Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, we go a marching

Instead of trying to make your life perfect, give yourself the freedom to make it an adventure, and go ever upward. -Drew Houston

So, one more comment regarding my mother and life in general then back to the trek.

Many of you who followed me last year will recall that the start of tat trek started with the extremely unfortunate passing of my good friend Darrel Skinner. Hopefully the passing of my mother is not the start of a trend 🙂 but it does emphasize the point, as does the quote above, give yourself the freedom to make your life an adventure. That doesn’t mean you have to go off globe trotting, but whatever gives you a reason to strive a reason for you to walk with a bit more spring in your step, DO IT! DO IT NOW! I am fortunate to have been with folks like Darrel and my Mom who both understood that, I’m thankful that I have the chance to have my adventure. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming 😂😂😂

I got back into a training regimen again the good news was that I had retained roughly 60 to 70% of the conditioning that I had started from zero with last year and I gained a training/hiking buddy in my younger son Stephen who has typically joined me at least once a week on the longer training hikes. One thing that’s nice about having a training buddy is that it helps to keep you from getting lazy. It has also been a lot of fun to share this time with my son. That’s the good news. The bad news was the the uphills were still just wearing me out so I had to get to work. Better trip management is an important part of this. Number 1. This time I am only hiking with a 20L daypack with a 2L hydration bladder on my day to day hike with the larger pack being carried by a service to the next destination so walking with 8 to 10lbs on my back versus 20-25 lbs….big difference.

My other key learning fell in the area of technique. I learned low gear. What I mean by that is that when going uphill, I shortened my stride. I’m sure it looks silly, a lot of activity with little forward motion. However, if you think in terms of the classic definition of slope Rise/run, as taught by Mr. Erwin in Algebra 2 at Alton high school, a fearsome teacher but damn I learned a lot under the gun lol, anyway, if you think about it, on a flat surface one is at full stride and the slope is zero as the grade increase in order to maintain an equivalent amount of energy expenditure the upward component, or rise, must be compensated for by a reduction in the forward component, or run. Once I figured that out my uphills have become much easier. As treks such as what I am undertaking are more of an endurance challenge than a speed challenge ( think running three marathons over 10 days) ways to conserve ones energy is extremely important. Also, in case you haven’t figured it out walking long distances over long periods of time allow one to contemplate such issues in minute detail. Lol

Some other observations, training in the winter is easier than training in the summer due to the heat. Fundamental problem, dehydration. Not that I wasn’t drinking enough water, I would go through almost 2L per workout, but I was washing out my electrolytes. I finally found some hydration salts that I added to my water which seems to have solved that problem.

So, since I have ran on quite a bit on this post I’m going to wrap this up.

Two housekeeping items. If you will “follow” this blog you will get email notifications as to when I post something new. Two a little different twist, if you have any questions for me if you will add a comment I will do my best to answer. Just to let you know I have to approve all comments to be seen by others so don’t be concerned that a comment will automatically be shared with others. If you want it to be just between us just say so in the comment and I will abide by your request. Next post I will be on my way to Scotland. Be well.