My wife and I are doing a 6-day mountaineering trip in the Cascades in early August. That gives us 30 weeks to train. We plan on doing either the 24 week program here, or developing something similar based on New Alpinism and the accompanying training log book. My question is what to do with the extra 6 weeks. Do a preparation phase? Extend transition and base by 3 weeks each?

We are both in our 40s and fit, but with no structured training recently. Both of us, but my wife especially, have favored higher intensity (mostly cycling) type exercise for the past few years. So we know we need to build our endurance. For the past three months we have been working in more lower intensity workouts, starting to carry loaded packs, and doing the killer core/general strength workouts 1-2 times per week. So we are somewhat in the transition phase already, but without monitoring and real structure.

We will also face a challenge throughout the training that we live in NYC so there are hills to speak of nearby. We can get out of the city occasionally, and will do our best with stairs, stair machines, box stepping, but realistically, we are not going to meet the vertical feet expectations every week.

Bonus question: recommendation for a heart rate monitor strap that will talk to an Apple Watch.

Thank you!