[pshyvers]

Skinning this winter, I’ve noticed I seem to feel great for the first 2,500ft of the day, but after that I very rapidly plummet with a whole-body feeling of exhaustion and a bounding heart (rather than, for example, lactic acid burn or heavy legs). This has happened with a light pack, with a heavy pack, and it’s happened doing laps as well as one long climb (so it’s not just high altitude). It’s happened skinning, booting, and hiking. It seems like it hasn’t improved much despite getting stronger & faster in most other ways.

I’m not quite sure what conclusions to draw. It could be that I just need better hydration & nutrition on the trail. It could also be something missing from my training. Is it important to push elevation gain in training, the way that a marathoner will push the distance of their runs? If I want to do some climb that’s 6,000ft, is it important my training regime includes days of 6,000ft gain?

To be honest I’ve focused so much on duration & intensity that elevation gain has had little attention.

Topic

[Zuko]

Zuko on May 7, 2019 at 1:55 pm #21642

Does the same thing happen if you skin for 2,500′ starting at say 6,000′ and if you start at 10,000′? What elevation do you live at?

[pshyvers]

pshyvers on May 7, 2019 at 3:21 pm #21645

I live at 5,000′. I’m not sure what happens if I start at 6,000′, generally everything skinnable starts somewhere around 9,000′ or above, and we’ll go up to 12,000′ or so. Most of my favorite hikes are up there too. It certainly is possible that I’m just getting overwhelmed by elevation, or something else, but I thought it was interesting that I frequently start crashing right around the same total elevation gain for the day. Now additionally as I reply to you, thinking about the outings that I do, they are by far and away most commonly between 1,500-2,500′ just because that’s what is around, which further hints that maybe I need some training with more elevation gain in a day.