RE: [Philmont]: Fitness Test Question Results

<snip>"The adults need to do REGULAR EXERCISE PROGRAMS to increase their
cardiovascular conditioning" while "most youth who play a sport will do
fine."

As far as getting ready to go, the suggestions were centered on testing
for stamina and making the practices hikes challenging.

The third part is a series of pre-trek hikes to get your feet used to
hiking with boots</snip>

===================================================

The importance of toughening the crew's feet so that they can handle 45
pound packs, 4-10 miles per day of rocky trails that are constantly
going up and down cannot be overstated. Even if you have a great
exercise program and are very fit, your feet must be ready for the
weight of the Philmont pack and the constant pounding they receive for
11 days on the trail.

Our sporty youth were in fine physical condition, but they had a lot of
foot problems because we did not do the challenging practice hikes
mentioned above for our 2004 trek.

In the Houston area we have to drive 4-5 hours to the hill country west
of Austin to have hikes with 500 foot elevation changes. Next time that
I am an advisor for a crew on a long backpacking trek, we will have
multiple 15-20 mile practice hikes with lots of elevation changes.

Larry Sims

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Received on Tue Sep 28 08:39:50 2004