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.”