It’s been a busy two weeks!
From a workout perspective, I have been getting a lot better at TGUs and recently moved to the 10 lb dumbbells. The knee pads really helped with the knee pain.
Last weekend, I took a bunch of BSA scouts (and Emma) on a 10 mile hike at Bent Creek Forest.
Today, Michael and I did a 9 mile hike from Hot Springs to Tanyard Gap.
The longer scout hike was over very gentle terrain with only 1k ft of elevation gain and over the 10 miles. It was a lovely walk in the woods.
The overall impact of the hike on my training was low intensity endurance gains. So it was a nice steady pace of hiking that I could have kept up for a while.
You can see from the HR analysis that this was mostly on zones 2 and 3.
Today’s hike, though a mile shorter, was much harder on my body. I think the weather was a factor. It was in the 70’s and very sunny and exposed on parts of the trail.
The sharp elevation gain especially coming up Lovers Leap in the beginning was also a factor.
Lots of Zone 3 and 4 here. My rest stopping ensured my legs didn’t seize up coming up the incline (which I was prone to doing before) so that was a huge plus.
I still needed to take short breathers here and there to cool down and drink/snack.
It was a good hike but I feel like I have more conditioning to do before being really ready for a thru hike