[Philmont] Conditioning

I have noticed some crew members that seem to get stronger as the trek
progresses while others seem to wear down. While I am sure physical
conditioning has some effect, I believe that attitude and state of mind
has a significant effect. Those that really enjoy the trek and the
physical challenge seem to do better. Another issue is injuries and
badly blistered feet. These sap strength and intensify every ache and
pain.

I have usually started serious training about 6 months before going to
Philmont. Most of my training for my past two treks has consisted of
walking at a rapid pace, sometimes with my pack, and hiking with my pack
at a local state park on weekends. The park has two peaks, each with
about 800' elevation gain (from 800' at the start to just over 1600' at
the peaks). If you do both peaks you can cover almost 9 miles of trail
that is on average rougher than Philmont trails. Before my last trek I
could make the full route in about 2 1/2 hours. The trek at Philmont
(21) was no problem for me at age 49. Other than climbing Baldy, I was
never out of breath.

Our crews have never done physical conditioning training together. It
is difficult just to get everyone together for meetings and our 4
planned shakedown trips. We do stress the need for physical
conditioning. I do not see shakedowns as physical training, although we
have made them strenuous enough to gauge the level of conditioning of
crew members. It lets the ones that need to realize they need to step
up their training.

Phil Brown

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Received on Mon Sep 11 17:46:45 2006