We have continued our training on the hills at Pond Creek with added weight in our backpacks. Most recently we hiked 9 miles with 36 pounds for him and 26 pounds for me. Not bad, we made it fine. We are doing this hike once a week for 5 weeks now.
Two days a week we are continuing our laps around the soccer field and up and down the bleachers. -The most we have done is 1250 step-ups on the bleachers and 5 laps around the field. A total of 7.28 miles. 22 to 24 miles a week.
We are now backing down on our bleacher work since our packs are getting heavier. We are up to 42/31 pounds now. Almost trail weight. We will get to 45/35 a couple of times on the field and at least one long hike before we hit the trail.
The weather is getting warmer than we thought at this time, so we are thinking about going earlier to NC to begin our hike. We are now maybe a couple of weeks away. We will not do any training hikes the week before we go to give ourselves some recoup time before the real thing.
We now have to begin to get our food and other supplies together and pack them up for the trip. We will be using a Katadyn Hiker Pro water filter this time instead of the iodine tablets. Maybe we won't have to carry so much water on our back.
Join Wait-up and Catch-up as we hike the Appalachian Trail one section at a time. We summitted Katahdin on July 19, 2019 after 8 years of section hiking.
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Training with backpacks
Yesterday we loaded up our backpacks with 25 pounds for Wait-up and 15 pounds for me. Then we drove to Pond Creek bridge and walked up and down the hill on both sides of the bridge for a total of 7 miles. Time was 2 hours and 20 minutes. If you live anywhere around here, you know that the Pond Creek hills are pretty good ones; I cringe when I see folks riding bikes up the hill on either side of the creek.
Felt good to put my backpack on. But before it was over, I was ready to get it off again! It was a pretty warm day, so that didn't help any. We were tired, but felt that we were in better shape this year since we have been training for awhile now on the bleachers at the soccer field. Walking up the hill was different though since there was not much flat land between, it was steady walking uphill.
We plan to do this once a week or so between our soccer field training just to break the monotony of training.
We're getting there!
Felt good to put my backpack on. But before it was over, I was ready to get it off again! It was a pretty warm day, so that didn't help any. We were tired, but felt that we were in better shape this year since we have been training for awhile now on the bleachers at the soccer field. Walking up the hill was different though since there was not much flat land between, it was steady walking uphill.
We plan to do this once a week or so between our soccer field training just to break the monotony of training.
We're getting there!