AT's AT Hiking Training Plan: It Begins for Real

Instead of giving you an overview of weeks 9 and 10 of my Hiking Training Plan 3.0, this post marks another beginning. As announced last week, the authors of this blog will be hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine next year. As such, there is a now a tangible deadline for my hiking training plan. This means that things are about to get real.



In effect, I can't have weeks like I've had during my previous three attempts at a hiking training plan. That isn't to say I won't have bad weeks, that would be unrealistic. However, it is more important that I limit the bad weeks to one, and surround them with plenty of good weeks.

So what's changing? In terms of this weekly post, not much. I'm moving the weigh in day back to Monday from Friday, which seems like a good choice even if it means I'll be marking down official numbers after weekends. I'll still keep track of my monthly hiking goals and my weekly hiking numbers, as well as the times I camp in both the front and back country. One addition will be tracking the percentage of my total weight loss goal accomplished. As for that total goal? Let's just say it's going to be a challenge, but not overly aggressive. A lot of the work will just be establishing good habits and getting rid of a few of my worst habits.

Since I won't be doing a formal final post for the 3.0 series, I'll just share a bit of a recap of the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately I didn't lose any weight during those two weeks, but considering it included a weekend with a calorie rich pizza and beer party and the usual pitfalls of vacation eating, it wasn't that bad. Thanks to a rainy day in the Smokies, I didn't get as much hiking in as I would have liked, but I still did get two separate small hikes in. With my first hike back, and a 2.75 mile hike I made this past weekend, I hit 7.5 miles for March, which wasn't as much as I would have liked. However, I only used three of the five weekends of the month for hiking, so that isn't too bad. April will be my first full month back, and I anticipate a good month.

I'm really excited about undertaking the hike next spring. However, I am just as eager to get started on the heavy amount of work that will need to be done to get there. I hope you will continue to follow along as I discuss the joyful highs, and the discouraging lows of that journey.