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.
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