Getting Ready

Some people have asked about the training regime we’re going through to get ready for the Canyon. If you’re thinking about doing this hike, or if you’re just morbidly curious, here it is:

First, if you are interested in doing the Canyon, and if you’re not already in pretty decent physical shape, I would recommend that about six months out from your hike date you start doing some regular exercise. Thirty minutes of cardio at least three times a week and some upper body weight training should do the trick. If you’re more than ten pounds overweight you may want to work on that as well. Three times a week for cardio and weights is my standard work out schedule so I didn’t do anything extra except to more consciously rotate more biking into the cardio mix (I’m usually on the elliptical most of the time) and to add a few minutes on the stair stepper once or twice a week to start building some extra leg strength.

The next thing I would recommend is that you buy your boots a good four months ahead of the hike date so that you can wear them throughout your training. I have been wearing mine now since the beginning of March but am still getting blisters when we change terrain and different parts of my feet get rubbed in different ways. It’s a lot easer to endure this on shorter hikes than to wait until it really matters (and by-the-way, I fully expect to have blisters after the Canyon as well).

Gray and I went on our first training walk on March 6^th but I had actually snuck out for a short walk the week before because starting with five miles sounded like a pretty robust challenge. From there we ramped it up pretty quick in a sequence like this:

Week Miles

Week 1 5

Week 2 10

Week 3 5

Week 4 11 (this was supposed to be 15 but we just couldn’t make it)

Week 5 5

Week 6 5

Week 7 15 (Pemberton Trail)

Week 8 9

Week 9 20 (our ill-fated Superstition adventure)

Week 10 5

About two thirds of this has been road work—literally—walking the roads around our house. This is pretty unsatisfying but allowed us a good way to control distances and build a base of leg strength. We’re done with “walking” as of this weekend, and from now on we will be hiking only. That is, we’ll only be on trails going forward, which is a different kind of exercise involving more subtle muscle movements and strains.

We are also done with five milers—from here on out the training schedule looks like this:

Week Miles

Week 11 15

Week 12 10

Week 13 10

Week 14 25

Week 15 10

Week 16 15

Week 17 15

Week 18 The Grand Canyon!

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!