Training II

With our first hike set for September 15, I’ve been in a panic to lose weight and get into shape. The template that I have been using is to get up early and walk for a minimum of 30 minutes.  On most days, I do a few exercises with a kettle bell. I also do dead lifts with an Olympic weight set a few times a week.  I always finish with stretching—I have a bad lower back, and over the years, I’ve identified a number of yoga postures and stretches that work wonders for my back.  Most of all, I love the relaxed state that results.

But on most days I wake up late and am unable to do the whole template. Often I am just too tired or too busy. I have three different routes for walking that are 30, 45, and 80 minutes each. The route that I take depends on my mood and how much time I have. Since the hike idea, whenever I walk, if there is grass available, I walk on grass rather than pavement.  Walking on grass or dirt takes more energy and balance because it is uneven. It also exercises the feet an ankles much more.

As a guy who sits at a desk all day, I am completely out of shape.  I can’t do the kettle bell or dead lift too hard without hurting my joints. After walking and/or the weights, even if I am short on time, I will do at least a yoga down-dog posture--my spine, shoulders, wrists, and ankles need it.  I vary the routine every day for cross training. I intend to get my bike out of the garage and add that to the mix, for additional cross training.

Any of the kettle bell exercises that are done standing up, which is most of them, will help strengthen the legs as well as develop balance. The swing is good for the legs, back, core, and cardio.

The dead lift is the most underrated weight lift. It impacts every muscle in the body.  It’s perfect for developing leg strength for hiking, as well as back and core strength for carrying the back pack.

                                                                                      

The ability to stretch further gives you more effective strength. When hiking, you will be stretching, twisting, and tensing muscles and joints in positions that you otherwise wouldn’t. Walking on pavement, weight lifting, calisthenics, and so on, put the body through a limited few fixed forms. Yoga exercises the body in a far greater variety of positions. Practicing yoga will help reduce fatigue and the risk of injury during hiking as well as minimize muscle and joint soreness afterwards. The yoga breathing exercises will help your cardio vascular system as well. Learn to breathe. It’s a beautiful thing.

Training

I have had some concern about my ability to hike the high peaks. I am 57 and about 75 pounds overweight.  After looking at a photo of the summit of Cascade Mountain in one hiker's blog, I started to worry. I know from experience that I can probably finish, but I'm afraid of ending up in the hospital from exhaustion, or worse.

Let me put this in perspective. The daughter of a family we know recently completed the U.S. Marine Corp's Officer Candidate School at Paris Island. She is in her early twenties and weights 115 pounds. She told me that they got 4 hours sleep each night and had to hike through the swamp in the mud at 2:00 A.M. while wearing an 80 pound backpack. That's more than two-thirds of her body weight. My fully loaded backpack weighs 15 pounds and feels heavy to me. My aging male ego feels ashamed. To at least test myself for the high peaks, I got up extra-early this morning, put the backpack on and walked for an hour and twenty minutes.

As soon as I put the pack on, I felt strain on my shoulders, more so on my left because I have calcific tendonitis in that shoulder. The backpack has straps on the bottom of the pack that are intended to go around the waist like a belt. The intent is to transfer more of the weight of the pack to the hips and away from the shoulders and back. I started off with having the straps loose, but then stopped and adjusted them so that they were about as tight as a tight belt. It made a difference. 

With the backpack, I realized that my overall center of balance shifts much higher and to the rear. I will have to take that into consideration balance-wise when doing a steep incline. I can picture myself unwittingly leaning back just a little and falling backwards down a rock slide.

And at the end of this morning's walk, my shoulders didn't feel much more strain than they did at the beginning. But I am not fooling myself. That walk on level pavement and grass was nothing compared to going straight up a mountain on rugged ground. 

Incidentally, after the walk and a shower, I felt like a million dollars. Funny thing--when I was driving to work afterwards, I kept thinking that no American Indian worth his moccasins would ever bother to climb to the top of one of these mountains! Why would they?  There's nothing to be had up there, no fish, wild game, plant food, or shelter. But at 57, if I don't do this now, I may never be able to. We're doing this for bragging rights.  And I do not want to disgrace myself.

"When I'm in the Adirondacks, I Feel Close to God."

A few weeks ago, my brother Eddie Bauer was returning from fishing in the Adirondacks and sent me a text message, “Have you ever heard of the Adirondack 46ers?”  It rhymed with, “Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers,” and I thought it must be a basketball or hockey team.  After he got home, he called to tell me that the Adirondack Forty-Sixers was a hiking club, and to become a member, you had to hike to the top of each of the 46 Adirondack Mountains that are more than 4,000 feet in elevation. Ed proposed that we try to become members of the club.

I loved the idea instantly.  Ed pitched the idea as an ideal activity for us--a bunch of guys over 50 who sit at a desk all day. It gives us motivation to lose weight and get into better cardiovascular shape. I am 57 and weigh 260 pounds.  I love the wilderness, especially the Adirondacks. Ed didn’t need to sell me on the idea. It may take us as much as 10 years to climb all 46 peaks and that is fine. It will be 10 years of trying to remain in shape well enough to climb. During our conversation twice (or was it three times?), Ed said, “When I’m in the Adirondacks, I feel close to God.”

                                                            

We plan on climbing Cascade and Porter Mountains on September 15, along with a few other interested family members, in-laws, and friends.  In the basement of our house, I went looking in a storage box for one of our son’s old backpacks that they had used for school, and I have packed already, including first aid stuff.

At the moment, this is just a pipe dream. Let’s see if we can make it happen. In the meantime, I am exercising every day and cutting my carbohydrates.  I’m starting to feel closer to God already.