Those are the words of fellow climber Marty Belson when describing his experiences on Aconcagua. It's also a perfect description about how I feel towards training right now. I'm about to start week 12 (of 17) and I've spent so much time on the treadmill & stair master, in the stairwell of my office building, hiking up and down Kennesaw Mountain, and walking around with a 45 pound backpack on, that I'm ready to go insane. I guess the positive side is the results are there - I'm down 17 pounds, my heart rate is hitting the 180's, and I'm easily maintaining 150+ for well over an hour. Regardless, I'm certainly ready for "practice" to be over and for the game to start!
To measure my progress, I'm heading to Pinnacle Mountain in South Carolina on Friday. It's only a 3,415 foot mountain, however, it's 4.2 miles to the top, so an 8.4 mile round trip, and the last 600 feet is very steep. The weather is also supposed to be rainy with temperatures in the 50's, so a great chance to give my gear a solid test run. Living in the south, this is about as close as you can get to a real climb or anything that resembles what we will encounter on Aconcagua (obviously not from an elevation perspective, but from a training perspective). Ill toss a posting up with the results on Friday night.
In the meantime, the first groups leave for Argentina this Saturday (Nov 27th), so we should start getting some ground level intel in the next 7 days.
SZ
Excitement is building! That 8 mile trip will be a good training run. Are you using a HR monitor to track your bio measures? Do you use a pulse Oxymiter at all? In 56 years I've never had a cavity so the dental analogy doesn't do it for me. Keep up the good work. If after you return, you lose your job just know I will have closed on two acres of ground with a putt-putt, batting cages and a GoKart track so you'll have a job. Aside from handing out golf balls and putters you can give batting instruction at the pitching machines. We are renaming the GoKart track the Barbara Gordon Speedway. :-) Actually we need someone to operate the demolition equipment.
ReplyDeleteNo, I dont have a pulse ox, I normally just steal yours! I can typically tell how Im doing by my pulse, and this weekend will be the longest climb Ive done yet during this training(All others have only been 5 miles). Ill jump to 8 miles this weekend and the remaining hikes will be 10-12 miles. Our approach hike this time is different (Its longer - 30 miles) than the Horcones Valley, so we have 3 days of 10 mile hikes to get to base camp.
ReplyDeleteYo,
ReplyDeleteYou should stop by the Adirondacks for a training run. Not really all that tall per se. . . but can def find some steep and long climbs with plenty of elevation gain. Good luck on your climb