Going Wherever It Leads

Exploring motherhood and Mother Nature

Tag Archives: training for a long distance hike


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Practice Eating

PCT training

attempting to make instant mashed potatoes a little healthier

This past week, in addition to our usual training at the gym and hiking, we added trying out the food we will be eating on the trail. For the last 5 days, we ate the foods we will be taking with us, and cooked it on our camp stove, even ate it out of our camp bowls with our sporks.

Now, we did not eat as much food as we will be eating on the trail. There is no way we can pack in that many calories with our normal daily activities, no matter how stressful my last week of work got. (Just kidding, it wasn’t that bad.) So, we were just trying out the types of foods, to see what we really liked, what got old fast, etc.

Here’s what I ate:

Breakfast: protein granola bars

Lunch: Cheezits, peanut butter, cheddar cheese

PCT training

our stove and cook pot

Dinner: instant mashed potatoes most nights, and one night instant mac and cheese, with the following mixed in for variety: turkey jerky, chia seeds, pea protein powder, green food powder (lots of wheatgrass, spirulina, and other veggies), freeze dried green beans

Snacks: freeze dried apples, snap pea crisps, peanut butter

Jason ate a variation of the same, only with beef jerky and bacon jerky (yes, that is a thing, very salty!).

 

Here’s what I learned:

PCT training

me eating lunch in my car at work, peanut butter on cheddar, yum!

  • I still could eat Cheezits every day of the week, but I don’t like them with peanut butter.
  • I don’t mind a spoonful of peanut butter for a mid-morning snack.
  • I quite enjoy using slices of cheese as “crackers” for the peanut butter for lunch (Instead of Cheezits, because those are just too delicious to eat with anything else. I may have a problem!)
  • I much preferred instant mashed potatoes to instant mac and cheese (this may surprise many).
  • Jerky isn’t so bad mixed in with stuff.
  • Freeze dried green beans are quite good and soften up in mashed potatoes.
  • We learned the best technique to stir water into instant mashed in a bowl that it just barely fits into (add a little powder, add a little water, repeat until full).
  • I did like the taste of the green food powders I was trying out. I’ll get a large bottle of it to divvy out in our food boxes to mail.

    PCT training

    mmm, dinner!

  • It takes about two days for my stomach to adjust to this new diet.
  • I’m gonna need a lot more snacks!

Another bit of training I’ve done that I haven’t yet mentioned is earning my orienteering badge –learning to use a compass, successfully read and better understand maps, and navigate a trail better. Jason is really an old pro at this, having earned his badge in boy scouts long ago, and can navigate quite well on and off trail in the world.

I, on the other hand, will admit, not so much. But I have successfully learned, I think, we’ll see; or hopefully, we’ll never have to see.

PCT training

still lots of snow on our last hike! Though it’s finally starting to melt.

So, we have just about everything sold, stored, or packed into our car now. Next week we’ll be hitting the road! We’re driving to Oregon to drop off our car and stuff.

Fun stops we’re looking forward to on our road trip include the Upper Penninsula of Michigan, Badlands of South Dakota, and Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone. Stayed tuned!

Any recommendations of things to see and do, places to eat? We’ll be taking the northern route, a lot of I-90.

See you on the road!
~Catie

PCT training

Round Top, Belgrade Lakes, Maine. If you look closely, you can see the snow flurries.


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PCT FAQ: You’re doing what on the what? Part 2

You’re doing what on the what? We are thru hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. And if you don’t know what that means, read Part 1 here. Now I’ll continue the FAQ.

PCT prep

walking down to get the mail, practicing with my poles and pack

What’s the highest point on the trail?

Forrester Pass, at 13,153 feet in the Sierra Nevada. We hope to take a side trail to ascend Mt. Whitney, at 14,494 feet elevation, which would make it the highest point of our journey. It is also the highest point in the contiguous United States.

What’s the lowest point on the trail?

Cascade Locks, at 140 feet above sea level, in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon.

How much will your packs weigh?

The base weight (base weight is everything you are carrying with you, including the weight of your pack, and excluding food and water) of my pack will probably be around 12 pounds. Jason’s will probably be around 15 pounds, because he is carrying the tent, and our cooking stuff. That means the full weight of our packs when we are headed out of resupply points will be me: 35 pounds, Jason: pushing 40 pounds. The further we hike away from resupply points the more food and water we consume; thus, the lighter our packs become.

How many miles a day will you hike?

We need to average about 17 miles per day in order to make it to the end of the trail before the snow falls in Washington. This average includes any zero days we’ll take. A zero day means a rest day; zero miles completed.

At the beginning we’ll start out at about 10 miles a day, slowly building closer to 20. Mileage will also depend on the terrain we’ll be traveling on for the day. We’ll make more miles during flat stretches, less when we are climbing in elevation. Making it to resupply points during post office and store hours is also a factor in how many miles a day we travel, and if we need to do laundry in town, etc.

PCT prep

multi-tasking -training while getting housework done!

How are you training for your hike?

It is the dead of winter right now in Maine, so although we are getting out to do some hiking, weather and work schedule prevent us from doing a lot. It’s pretty tough to simulate hiking miles and miles day after day. They say, the real training begins on Day 1 of the hike. Not until hiking the actual trail, do you really start to get in long-distance hiker shape.

That being said, there are still some things you can do to prepare, which, I feel, are pretty important. I am doing a lot of strength training, focusing on my core and legs. For those of you that don’t know, I tore my ACL last January, and will be about 1 year 1 month post knee surgery when we start the trail. So, for me, building the strength, balance, and confidence back up in my right leg has been very important. Luckily, I am friends with an amazing personal trainer who set me up with an awesome training program I have been doing for the last 10 weeks, increasing in difficulty as I get stronger.

This is what my weekly exercise plan looks like. Actually, this would be an ideal week, which hardly ever happens.

  • Strength training at the gym or a less intense home program, focusing on core and lower body, with a little upper body thrown in for good measure (2-3 times a week).
  • Endurance, which, when the weather is good, includes a hike. When it’s not, I spend a long time at the gym doing a combination of slow jogging, swimming, and biking (once a week).
  • Cardio Intervals. I usually do this on my strength days at the gym, but sometimes just by itself. I will do a combination of running on the track and treadmill (soon, with the extra daylight and warmer temps, I can start running outside again!), or a swim (2-3 times a week).
  • Rest day, at least once a week, but often, for various reasons, it’s more than that.

What else? We also wear our weighted packs around the house, while doing cooking or cleaning (I actually sweep more now that I’m wearing my pack!), or on walks down to our mailbox. I also have a pretty consistent yoga practice, which includes meditation. Although, I have to admit, since I’m exercising a lot more, some days this takes a back seat.

What has Jason been doing to train? Well, since he’s less schedule-oriented than I am, his training is a little (a lot) less regemented. He wears a heavily-weighted pack while pacing around the house, doing walking lunges, and various other strength exercises, runs on the treadmill a little, and of course, accompanies me on our hikes.

We also spend a lot of evenings reading books and blogs and researching for the journey as well.

How excited are you to be doing this?

Beyond words!

Anything I forgot to cover? Ask away!

Chiao,

~Catie