Date: 2007-03-01
To: Puyallup, WA
Miles today: 0.0

Age and Training - The older I get the more conscious I am of the need to prepare with physical training. In the olden days I could just go hike and that was enough. Now I have to intentionally get ready. I must confess I still do not train every day but at least 3-4 times a week I am either fast walking for about 4 miles or, preferably, going on at least a short hike with good elevation gain. Tomorrow I will go up Mt Si with a 25 pound pack - 3,500 ft elevation gain or so in 4 miles. And then, of course, back down again. My goal is to get to the point where I can do this hike or a similar one and not be sore the next couple of days. I have not quite achieved it yet but I am getting closer.My biggest limiting factor is my feet. Neuromas and arthritis make for painful feet especially on the down hill and while carrying weight. I have learned that stopping every so often for 2-5 minutes, sometimes as often as every half hour, helps relieve the feet and lets me hike longer. I hike uphill a bit slowly but very steadily with few stops. Downhill is faster than uphill but more stressful on the joints. Poles help. I don't know how I ever did without them. They are such an addition to balance as well as taking some weight off the joints.My strong point is endurance, steadyness and determination to keep going. But the body is 65 years old and that does make a difference. I have a hiking partner some of the time who is a few years younger but we joke that it is good to hike with someone else whose body is also falling apart. We know what we are talking about when we talk about our arthritic joints. I once led a church group of five on part of the Wonderland trail and we called ourselves the AARB - Aging, Arthritic, Resurrection Backpackers. Well, we thought it was funny even if no one else did. perhaps you have to be of a certain age to enjoy the humor.Kathy (who has done much of the Washington section of the PCT with me) and I also joke that we can only hike because we have good drugs. We do not mean the kind of drugs you get high on. Our drugs are the drugs to survive on. Something for arthritis, something for high blood pressure, something for tummies, something for allergies and the Ideal Health supplements my daughter buys for me because she wants her mother to be healthy. And during hiking the ever needed vitamin T (tylenol). Planning does not mean just packing food drop boxes. Planning also means making sure the needed drugs are there for each day or the reasonably cheerful hiker will turn into a decrepit old lady. Being a reasonably cheerful hiker is much more fun.The spring after I turned 50 and did the Wonderland Trail, I went to Hawaii to the Island of Maui and day hiked the 13-14 miles through Haleakala crater. About two thirds of the way through the crater I talked to two 20 somethings from Austria/Switzerland (I forget which). One was very complimentary about my hiking. He said "Old hikers just get better - like well-aged wine." My, that boy will go far, I laughed to myself. It was a good line and quite flattering.I do not know that this old hiker is getting better. I am certainly slower than I was in my 20s. On the other hand, I am still hiking and still enjoying it. Only hikers can understand when you get to the end of the day and hobble home or around the campsite or shelter, feeling every ache and pain, saying to yourselves or to another, "What a great day! What a great hike! Isn't this fun?!" And it is.