[Anonymous]

Background: I’m active but untrained and have ADS. I’m overall a mountaineer type (my “objective” is Rainier DC route Summer 2019).

Problem: I’m in week 3 of my very first Transition Period into real training (using the TftNA Book & Log). I live in Pennsylvania so any time I have the chance to play in the mountains I take it; the first week of May 2018 I’m going to Colorado (specifically RMNP, going to climb Blitzen Ridge amongst some other things). This was planned before I started TftNA so I’m not sure how to incorporate this trip. For those that know the route better than me, please correct me, but from what I know it’s roughly 12 miles, mostly hiking/scrambling, little bit 5.4, 5000′ gain.

It’s the type of route I cannot accomplish in a single day, free solo, in early May, in my current state. However I’ve planned for/reserved camp which can effectively make it a 3 day trip (approach, climb, hike out) if I’m slow/weak/for safety. A few other days during the week I’ll be doing couloir/snow climbs that are much shorter/easy/low intensity.

Question: I happen to end transition week 8 a full week before this “objective” but there really isn’t any “specific training” I need to do, the crux will be my ADS. What should I do in this specific week? My goal isn’t to send the whole thing in a day because I know I can’t do it (yet), should I mimic the biggest single day? Should I taper from my last transition? Is it so early and my volume thus far so low (3 aerobic hours/week right now) that it doesn’t matter and just keep the same?

Thanks!

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on March 12, 2018 at 12:33 pm #8656

If you’re working through ADS, then I would keep it simple and keep on keeping on right up to and through the objective. I don’t think any higher intensity specific training would be of much benefit yet.

I hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on March 13, 2018 at 9:19 am #8667

You’re smart to recognize that your aerobic system is the weak link in your overall mountaineering program. It will be what powers you up the DC and Blitzen ridge. Especially considering that you will be coming from sea level. And you can only improve your basic aerobic capacity so fast. IT just takes time and lots of low intensity work to boost this quality. I suggest extending the Transition period one more week so that wk8 ends up being a recovery week before the trip. You’ll need some specific work before hand but I’d limit this to 1-2/wk of weighted hikes at this point. If you have access to a steep hill you can do 1x/week ME water carries as described here: https://uphillathlete.com/vertical-beast-mode-what-is-muscular-endurance-why-it-is-important-for-any-alpinist-or-mountaineer-and-how-do-you-train-it/.

Recognize that this is not ideal but with your sort time frame you really can’t do the full, ideal periodized approach and this compromised approach I am advocating is just just designed to keep you from getting totally smoked on this RMNP trip. The main support is definitely the aerobic base and you need to be getting as much of that as you can and then revert back to that ASAP after that RMNP trip to get as much built as you can before DC.

The other option is to scale back your objectives to ones that fit your current fitness better and thereby set yourself up for success.

SJ