April in the books--now the tests begin!

Well a big month of training is now behind me.  The principle focus, of course was hiking/climbing/running, as Anders and my trip to Bolivia is getting close now.  The trips to Shenandoah as well as up to New York a couple of times and helping out at IMTX for five days this past week, combined with this focus caused my swim/bike volume to be constrained.  Not to worry, I feel very physically prepared for Bolivia. Over the next couple of weeks I'll continue to tune up for the trip and try to keep my swim and bike in maintenance mode (and ready to begin IM training in June, upon my return).

Here are the totals for April:

Swim: 21,150 yards.  Little short of my 25,000 yard goal, but I'll be well positioned when I return in June--should be able to jump right into more volume and longer open water swims.

Bike: 823 miles.  Second month in a row falling a bit short and my bike is definitely behind where it has historically been at this time.  I'll come back with a real focus on the bike beginning in June.

Hike/Climb/Run: 273 miles.  Killed it!

Weights/Stretching: 10:25

Total time: 135:41 (one of the biggest, if not the biggest month of my training history)

The first "test" of the season comes up this Saturday when I'm doing "The Great Saunter" which is 32-mile trek around Manhattan....I hope/expect to do this in under 10 hours--should be a good prep for Bolivia....

SNP training block/Last 6 week push for Bolivia

So, really good progress here as I increasingly narrow my focus on being ready for Bolivia (last half of May).  Over the past month or so, I travelled the 200 mile trip down to Shenandoah National Park on three separate occasions and put in 9 fairly significant hikes/treks/climbs.  Here is the raw summary:

There is a lot of data here, much of which is pretty informative in my view, and I think provides a clear picture of this, the critical emphasis of my pre Expedition training program.  Let me make a few observations:

Trip 1. The first trip in mid-March was exclusively to the steeper Central District (at that point both the North and South Districts were closed due to downed trees across Skyland).  This trip was cool but pretty much ideal for aggressive hiking.  The mornings were in the low 20s and the highs in the mid 40s with nice sunshine and little wind for the most part--although it did snow some the first day.

You can see the steepness reflected in the average grade--essentially more vertical change per horizontal distance.  I put in 19+ hours and covered 36 miles.  My long hike was 13.1 miles over 7:10.

Trip 2. This trip had beautiful, clear weather with a light breeze.  It was about 55 degrees in the mornings but reached 80 by the end of each hike--so it was more physically challenging and hydration became an issue on the longish hikes.

That said, I felt quite a bit stronger (and I had lost a fair bit of weight by then) and I went nearly 43 miles (19% increase) and was 18% faster.  Some of this represents fitness gains but some of it was no doubt related to the less steep grades in these 3 North District climbs.  Indeed, this lowered my average vertical change/hour (climbing speed).  All three hikes were between 14-15 miles--very solid effort.

Trip 3. Just returned from this one.  Great trip!  Quite warm again but I did a much better job with hydration management.  I put together my two longest climbs ever at SNP.  15.3 and nearly 17 miles.  The later took over 8 and a half hours.

I was definitely stronger on this cycle.  Longer over harder terrain.  Compare Climb 7 to Climb 1 which were essentially the same climb  (I tacked on 2.5 more miles for Climb 7).  I went 19% longer but was 8% faster in horizontal speed and 7% faster in vertical speed.  This is a meaningful and rewarding jump in fitness.

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Not surprisingly, these nearly 60 hours of hiking over 9 days has driven a very high volume of training time over the last 6 weeks:

3/11      28:11

3/18      35:28

3/25      23:07

4/1        35:21

4/8        34:34

4/15      36:41

This an unprecedented streak of training for me.  4 of the last 6 weeks (including the last 3) have been in the mid 30s in training hours.  This would normally be a cause for concern (over-training) but given that its focused on principally hiking I think it makes sense--at least, I feel like its really working and I seem to be absorbing the volume well.

In April, I so far have put in 106 hours!! (with 9 days left in the month).  Of this, 55% has been hiking/trekking/running and 35% biking and 5% swim and 5% other.  My normal distribution is about 55% bike/30% run/10% swim/5% other.  Because I can absorb hiking pretty well, this is what is driving the huge increase in training time.

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I've been on a fairly focused diet regime over the last 6 weeks and combined with the above training have dropped about 20 pounds to under 180.  I feel like I'm well positioned for the Bolivia expedition in 3+ weeks.

Onward and Upward!

First Quarter in the books

Quick update on March and 1st Quarter training stats.  I had a robust month in March and was able to hit most of my volume goals despite being away for 17 days of the month.  In fact, I trained in 7 places during the month:

Wilmington
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Shenandoah National Park
New York City
Stone Harbor
Mexico

Swim

My goal for the month was 25,000 yards and I hit 27,650 yards.  For the first quarter I've logged 51,650 yards which is more than the last two years (21k and 46k).  The chart below shows the trailing 4 week average yards/week and clearly illustrates the progress I've been making in my swim training load:

For April, I plan to hit somewhere in the 25-30k yards again.

Bike

My bike volume was 867 miles for the month and has totaled 2,968 miles for there 1st quarter (up a bit from 2017 and slightly off 2018 (1,937 and 3,061).  I was aiming for around 1,000 miles during the month but the travel and the run/hike focus made that problematic.  The downward trend in my bike volume is evident in the trailing 4-week average below:

I'll shoot for around 1,000 miles in April but don't plan to get aggressive on my bike training until June (post Bolivia).

Run/Hike

I made real progress here (which was my primary focus for March) as I went 209 miles in March (well above my target) and have logged 397 miles in the first quarter.  This is comparable to my Nepal year (2017) when I did 431 miles and up a lot from 2018 (201 miles).  My goal for April is to try to get around 200 miles (or more) once again.  Here is the run/hike trailing 4 week average where my emphasis in prep for Bolivia is quite evident:

Total Time

Not surprisingly, with all of the run/hike my training time jumped to 120 hours in March and totaled 305 hours for the first quarter (3.4 hours/day).  this is up substantially from the last two years (256, 266) and exceeded my goal for the month.  I'll shoot for 100+ again this month.  The 4 week trailing average shows the upward trend in my training effort:

I also did 9 hours in the weight room during the month and made substantial body composition progress as I was able to lose 14 pounds during the month.  I'df like to lose another 8-10 before Bolivia, which should be pretty straight forward to achieve.

Onward and upward!