[Mike]

Hi All-

I’m 63yo and preparing for a Mt. Rainier climb on June 19th. Yesterday, I went for a training hike at one of our local mountains with about a 20lb pack (~10% BW). For the ascent, I covered 1.9miles with 1,500 elevation change in 1:34. My average HR for the ascent was 137 (range 105-151) and my AeT is 122. For comparison, the decent took me 1:10 and my average HR was 118 (range 98-139). Overall, my average HR was 129. I live in New Hampshire and it was Spring like conditions with wet, mushy snow as we have been having warmer temps the past week in the upper 40’s and lower 50’s degree F.

I don’t feel like I am moving that fast and if I slow down to keep my HR <122bpm on the ascent, I would almost have to pause for 2-3 sec between each step. Given this profile, I want to continue to build my aerobic base training and would appreciate feedback from this hike,

Cheers,
Mike

Topic

[MarkPostle]

MarkPostle on February 13, 2022 at 8:14 pm #63294

Mike, I would go click on the workout that you mentioned and click the analyze button, then highlight the ascent portion of the climb with your mouse to look at the up only metrics (its the first graph under the map when you click on the workout) After you have highlighted the ascent portion (it will be in blue) then look at the data on the right and find the Pa:Hr ratio. If you were working in a sustainable sub AeT then this number should be around 5%. If you were above your AeT then this will be a bigger percentage. This should help confirm the original AeT estimate. If its near 5% then you’ll want to adjust your AeT and training intensity accordingly. If its well above %5 then you’ll want to to as much of your training right under AeT as you can recover well from. Additionally since you goal is early summer I would also recommend the Weighted pack carry ME workouts described in Tuesdays in the new plan. This may also help create some movement economy with a weighted pack in this kind of uphill terrain.

[Mike]

Mike on February 14, 2022 at 12:20 pm #63321

Mark,

Thanks for your response. My Pa:Hr ratio for the uphill portion was 52% and my previous hike was 45% about 3 weeks ago for the uphill portion. While my AeT is 122, I do recover well from workouts at a higher HR. From my climb on Sat, I didn’t feel overly tired or sore afterwards or the next day and I went for a 5mi walk (90 min) on Sunday that was relatively flat. With the ME workouts, where should I target my HR? Thoughts about other training stimuli to be used over the next couple of weeks.

Mike

[MarkPostle]

MarkPostle on February 14, 2022 at 1:41 pm #63322

Mike- If you’re pace:HR is drifting 40-50% over a 90min session you can see what would happen over a several hour long summit day on a big peak. You’re certainly working above your AeT. I would try and do a solid volume of work right below your AeT as that will be the most useful thing to try and push it up from below. As mentions a 1X per week ME pack carry may well benefit you as well. This should be heavy and hard as described, really steep terrain is the key. This is the rare WO where we don’t care about your HR really, go as hard as feels sustainable for uphill effort. If you’ve never done this type of intensity work then I would start w 30 minutes or so of uphill time and try to progress to an hour over about 6 weeks. If done properly with a heat hot amount of weight most folks end up in lower to mid Zone 3 but the point is to just try hard the whole time.