Today I went and hiked 20 miles on the Laurel Highlands Trail in double plastic boots.  I did mile 0-10 and back, its about 5000 feet of elevation gain total.  My average time per mile including breaks was about 25min/mile.  Not the fastest speed but not bad for going solo.  It's hard to maintain a pace by yourself.  And 20 miles in plastics is not bad either.  My feet didn't get really chewed up until about mile 15 or so.

 I want to do speed work now.  I'll do 5min reps on the Cathedral stairs.  Try to do as many floors in 5 min as possible as fast as I can.  Get a full recovery, then repeat about 10 times.  Hopefully the number of floors I do will increase over time.

On June 23rd I will be heading up to the Canadian Rockies to climb a couple mountains.  This gives me roughly four months of training before we leave.  I'll be building on my fitness for the presidential traverse, however my new training plan is much more intense.  For the PT, I did something once or twice a week (stairs or hiking).  More often than not it was once a week.  I am now training 5 days a week and have added 2 new elements to my routine.  My personal take on fitness for slogging is that there are 3 separate areas I need to work on.  Aerobic endurance, strength endurance, and working your stabilizer muscles.

*If anybody has any comments on training, let me know

1. Aerobic Endurance - for 2 months I will be doing long slow runs, then I will step up the speed and start interval training.  If I get bored I'll do cycling or the elliptical machine.  I will do this 2-3 times a week for 1-3 hours each.  This is the first time I've started running - and I'm loving it.  Each time I run I find some other area I want to run next time.  I don't find myself getting tired after a long run, but I do find myself quite sore.  My knee is starting to give me trouble too, hopefully that is only because I'm shocking it with a new exercise.

(based on a handout from the ECP Rock School)

The best training for climbing is climbing.

Expand your "library" of climbing moves.

• There are literally thousands of different climbing areas with over a million routes. Each route possesses slightly different character and form requiring you to execute somewhat different techniques and tactics in every case. Climbing movements may be similar, but the moves feel different due to variations in rock type, angle and frictional properties.
• Goal = climb on as many different types of rock as possible to expand your “library”

Your body cannot go where the mind has not gone first

• Motivation multiplies talent.
• Set goals that compel action.
• Discipline leads to excellence.
• Crank up your confidence.
• Visualize success.
• Differentiate reasonable and unreasonable fears.
• Turn down the pressure

General conditioning is the most effective type of fitness training for beginner climbers.

Getting out the Laurel Highlands this weekend. Start at Ohiopyle and go out the first 10 miles and back. Fun!

Attached is a spreadsheet that should make it easy to track your stair climbing sessions. It is based on something that was sent around when I was first a student in the ECP mountaineering school, and it might help you as well. See attachment at end of this post.