler, although I did get one blister, on the top of my left big toe. Very strange place to get a blister, but at least it wasn’t anywhere on the bottom of the foot where it will impede the actual hike.


I also got in my new Dueter Aircontact 65+10 pack. Awesome pack…absolutely love it. It held up great on the hike, and it felt very natural with its weight distribution. Very comfortable.


I also went and got a new pair of Asics Gel running shoes this past week. I was past due, and I’ve been putting some miles on the old ones. Good news here, no more blisters from running (hopefully). Just a quick note, the added 18 lbs. from the light pack while running does add quite a bit of impact to the feet and legs…so far this has been a good thing as it has helped toughen up the feet much more than regular running and one weekly hike would do. Granted my feet are uglier, but they were ugly to begin with so I really don’t care.


Okay, enough gear chat…on to this week’s workout.


I talked about the 36 miler on Labor Day in last week’s post, so I won’t go into the ride itself other than to say it was a good one. After effects of the ride were a little interesting. That was the longest ride I’ve done since doing a century ride on the 4th day of the Bike Ride Across Georgia in 1997. With no bicycle distance work since then, the 36 miles was a push for me, but I was purposely working endurance (remember my two big deficiencies going into this training, strength and endurance). I was sore enough on Tuesday to skip legwork to/from work and just do a weights workout.


The minor shoulder muscle injury from last week is completely gone, and the shoulder/chest workout on Tuesday went extremely well. Again I notice a significant increase in weight, needing to up the weight on the second set of each different exercise because the weight I used last week was too light. That felt pretty good and I occasionally needed to add an extra set due to the lack of muscle response from the first sets due to too little weight.


Jeff and I are starting to get the “we’re on to longer hikes” feeling. It’s a real sense of accomplishment, having increased our total distance by 60% in a matter of two months. The 16 miler was very hard, but the pace was good between three and a half and 4 miles per hour including rest stops. We were both impressed with the quality of the trail up in the Salford, PA area, and from there northward. It’s a very pleasant hike to do and that helps take the mind off of the effort we’re putting into it. We weren’t quite sure we were going to go for the full 16 this week, but we hit the 7 mile mark and had a lot of energy left so we went ahead and went to the 8. By that point, of course, we’re committed to the full distance which I suppose is a good thing. It is hard to judge though how you’re going to feel at the end when you’re just starting to get tired. As it turned out, we were very happy with the full 16, though our pace on the last mile suffered a little bit.


Hell’s Hill is pretty much a non-issue now. We get to it, hit it hard, and keep going each time and push through to the next rest stop. It is a noticeable increase in cardio work, with about a quarter of a mile afterward breathing very heavy.


Next week we will likely redo the 16 miler, but we’re going to leave that open to see how we feel later in the week. We may extend it to 17, we’ll see.

Week 7 - Lackawanna State Forest/Pinchot Trail

This was a good workout week, with the exception of a minor injury that lasted for about 4 days. On Tuesday I was stupid, and went for a light shoulder workout after doing a heavy shoulder workout the day before. I know better than to do that, but I did it anyway. About halfway through Tuesday’s workout, I felt a pop and immediate pain in the left shoulder. The pain lasted a few days, so I took Wednesday off, went with a run on Thursday, and off again on Friday. I ended up being lucky with it, and the pain was gone by Saturday morning…but it was enough that I learned my lesson. I’m still emphasizing shoulder/back/chest weights, but I’ll tone it down a notch.

Week 7: current weight 168, +8 lbs. from Week 1 (no change)
Monday: Bike to work and home w/ light pack, shoulder and back weight training
Tuesday: Run home from work w/ light pack, chest and shoulder weight training
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: Run to work w/ light pack
Friday: Off (Hike tomorrow!)
Saturday: 2.5 mile hike w/65-70 lbs. pack, approximately 8 mile hike w/35 lbs. pack
Sunday: 2.5 mile hike w/65-70 lbs. pack
Monday: 36 mile bike ride

To say that I enjoyed the Pinchot trail would be an understatement. It was beautiful. It was also very different from our standard workout on the Perkiomen Trail. On the Perk Trail, Jeff and I have been going pretty fast on the flat terrain and solid footing. The Pinchot trail has widely variable grade, and lots and lots of rocks. There is no going fast. However, the constant need to adjust stride to get from rock to rock plus the continuous ups and downs made for a very good workout, working leg muscles that I don’t really get to on the Perk Trail on a regular basis. The workout was much more strength based, and much less endurance based. I got a lot out of it despite not being able to get the mileage I had set as an expectation beforehand. Not that it mattered much if at all, as the time I spent on the hike was equivalent to the time it takes to do a 14 miler.

The weekend worked out really well. Ingrid and I packed up the kids on Saturday morning, chucked the dog in the car, and headed north. When we got there, we put little packs on the girls, Ingrid had her standard pack, and I had my 35 lbs. of regular stuff plus all of the camping stuff that didn’t make it into Ingrid’s pack. My pack totaled about 65-70 lbs., which was heavy. The first comment I made when I put on the pack was “Geez, this feels like a Marine Corps pack.” The packs we humped with in the Corps were definitely heavier than the 35 lbs. I’ve been hiking with. I’d forgotten that point until just then.

At about two and a half miles, we got to the campsite and I unpacked all the extra stuff from my pack. (It was the third one we passed, and by far the best – even if the girls were ready to stop at the second one. *grin*) Ingrid and the girls stayed at the campsite, set up our tent, searched for firewood, etc., while I went on for the rest of my hike with the normal weight. I was proud of the girls, they did a great job, didn’t complain (much) and had a blast overall.

The Geo-locational updates worked very well. I’m pleased to report that, provided there is good signal at White Sands Missile Range, I’ll be able to keep followers up-to-date during the 26 miler next spring.

I did miss having Jeff along on the hike. Without the conversations we have while hiking, I don’t really have anything humorous to share from this week. The conversations I have with myself when I’m out there are fairly dry and I’ll avoid discussing them so as to not alarm those who read this.

The disappointment from this weekend was my High Sierra pack. It failed. Over the past several months, small things have been annoying with it. The chest strap broke early on, one of the zipper pulls broke a week or so after that, and this weekend the stitching on one of the sleeping bag lifter straps pulled out. We went to REI Sunday after we got back and returned it. I love REI for that…they don’t care that you’ve had something a little while before you discover an issue, or why you don’t like it, they’ll simply take it back – and were pleasant about it, despite the fact that we bought the pack a year ago.

The guy in the hiking department there was extremely helpful but frustrated because the pack he wanted me to have (“Man, this pack would be PERFECT for you”), he’d just sold the last of. His suggestion was that he really wanted me in a Deuter Aircontact 65+10 pack and that if we ordered it online we could always return it to the store location if we didn’t like it. So that’s what we did. Many thanks to Eric at the Conshohocken REI store. He also had me try on an REI-branded pack that I also liked, but apparently I needed an in-between size on it – the supports just weren’t fitting against my back properly once we weighted it.

I rounded out the week and spent my Labor Day afternoon on the mountain bike on the Perk Trail, doing 36 miles total. I was still sore from the weekend hike(s), and figured it was a good time to push myself and see what I could do. I started at the 8 mile mark where 7th Ave crosses Rt. 29 and headed north up to the 18 mile mark at Green Lane Park. On the way back, I kept a great pace, nailed Hell’s Hill, and kept the pace up back to the 8 mile mark, took a quick break and decided I wasn’t done yet. So I went south down to the 0 mile mark on the trail and turned around and came back. I don’t mind telling you that the last 8 miles was seriously touch and go. Total time was about three and a half hours. It was a good day, and a great way to finish off the week.

Geo-loc for turn around point

GeoTagged, [N41.17806, E75.61332]

Headed back!

Break Time

GeoTagged, [N41.17544, E75.61821]

Gotta change the socks! Grabbed a Gu to keep the energy up. I've got a few aches and pains, but getting a great workout so far. Knee is holding up quite well, I think the brace was a good move.

The hills aren't long ones, but definately more than the Perk Trail. As I said earlier, it's a very different workout...and a good one. It's good to mix it up a bit.

Trail crossing Geo-loc

GeoTagged, [N41.18307, E75.63034]

Choke Creek and Butler Run Trail crossing.

On the trail

GeoTagged, [N41.17642, E75.63960]

Pushing pretty hard. The trail is fairly trecherous with lots of rocks and ups and downs, so the pace is quite a bit slower than I'd like. It's a different workout though from the Perk Trail...my legs and feet are definately feelin it.

Campsite Geo-loc

Unfortunately, iPhone signal at the campsite was just about non-existent, so I had no luck posting the geo-locs from the campsite at all.

Campsite

We found a nice campsite to use...I would guess that were about two miles in or so.

I'm really happy to have the pack off. So that I could get in a "normal" workout, I kept my 35 lbs. of weight in the pack and added all of the extra stuff for camping that's not in Ingrid's pack. That puts mine at about 65-70 lbs. all said and done. So, it's already been quite a good workout.

I'm about to empty the extra weight and continue on while Ingrid and the girls set up camp. I figure I'll go about 2 hours further and turn around to retrace...should put me at around my 14-15 mile goal for the day, with part of it REALLY HEAVY.

It feels good. I'd not have been capable of this a year ago.

On the way to the camp spot

GeoTagged, [N41.19489, E75.63333]

Were about a mile in. The girls are holding up well, and were taking a quick water break.

Lackawanna State Forest

GeoTagged, [N41.20044, E75.63174]

Here we go...at the trail head.

iPhone Stuff

I mentioned in the introductory post that Ingrid asked me to figure out if I could somehow get my iPhone to update status and locations during the hike.  I've spent some time playing with it, and believe I have a nice little mix of apps that will do quite nicely, and I plan on testing the functionality this weekend on the hike on the Pinchot Trail in Lackawanna State Park.  If things work out as I hope, I'll be able to update the blog in real time, with pictures, geo-locational information and quick status updates while the hike is in progress.

If you're not an iPhone user or otherwise just don't care, go ahead and skip the rest of this post, because I'm going to geek out some =)

After some research, I've found two apps that between them will cover my needs.  These are BlogPress, which is the nicer of the two, and BlogWriter, which isn't as nice but can do the geo-locational stuff.  Both are capable of using the iPhone's camera to take/integrate pictures and send them along with post updates to the blog, and both work very well with Blogger.

BlogPress has a much nicer interface.  It (happily) is able to go landscape mode for posting, auto-saves drafts, allows multiple pictures to be uploaded in a single post, and allows you to put the pictures wherever you want them in the post.  There are also many other nice features that users rave about, but I'm not an experienced enough blogger as of yet to know whether those features would be useful to me.  The one thing it doesn't have (and I've begged the developers to add it in an update) is the geo-locational capability.  I want to be able to have Ingrid and my daughters follow along while I'm out on hikes and "experience" it with me.

BlogWriter is very simplistic, with limited functionality and not so many bells and whistles.  It gets trashed in the AppStore reviews heavily...however, it has the one piece that lets me use this blog for the geo-locational stuff instead of also having to use twitter or something else in addition to the blog.  (As a side note, most of the twitter apps do have the ability to add geo-loc tags into tweets, and that was what I was looking at doing before I found BlogWriter).  With BlogWriter, you can seemingly only use the geo-loc when you're uploading a picture, so I guess that anytime I want to update location the blog will get a picture along with it.

When the geo-loc picture gets posted up to the blog, it provides a nice little link right below the picture.  If you click on the link, it launches Google-maps and drops a pin on the location that it was posted from.  Pretty cool stuff.

So, starting this weekend, readers of the blog get to be treated with updates from the trail.

Some other apps that I have found very useful in training thus far are RunKeeper Pro, which I love, The Weather Channel, GPS Kit and Google Earth.  RunKeeper Pro is great for mapping out distances traveled, pace, time elapsed and even allows you to upload your locational data throughout the hike or run into Google-maps so that you have a history of your workouts over time and can see exactly where you've been, how long it took you and overall progression of your workouts.  Unfortunately, keeping the iPhone unlocked and constantly updating GPS uses alot of battery and in a few hours the iPhone is dead (without backup battery)...so it's less useful for long hikes.  Having the Weather Channel is very nice on the longer hikes to keep track of rain/thunderstorms.  Not that there's a whole lot you can really do about it, but when you hear thunder in the distance you can at least pull up the live animated radar image and see if you're about to get wet or not.  GPS Kit and Google Earth I think are obvious, and cool. 

Let's just hope that I can get service on my iPhone out in the deserts of New Mexico.

Are any readers aware of other apps that would be handy to have along out on the trail and would be kind enough to share?

Week 6 – There are signs on the trail saying “When passing, give verbal warning”

This was a very light week, except for the weekend. I ended up getting sick with a chest/head cold on Wednesday which lasted for a couple of days. My body probably needed a bit of a break anyway, so I lounged around a lot.

Week 6: current weight 168, +8 lbs. from Week 1
Monday: Shoulders and chest weight training
Tuesday: Bike to work and home w/ light pack, shoulder and back weight training
Wednesday: Sick
Thursday: Sick
Friday: Day off (hike on Saturday this week, wanna be fresh for it!)
Saturday: 14 mile hike w/ heavy pack
Sunday: 18 mile bike ride w/ no pack

The several days of no physical activity before the hike really paid off. This week’s hike was great, with three things that really stood out: 2 miles further than we’d gone before, we did 6 miles between break one and two as opposed to our normal 4, and we kicked up the pace significantly on the last 4 miles to almost 5 miles an hour. Even with the greatly increased pace on the last 4 miles, we finished very strong…albeit in a lot of pain.

With the break plan we used this week, Hell’s Hill happened at about a mile and a half before our second break (which was at the 10 mile point this week). We purposely didn’t rest or slow down at the top of Hell’s Hill, which we paid for, but it really felt good to trash the hill and keep on going.

We discovered some new reactions on the trail this week from the other trail users, although the pattern remained mostly the same. We’re still working on why people’s reactions to us are so different between the first half of our hikes and the last half. We have a new theory that might apply.

Jeff noticed that for the first 10 miles or so, I’ve been very understanding when people pass you within a foot, with no verbal warning, and scare the crap out of you when they go flying by (the packs we’re wearing make enough brushing and creaking noises at our pace to pretty much cover up the sound of runners/bicyclists approaching from behind). By about mile 10 however, I start getting pretty grumpy about it. By mile 12, I start cursing, and even once said to a guy “Hey man, how about a little warning?!?” after he passed so close that he literally brushed my arm. So, Jeff’s new theory is that it goes beyond a “haggard look” that we may have from the miles of hiking and into new territory…perhaps we look angry. Like, angry enough to bite someone’s head off if they look at us funny. I have to appreciate the weight of the theory. We are finding that after enough miles and enough pain, we generally are kind of angry and grumpy until the last mile or so when the elation of the fact that we’re almost done for the day hits.

In any event, on to the new reactions. This week, two different people stopped what they were doing to ask us what we were training for. This took a couple of miles of thinking to figure out that it is indeed obvious that we’re training for something. The biggest clue was that in the weeks we’ve been doing this, neither of us has seen anyone else with backpacks on. Even more, I’ve been on the trail regularly for the past year and a half, and I have yet to see a single other individual with a backpack. I assumed people would just think we’re your run of the mill backpacker, but once again Jeff proved he’s smarter than I am by pointing out that the Perkiomen Trail doesn’t really *go* anywhere. It’s really kind of point A to point B. It doesn’t hook up to the Appalachian Trail or anything. So anyone who really takes notice of the backpacks and thinks about it for a minute or two is going to realize that we must be training for something, because no one would be stupid enough to don a huge pack and walk just for the sake of walking with a huge pack. Jeff and I bantered back and forth a bit about why all of a sudden this week people were taking more of an interest in what we’re doing. In the end, we agreed that the difference between people on the trail on Saturday and those on the trail on Sunday must be significant, as this was the first Saturday hike we’ve done. It must be that the people who we see on Saturday are the more outgoing and personable of the two groups, and therefore are more likely to go out Saturday night. They then would be nursing Sunday morning hangovers, which is why we didn’t see them until this week.

So we got to explain about the Bataan Memorial Death March to a few people, about where it is, when it is, why it’s an event and the importance of memorializing something so tragic. One guy had never heard of the Bataan Death March but was interested in it when we explained, and the other guy knew all about it and thought that it was extremely cool that there is a yearly event dedicated to the memory of it.

One thing was a bit frustrating about the hike this week. Periodically throughout the hike, I had pain in the left knee that felt exactly like the tendinitis I was diagnosed with in the same knee earlier this year. I hadn’t felt it at all in the past several months, even on my 5.7 mile pack runs that I’ve been doing regularly. So, I’m going to have to watch the knee. Next week I will be sure to wear the little knee strap I picked up back in the early spring for the tendinitis and see if that helps any.

Stay tuned next week for my first “off the Perk Trail” hike. My wife and I are packing up the kids and headed to the Lackawanna State Forest in the Poconos to camp overnight, and I’m going to do part of the Pinchot trail while we’re there. Going to shoot for 14 again, but we’ll see, I might go farther.

Question for the reader: Besides “not getting sick”, what could I have done better this week training wise? Knowing something now about my goals, where I am, what I know I need to work on, etc, what could I change and/or do better?

Hell’s Hill

One of the things Jeff and I were originally worried about in training for the Death March is the elevation chart on the Death March website. This chart shows a big peak in the middle of the hike. It goes from approximately 1,225 ft. at the 10k mark, to 1,650 ft. at the 22k mark. In that 12 kilometers, there is no up and down…it’s just up. Granted, that’s not a terribly significant uphill grade, but it is continuous for 12 kilometers. It looks intimidating on the chart, anyway. Jeff, being the engineer that he is, did the math and figures that the average grade on it is approximately 3.6%.

A few of the comments left by past participants emphasize the point:

"I’ve run in a lot of marathons. This was the toughest, especially the hill that I now refer to as Hell Hill. The wind that we pushed into up that hill was unforgiving. This event is not for the light of heart. The great thing about the march is that it helps you find a sense of community right in the middle of a desert."

"I participated in and finished the Bataan Memorial Death March for the very first time this year. I will be doing again. It was one of the most challenging things I have ever done. I do climb fourteeners (mountains above 14,000 feet) in Colorado every summer and this was a true challenge…"

"This was my 36th marathon. Although it was by far the toughest, it was also far and away the most rewarding."


So apparently this hill is not to be taken lightly. By the way, the “wind” that’s referred to by many past marchers gets to be upward of 50 miles per hour during the spring in that part of New Mexico. It’s also a continuous wind, not just gusts. And you walk into it while going uphill…

Anyway, our concern was around the fact that the Perkiomen Trail used to be a rail bed, and as such is almost entirely flat more or less. We were concerned about not having much in the way of hill training to do in preparation for the event.

That concern has been fairly well settled though. Between mile markers 11 and 12 ½ or so on the Perkiomen Trail, we have a Hell’s Hill of our very own. Just north of Schwenksville, strolling down the path, we come across a yellow sign reading “12% grade, ¼ mile”. The first time I saw it, I didn’t think much of it, until we got to the hill the sign was referring to. Having been the first time I’d been on this portion of the trail, I didn’t realize that this was actually the same hill that Spring Mountain Ski Resort is on. When you go down (it lasts for about a half mile), you come to a straight away fairly level part of the path for about a half a mile, with the hill now on the right (when going west/north) going up into the woods. After the straight away, the trail crosses a road, and there on the right is the overflow parking for Spring Mountain Ski Resort. We turned around at about that point and hiked back up…wow, what a hill. Some kind soul donated a bench right at the top of the hill. I’m going to have to pay attention to the plaque next time and remember that guy’s name. As I remember, it was donated in memory of his wife.

Anyway, we found our hill to train on.

Week 5

So far I’ve used the term “we” a lot in discussing our weekend hikes. “We” consists of a friend named Jeff who is along on this thing as a catalyst to get him back in shape, and me. He does have a hiking background but has never been in the military, so is sometimes fairly perplexed when he encounters some of my rituals…such as my insistence on changing my socks every four miles. This sock ritual was beaten into my skull while in the Corps. Every rest stop (10 minutes of each hour), you take off your boots, dry your feet, administer moleskin as necessary, take 2 Motrin (also known as Superman pills or “Marine Candy”), and change your socks. This is what you do. It’s like one of those irreversible laws of physics, and there is no questioning it. Jeff just kind of shakes his head at all this, but is glad for the break. What I firmly believe Jeff does not yet realize (and I keep telling him this) is that when we get to the 20+ mile point, he will learn that there are two options: be right there with me changing socks and slathering strips of moleskin on his feet, or spend the rest of the week walking gingerly trying not to pop the blisters all over them. We’ll see.

Week 5: current weight: 165, +5 lbs. from Week 1
Monday: Shoulders and back weight training
Tuesday: Run to work w/ light pack
Wednesday: Off (Hershey Park w/ the kids!)
Thursday: Shoulders and chest weight training
Friday: Run to work w/ light pack
Saturday: Off
Sunday: 12 mile hike w/ heavy pack

Nothing really stood out this week, other than the fact that the weight training is resulting in significantly heavier weights than when I started. That’s to be expected, of course, but I’m a bit surprised on the speed of the weight increase. That said, my shoulders are still killing me after the longer hikes, so there’s a lot more work to be done there.

This week was the second 12 miler we did, and it went significantly better in the more comfortable temps. We were dead tired when we were done, of course, but compared to last week’s hike this was a winner.

I’m beginning to put less emphasis on the hike with heavy pack to work. I’ve noticed during the longer hikes that the difference between 6 miles and even 10 miles is huge. On the longer hikes, I’m not even starting to get tired until the 6-7 mile mark. I get the feeling that I’m not getting a whole lot out of the 5.74 miles to work and then home again, and I might be able to spend that time more beneficially in the weight room or running. I’m going to mull that one over for another week and see how I feel about it then.

As a side note, you may (or may not, I don’t know) have wondered what’s in my pack? I’ve always been a firm believer in training the way you fight, or harder, so I’ve taken pains to make the training hikes as similar as possible to what we expect to experience next spring. One of the cool things about the Memorial Death March is that they encourage entrants in the Heavy Division (us! Woohoo!) to carry canned goods, bagged rice, and other foodstuffs to make up the 35 lbs. At the finish line, there is a food donation area, where you can empty your pack and it gets donated to the local New Mexico food bank. This seems like a good cause to me, and since I train the way I fight, my pack is currently stuffed with canned soup, plastic bottles of salad dressing, Hormel Chili, and pretty much everything else that was in the pantry that Ingrid (my wife) decided had been in there too long and wasn’t likely to get used anytime soon. Being hard-headed as I tend to be, I have 40 lbs. of that stuff in there because in my little mind that means that next spring, 35 lbs. will feel light. I know that’s not really true, and that at mile 25, I’m not only not going to be able to tell the difference between 40 lbs. and 35 lbs., but anything more than 5 lbs. is going to be excruciating anyway. Still, that’s the way I like to do things, and it makes me feel better.

In any event, Jeff said something on last week’s hike that had me chuckling from mile 8 through mile 10 (when my shoulders started hurting so bad I couldn’t think of anything else until the end). We had noticed that in the beginning of the hike that morning, lots of people (bikers, runners, dog walkers, etc) were greeting us cheerfully with a “Good Morning” or whatever, but that by mile 6 people started ignoring us, or avoiding us, or giving us cross-eyed looks. We surmised that our general appearance had likely changed from cheerful and refreshed ourselves, at the beginning, to somewhat haggard, thirsty, sweaty, etc. and that we were both carrying fairly taciturn looks on our faces by that point from the pain of the weight and the sweltering heat. We decided that we probably began to look like the typical long distance trail hikers that walk for days or weeks, breeze through towns, sleep where they can, that sort of thing.

What got Jeff to chuckling, which he passed on to me was what would happen if we both got hit by a car, or struck by lightning or whatever and some cops and paramedics came across our unconscious and/or dead forms in a crosswalk or on the trail? They’d look for identification, and would likely go through our packs to find it.

At which point, they would find these big old packs stuffed with franks and beans, cans of spam, salad dressing, and in Jeff’s case a 10 lbs. weight on top of it all. I could clearly visualize the look on a paramedic’s face holding up a can of Chef Boyardee saying “What the hell?”

Catching Up – What we’ve done up until I started writing the blog

Throughout the blog, you’ll notice when I talk about hiking that I refer to the hikes we did in the Marine Corps, fondly termed “humps”. I’ve not done much in the way of hiking as most people know it, but I have done a fair amount of humps, so the limited knowledge I have of the subject is what I learned in the Corps. When I share that information, I’ll attempt to explain enough of the background to make sense to those without it.

My biggest problem for load bearing hikes like these has always been overall strength. In the Corps, there are predominately two basic body types. I’ll call them Type I and Type II. Type I are what most people think of when they think “Marine”. These are big guys…typically 6’8’ or there about, generally as wide as they are tall, capable of feats of strength that are super-human. Type II (me) are small guys, wiry and agile, and generally excel when it comes to endurance. Type I’s can put 65 lbs. on their back and walk for days without rest, whereas Type II’s can run circles around Type I’s all day long, but don’t do so well on the long distance weight carrying stuff.

Unfortunately for both types, the Marine Corps likes to hurt people, so they tend to do both runs and long periods of carrying heavy things…just to spread out the pain some and make sure that everyone hurts, no matter the Type. During the 8 years that I was in, I hated the Type I’s when we were “humping”, and felt sorry for them when we were running.

So going into this, I’m fully aware that my biggest disadvantage to begin with is general size and strength. I’m a little taller than 5’6’. At the beginning of training, I weighed in at a pretty respectable 160 lbs. When I started working out last year I was at about 170 lbs. and have since added a significant amount of leg muscle through the pack runs and cycling that I’ve done. I’ve trimmed down quite a bit, having lost probably about 20 lbs. of fat and added about 10 lbs. of muscle or thereabouts.

The biggest two things that I’m going to have to accomplish through my upcoming training program are shoulder/back strength, and endurance. At the same time, I’m going to have to maintain or improve my current cardio and toughen up my feet.

Here’s the down and dirty recap of the first month (from memory, so some of it is probably wrong):

Light pack = 18 lbs.
Heavy pack = 40-45 lbs.
Distance = 5.74 miles each way, 11.48 miles total for hikes and bike rides

Week 1:
Monday: Hike to work and home w/ heavy pack (blisters)
Tuesday: Bike to work and home w/ light pack, shoulder and back weight training
Wednesday: Hike to work and home w/ heavy pack (blisters on my blisters, found new socks)
Thursday: Bike to work and home w/ light pack, shoulder and chest weight training
Friday: Run to work w/ light pack
Sat & Sun: Off

Week 2: Recover from extreme pain of week 1. (We were in Toronto on vacation all week, got in one light run, spent a lot of time with my very sore feet propped up on random soft things, drank some really good Canadian Beer).

Week 3:
Monday: Hike to work and home w/ heavy pack
Tuesday: Bike to work and home w/ light pack, shoulder and back weight training
Wednesday: Hike to work and home w/ heavy pack (blisters again, new socks are great though)
Thursday: Chest and arms weight training
Friday: Run to work w/ light pack
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Hike 10 miles w/ heavy pack with a buddy who has signed on to do this march with me. It was raining *really* hard, but the temps were cool and short of pouring water out of my waterproof boots at our 4 mile rest stops, things went pretty well.

Week 4:
Monday: Run to work w/ light pack (this was really hard, coming off the 10 mile hike the day before)
Tuesday: Shoulder and back weight training
Wednesday: Bike to work and home w/ light pack, chest and arms weight training
Thursday: Hike to work and home w/ heavy pack (no blisters!)
Friday: Run to work w/ light pack
Saturday: Bike on Perkiomen Trail for approx. 20 miles, easy pace
Sunday: Hike 12 miles w/ heavy pack and hiking buddy. This one was much harder than the week before. We started at 8am, and by 10am it was insanely hot. Feet and legs held up well, but was very happy I had some Gu with me because I was running out of energy by mile 8. Ran out of water at mile 11, so going to have to do something about that.

And that brings us up to speed on where we are now. As you can see, our plan as of right now is a steady mileage of cross training during the week, and progressively increasing the distance on the weekends of the “big hikes” over time. That said we’re redoing the 12 miler this coming weekend, as last weekend’s was very hard and right at our limit of what we can do currently. Hopefully it’ll go much better and we’ll progress on to 14 miles the following week.

As an aside: When we finished up with the hike on Sunday, my wife pointed out that I’ve been wearing my green, waterproof general purpose/work/hiking boots. My response was something along the lines of “Yeah, duh. What should I be wearing, my running shoes?” Her response was to look at me like I was stupid (she does that really well) and casually say, “Well, I would have thought you’d want to be wearing the hiking boots that we bought for you last year, you know…for hiking.”

Baseline – Where I was when I started this training – July 2009

I consider myself to be in moderate shape right now (July 2009). Nowhere near the shape I was in while on active duty, but also nowhere near the shape I let myself slide into in the years after. The day I left active duty, I promised myself I would not run a single mile for a year, and that was a promise that I kept.

I also recognize that I am as of right now nowhere near in the shape I need to be in order to finish this little walk next spring.

Early last summer, I got the hankerin’ to get back into shape and set a goal for myself to be able to run to work while carrying everything I needed for the day. I figured it would be great, get back into shape and save gas at the same time! I forgot though, until the first day I actually did the run, that I was going to have to worry about getting back home again. So much for saving gas, as my wife had to help me drop the car off at work the night before. I did a test bike ride of the run, and found it to be 5.7 miles from my front door to the work campus. Great course too, as it’s almost exactly two miles from home to the entrance of the Perkiomen Trail at the corner of 2d Avenue and Main Street in Collegeville. The trail has been a much appreciated part of my workouts, and I am thankful that we’re lucky enough to have it so close to work and home.

It took a surprising 4 months of progressive distance with an 18 lbs. runner’s pack to get up to the 5 mile mark. I thought it was going to be quite a bit quicker than that, but I was in worse shape than I thought I was (doesn’t it always work out that way?). So, starting in the fall, I was able to do the run to work thing…very painful, but doable. Blisters were a factor, and I went though a couple of pairs of shoes figuring that out. The pack was great for lower back, shoulder and leg strength, and I’m extremely pleased now that I did that…it has made the transition to a heavy backpack over the past month much easier I’m sure.

I did that run to work thing on average twice per week through the fall, hit Thanksgiving and took a break. See, I’m a wuss, I don’t like being cold…and I convinced myself that taking the winter off wouldn’t matter all that much anyway.

Sometime in January, work-mates Surya, Jon and I decided we were going to do the Broad Street Run in May. Sounded like a great idea and fit nicely with what my (as of then hibernating) workout plan was. I hadn’t factored in though the difficulty of motivating myself to get out and run again in the cold early enough before May to be in shape for 10 miles. So in the beginning of March, it’s still cold out, I’m staring at a 10 mile run in less than 2 months, and I haven’t run since Thanksgiving.

That’s where the stupid started. I went out, got some cold weather running gear, threw on the pack and almost killed myself running the 5.74 miles to work after having not run at all for four months. I pulled it off, sure…but it was a mistake. This gave me a false sense of bravado and I continued my workout plan exactly where I left off in the fall, and promptly ended up with tendinitis in the left knee.

Surya and Jon ended up doing Broad Street without me and for the next week I kept getting comments dropped about how former Marines are supposed to be tough and that sort of thing.

So, I broke out the mountain bike and hit the weight room for a couple of months while my knee healed. That helped keep the cardio up quite well. I was pretty surprised as I’m not much of a biker that riding in to work and home again three times a week was the equivalent or better than running into work twice a week was. In the end, the hurt knee didn’t really slow me down all that much, just moved me into more of a cross training regimen. Over time, I was able to get runs inserted back into the schedule, and I ended up with a nice balance of running once a week and riding twice a week, plus light weights twice a week (about 20 minutes each, single muscle group) on the riding days.

And that puts me to where I was about a month ago when we started seriously training for the hike next spring. I could handle a 5.74 mile run with 18 lbs., or 11.48 miles (two ways) on the mountain bike on any given day.

The Bataan Memorial Death March, March 21, 2010

I heard about the Bataan Memorial March sometime back in my last few years of active duty in the Marine Corps, around 1995-6. I remember hearing the words ankle deep sand, uphill, blowing dust, 35 lbs. pack, and pretty much just shutting down the conversation right there. No, not interested, thanks, let me know how it goes. See, we did lots of stuff in the Corps that was hard, but ask pretty much any former Marine you know, and he or she will tell you that we didn’t tend to go looking for things to do that were hard just to do them. Sure, there were a few tweaked individuals out there…but overall, not so much.

I’ve since learned a little more about it. The Bataan Memorial March is a 26.2 mile course through the desert at New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range. It is held yearly in the spring, in honor of those who were subjected to the REAL Bataan Death March in the Philippines in World War II. Generally, it is a military competition with teams and individual entrants from military units around the world, including military units from other countries. Germany, Canada and Great Britain are regular entrants, among others. There are also civilian divisions, in which a group of us intend to compete in March of 2010. I use the word “compete” loosely here though, as our agreed upon real goal for 2010 is simply to finish.

The course is recognized as being amongst the most challenging of the marathons out there, as well as one of the most rewarding. A highlight of the event is the presence of many of the remaining survivors of the real Death March, who are flown in yearly to share their stories, cheer on the participants, congratulate those who finish, and to just hang around and be crusty old hero types to help remind us of the efforts and hardships that those who have gone before us have survived.

For some reason though, having run across an article on the Memorial March a few months ago, something has changed. I think it’s the mid-life crisis brewing inside of me, but the thought of accomplishing something physically more challenging than most of what I did while on active duty, 15 years later is somehow appealing. Part of me says that if I can finish this course, then I’m still in the game. So I called some other former Jarheads I’m still in touch with, asked some friends I’ve made since, and suddenly we have a team together for this thing. I guess they have things to prove to themselves too.

So what will follow here in this blog over the coming months will be the adventures of training for this monster in the desert that will finish off with a write-up after the fact of what the actual march was like…provided I don’t die in the desert next spring. My wife wants me to put twitter on my iphone so that I can tweet during rest breaks on the march, if there is service out there. She suggests that it would be great if she and the girls can follow along mile by mile back home while I’m out struggling with rattlesnakes, scorpions, sand, the desert, 35 lbs. on my back and myself. If that works out, I’ll plan to include the transcript of the tweets in the final post so you can witness whatever weirdness transpires.