Day 119 Bonus Track: Thru-Hike Fitness and Prep

Precursor: Allow me first to state that these topics--exercise physiology and endurance fitness--are perhaps the ones I’m most comfortable writing about. I’ve studied exercise physiology and the mechanisms and responses of the human body for more than three decades. These are subjects after my own heart and they are some of my greatest passions. Though I do not have a succession of letters following my name, many close friends and mentors do, and we constantly share truths and other information with one another. They value my input because, instead of attending university, I spent my time in the real-world lab, as a professional endurance athlete and coach-consultant to a small, smelly stable of elites, including Tour de France cyclists and Ironman champions. In my case, the drive to succeed wasn’t a drive at all, but a series of bicycle rides.

     And then I did my first thru-hike!

I had just retired from sport and had nothing but time on my hands, so I decided to spend it on my feet. Without changing a thing I was confident I’d be in great shape for my upcoming hike (of the 2,760-mile Pacific Crest Trail, of all trails). I could swim for miles, run for hours, and ride my bike all day. And for a skinny endurance athlete I was even strong in the gym, capable of carrying the wettest of sweat towels. Multisport, I figured, was the perfect gateway sport for thru-hiking.

Well, I’ll be damned.

Granted, the ponderous pack had a lot to do with it, but those first few weeks on the trail ripped me a new one. (Figuratively speaking, for I did not incur a second asshole on the PCT; just me.) They also reminded me what I already knew, yet failed to implement in the months prior. 

Here’s what I was reminded...

1: Fitness is activity-specific.

Though an elite triathlete is capable of swimming, riding and running for extended periods without difficulty, it’s an altogether different task to don a loaded pack and hike all day, every day, over loose, muddy, sandy, undulating (etc) topography. 

Fitness is the adaptation to a specific physical stress. (Disregard mental or emotional fitness for now.) This puts to death the endless dull-witted arguments about who’s fitter--a marathoner, a thru-hiker, or a cross-fit gym rat (and so on). When it comes to running, the marathoner is fitter; when it comes to thru-hiking, the thru-hiker is fitter; when it comes to lifting and jumping and sprinting, the cross-fit athlete is fittest. Again, fitness is relative and specific to the task at hand (or foot!). 

So, with this grasped, how does one improve his or her fitness?

Through tasks specific to the goal...

2: In exercise physiology this is the primary principle: S-p-e-c-i-f-i-c-i-t-y.

In a nutshell: preparing for a given task accomplished--get this--by doing that task! (You want to ready yourself for a thru-hike? Start by showering just once a week!)

If the goal is physically demanding (e.g., thru-hiking, completing an Ironman triathlon, or even hitting a baseball out of the park), then training must be stressful enough for adaptation to occur! The purpose of training is to challenge the body physically and appropriately. Via this challenge, the body adapts--that is it grows more capable of handling a given level of stress. To be effective, training should be specific to the stress anticipated.

3: A byproduct of fitness (and the resulting stress in attempting to elevate it) is fatigue. 

When you challenge your body many physiological changes occur; not all are fitness. You could have damaged muscle cells, altered body chemistry, depleted glycogen stores, and so forth. As a whole, these changes are called fatigue; they’re what I call good fatigue, as they are necessary for adaptation to transpire. Fatigue not related to your goal, what I call bad fatigue, can also occur, by way of poor dietary habits, shoddy sleep patterns, excessive alcohol consumption (and/or other poor choices). This type of fatigue is largely detrimental to achieving your goal task. 

4: Fitness and fatigue trend in parallel fashion. 

If you’ve challenged yourself and are fatigued from that challenge you have stressed the body adequately enough to create the potential for fitness to transpire. If your training/workout creates little fatigue it didn’t create as much potential for fitness as it could have. When good fatigue rises, so too does fitness. When fitness increases, so too does fatigue. Too much fatigue, however, can be trouble, sometimes resulting in illness or injury or simple burnout.

And so...

5: To perform optimally one should reduce fatigue (be it the good or bad kind).

Although this isn’t always possible during a long-distance thru-hike, it is precisely why athletes taper their training before their most important events. Because fatigue is reduced faster than fitness. Athletes simply cannot afford to compete in an over-fatigued state, or they won’t perform at their highest. A thru-hike, of course, is altogether different...

We’re not aiming to perform our best, per se, but instead aiming to complete a given task or trail. Whereas a cyclist cannot be afforded even one bad day during the Tour de France, we can, and we can even expect them. No one escapes a multi-month hike without tough periods! But helping oneself to some prehabilitation, by managing fatigue, helps us handle them. Sleeping well, eating well, socializing and laughing and smiling a lot, staying hydrated, taking the occasional zero day, and so on, all help us do so. 

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Thru-hiking entails more than physical hardiness, of course. But the physical component is, without question, crucial. It is very much correlated to our mental and emotional outlook. Quite a few thru-hiking blogs that touch on preparing for a thru-hike only touch on the mental aspect. That many more focus on gear!

Naturally, mindset--and specifically the capacity for mental grind--is critical to anyone wanting to complete the Appalachian Trail in one fell swoop. (Peculiarly enough, these mental fitness commentaries fail to mention that most of today’s hikers employ battery-operated distractions.) Yielding weaklings need not apply! A negative Ned--or Nelly--is forced to change his or her attitude, or the trail will do it for them! Those who don’t typically don’t remain on trail. (Read this.)

Again, it is important to note that an individual’s mental fitness (that is: tenacity, perseverance, outlook) is not completely isolated from his or her physical fitness, and vice versa. We are frequently weakest mentally/emotionally when we are weakest physically. And we are often weakest physically when we neglect our emotional and mental well-being. Never mind our nutritional well-being! We are each one complete individual and not a series of systems or mechanisms. Just as it is in Nature, everything is intertwined.