Test Drive Numero Dos

Lunch Break

We went to the lake on Saturday for our second test drive hike. In a word, it was successful!

We both noted that we weren't nearly as winded/tired/worn out as our first hike-- SUCCESS! We were pleased to have noticed progress even though we haven't hiked at the lake in over a month. We thought the 5 trips to the Red in the past month or so definitely helped with our fitness. We also took a couple long breaks, which allowed us to rest and recharge.

I made the adjustments that I noted from our first hike:

1. Adjusted the torso length of my pack to be an inch or 2 shorter. My pack stayed where I wanted it to on my back and the hip belt fit better. My hips were still sore at the end of the day, but not nearly as bad as last time.

2. I wore a different pair of boots. I wore a more heavy duty hiking boot (Asolo) and as predicted, my feet held up better. The SuperFeet insoles still felt great.

Daveed didn't make many adjustments except for removing the insoles from his shoes. He thought that the insoles were good/comfortable for everything except the ascents/uphill. He noticed that his feet were more fatigued without the insoles. He wants to shave down his insoles to fit better, hoping that will eliminated the less than perfect fit and feel of his shoes on the uphills.

Our pack weights were about the same as our first hike, mine was about 32-34 pounds, Daveed's was about 41. We were carrying extra water for the extra training weight, so we are both confident that we'll be able to get my pack weight to 30 pounds or less and Daveed's to 40 or less.

We packed food for "one day on the trail". Daveed's pile is on the left and is about 4000 calories. This is about the minimum amount of calories he would need to consume on the JMT, and ideally, he'll consume another 1000+ calories per day. My pile is on the right and is about 1650. I would need about 1200+ more calories on the JMT per day. Shouldn't be a problem to get our calorie counts up as we can easily add some candy bars and olive oil and arrive at 1000 extra calories. (Note: we each ate about half of what we packed. If we would have eaten dinner on the trail instead of going to a restaurant, we would have eaten everything)

We had a great day hiking and enjoying the beautiful weather. It was great to be outside all day! We bumped into several friends throughout the day and even managed to end the day with dinner at The Barn with Jim, Nicole, Stew and Derrick.

Our plan going forward is to hike after work two nights a week at Lapham Peak and fit in as much hiking as we can on the weekends. We've got stuff going on every weekend until we leave for our trip, so fitting in all-day training sessions is a bit of a challenge! We plan to do laps on the stairs of the lookout tower at Lapham Peak- should get our legs strong! We're also planning to do a bit of weight training while we're at the climbing gym, squats and lunges to continue building our leg strength.