Training with a loaded pack...

Tuesday, August 14, 2012
I’d called Savannah and she agreed that we should go to the park with packs loaded and do some hiking.  I hadn’t had a pack on my shoulders since this past May when I’d hiked about six hours with almost fifty pounds.  I hadn’t done any preparation for that hike…and I’d paid the price with a sore hip, back and shoulders.  I can live with discomfort in the back and shoulders, but the hip ache was the same one I’d had the stress fracture in the year before and something that will interfere with my ability to climb.  I don’t want to be risking that right now.  I got my pack and put the 50-pound salt bag in it in preparation for our hike.

Savannah arrived home from work and announced that she was backing out of our hike, claiming the day had been too tough and she just wanted to chill.  Well…I was ready to go and so was Dakota, so we jumped in the car and headed for the park.

I’d forgotten just how heavy 60 pounds (I had some gear and the weight of the pack to add to the 50 pounds of salt) can feel when you pick it up out of a trunk.  Once on my shoulders though, it didn’t feel so bad.  I was going to do a straight hike…no step-ups since the surgeon had thought that was a terrible idea for a person without a meniscus and with arthritis in his left knee.  Apparently, the impact is the worst thing for my knee and 200 step-ups with sixty pounds would be a lot of impact.  Instead, I hiked up one steep hill and followed a trail full of roots and obstacles like the ones I’d see in the Adirondacks.  I was concerned about both my knee and my hip and with good reason.

By the conclusion of the hike, I was feeling some pain in my hip and my hiking shoes were cutting into my ankle, but my knee was solid.  I’d put the heart rate monitor on and found that the highest heart rate I could achieve was at the top of the steepest hill when it had reached 127…a long way from the 160’s I’d managed on my last run.  With the pack fully loaded, it had ranged from a low in the middle 80’s to about 110, with the exception of the one steep climb.  It was an indicator that my conditioning for hiking with a pack was good.

Back home, I spent time going up and down a ladder as I scraped and painted windows on the second floor.  Each trip up and down reminded me that my hip had not thought much of my hike.  In retrospect, I should have put half as much weight in the pack and walked for thirty minutes for the first trip…but that wouldn’t have been the Cowboy way.

Hike Duration: 65 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 80-127 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 450.