Caroline:

What I meant by flat trail marathon would be on terrain that you can run all the time. Not so steep you need to walk to stay in Z1-2. This will typically be about a maximum of 500 feet/mile of gain and loss. 0r a bit less that a 10% average grade. Forrest park is a great resource to have right in town. It will be a good place for this training.

I agree with Scott S on point two:

Track your hikes as training.

If you are struggling with your first pull up then you certainly do not need or want 45min/session. You’re prob not ready for the Pull Up program Scott suggest till you can do at least one pull up. My best luck for people learning to do a pull up is to first start with hanging from the bar and doing scapula retractions. This means pulling you shoulder blades down and together without beding your arms trying to pull up. This is the most important part to learn correctly so you do not risk hurting yourself. Here’s a video showing what scap retraction looks like when hanging from a bar.

For pull ups you should start with band assisted pull ups as per this video:

Thanks for writing to us.

Scott