"I am always tired after my training hikes"

In this episode, we explore a simple checklist you can use if you always seem to be getting tired (and struggling to recover) after your training hikes. 

Mentioned in the episode: https://www.summitstrength.com.au/blog/how-to-plan-your-training-hikes

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Episode Chapters:

0:12 
Introduction to Training Fatigue
1:37 
The Checklist for Energy Management
3:22 
Building Up Your Hiking
4:41 
The Importance of Pacing
5:58 
Resting Strategies for Hikers
6:51 
Nutrition Tips for Energy
8:28 
Hydration and Its Impact
9:44 
Mindset and Mental Focus
10:15 
Adjusting Your Training Schedule
10:53 
Conclusion and Next Steps

Episode Transcript:

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking through a few different ideas if you are pretty regularly tired

[0:10] after your training hikes. Now, this particular episode is really, really aimed at a very specific situation which pops up every once in a while in the sense of what often happens is a hiker might be training for a big adventure. Maybe it's three months away, four months away, six months away, 12 months away, whatever may be. They're starting training and they're looking at doing their hiking and building things up over time. They're looking at following some training hikes, doing some other training in their week and getting themselves in the best possible position for their adventure. And week after week, month after month, they slowly build things up. They get out, they do their sessions, they do their hikes or whatever may be. But one thing that starts to concern them is...

[0:54] Is after every single training hike, they always seem quite tired. They get through the hikes, they finish them, but they're always tired. Their recovery doesn't seem amazing. And one thing that can happen is this can start to play on our head because if we're training for a big multi-day adventure where we have to hike day after day after day, if we're feeling really tired at the end of the day of hiking, it can create a little bit of doubt around being ready for a multi-day adventure. And this sort of topic comes up, I'd say, a few times a year, where someone just sort of says, look, this is what I'm doing. I'm always hiking. I'm building up my plan. I'm feeling good, but I'm just always tired after my training hikes.

[1:38] So today, what I'm going to do is just talk you through a really, really simple checklist that you can use if you do find this is a situation. Whether it's the last two or three hikes you've done and you're quite tired and you're like, oh, I'm struggling, or whether this is a really long-term thing, you can use this checklist just to reference, are you covering all the right bases to look after your energy? Are you covering all the right bases to make sure you're finishing your hikes as well as possible? And are you covering all your bases to give you the best chance possible of not only finishing your hikes, but feeling good after and bouncing back after?

[2:13] So with that being said, I'm going to talk through one, two, three, four, five, six, seven different topics, I guess, or areas of, let's say, in quotation marks, optimization, and which you can look at. So first and foremost, what we want to look at, if you are always tired after training hikes.

[2:31] Firstly, you want to look at your build-up. You want to look at your programming. If you're doing a training prep and if you're doing your training hikes and week by week, hike by hike, you're slowly building up. Either you're building up your hiking time or you're building up your pack weight and it's slow and intentional, great. But if you're always tired after your training hikes, the first thing you want to look at is are you actually following a slow build or are you just doing jumping around with distances or really, really ramping up your pack weight quite quickly? Or are you increasing both your hiking distance and your pack weight every single week? Because if you're ramping up too quickly, well, that's a sign saying you may be a little bit tired. So if you're not 100% sure how this is going, what I'm going to do is in the show notes below, I'll leave a link for a really, really simple tutorial around

[3:21] planning your own training hikes. Just reference your plan to the process that's gone through in that tutorial and just sort of see, are you following a nice slow and intentional buildup or are you a little bit all over the shop or just ramping up too quickly. First place to look. Second place to look is if you're getting tired after your hikes, have a look at your pacing.

[3:40] If you're just doing your own hikes by yourself, the first thing you want to think about is, are you going at a pace where you can happily carry a conversation through 95% of the hike? Or are you going at a pace where you can breathe in and out through your nose? Or are you spending a lot of the hike really huffed and puffed and out of breath? Because if you are spending a lot of the hike really out of breath and just dealing with that, that's going to burn through a lot of energy. That's going to make you tired. And yes, you'll be able to finish your hikes, but it makes things harder than need to be. So if you're solo hiking, maintaining a little bit more of a steady pace for the majority of the hike, way better. Admittedly, sticking to that conversation or nose breathing pace may not always be possible on hills. But if you're climbing a steep hill, try to slow things down so you can maintain it. And if you end up getting out of breath, have a little rest or just get your breathing back down in order as quickly as possible when you're at the top.

[4:38] Now, that's when you're by yourself, a really simple target to aim for. If you're out with a group or a friend, this does get a little bit tricky.

[4:46] You can have a conversation and sort of say, hey, do you mind if I set the pace or do you mind if I just meet you at the top of the hill or whatever so you can be a little slower? But I fully understand, you know, sometimes it's not super doable. But either way, try your best. Pacing. Number three is resting. Sometimes when people are considering training hikes, whether it's a three-hour hike, four-hour hike five six seven whatever may be sometimes people just forget.

[5:11] To take it easy and rest. And they end up just pushing and going and going and going. They feel bad about resting or whatever may be. But in all honesty, I strongly encourage people, whenever they're doing a hike, have a nice long lunch, sit down somewhere nice, take a bit of time, have a solid rest. And on top of that, have lots of little rest along the way. A general rule of thumb for what I recommend people is rest before you need it. In the sense, if you are aware that you're the type of person that, you know what, you hike and hike and hike, and you're like, oh, I'm tired, then you take a rest. If you can switch your mindset to preempting that a little bit, and if you start feeling those early inklings of being a little bit tired and just take a quick five-minute rest and preempt that before you get to the stage

[5:54] you really need it, well, that really goes a long way. Again, I fully understand this isn't always practical if you're with a friend or with a group, but the more rest, the better. And don't feel bad if you're doing training hikes and you're having lots of little rests, you're perfectly fine. And if you're the type of person who you're doing your training hikes and you're like, I don't even stop the whole way through and I'm always tired, well, that's some way to look.

[6:19] Number four is nutrition. Now, nutrition is obviously a massive subject, but one of the simplest things you can do to increase your energy while hiking and help your recovery after hiking is just getting your nutrition right. First of all, start your hikes with a bit of fuel in you, meaning you have a little bit of food in you. If you're starting at the crack of dawn, have half a piece of fruit, have a little bit of white toast, something easy to digest, get a bit of food in you. If you're driving to the trailhead, sip on a hot chocolate or something like

[6:50] that. All right, have a little bit of food in you. Or if it's just really, really difficult to eat that morning, then make sure you have a good solid meal the night before. Start with a bit of fuel in the stomach. Number two, snacking as you go. How often do you snack along the trail? I typically recommend my hikers try to have a bite or two or something every hour or so on the trail. This isn't having a full-blown snack and making yourself sick, but it's just constantly grazing. And what we're grazing on is high-carbohydrate foods, low-fat, low-protein, low-fiber. So easy-to-digest carbohydrates, which aren't going to sit in your stomach and is going to replenish those carbs as you go through. So you may just snack on some granola or snack on some dried fruit or snack on some breakfast cereal as you go or some pretzels or something like that.

[7:36] But typically, when I ask hikers, hey, what are you eating on the hike? I'm really tired. I say, how often did you eat on the hike? They're like, oh, I snacked every three or four hours, or I just had a muesli bar on the hike. And they just end up under eating completely. Snacking can make or break your energy on the trail. And then number three, what are you eating after? A lot of hikers will under eat on the trail, even if they are snacking. And if your recovery is struggling after the trail, we want to make sure we get some food in afterwards. Get a little bit of carbohydrates. get a little bit of protein, get something in the body so we can like help that recovery process. If you're finishing up a hike and you've got like an hour drive home, have something waiting in the car for you in a cooler bag that you can just get into or go to a cafe or get something there. At night, at dinner, have something wholesome, have a nice good meal, even if you're not particularly hungry. Really goes a long way.

[8:28] Similar thing for hydration. Hydration plays a massive role. And again, a lot of people don't really think about this. Simple rule of thumb, start your hikes hydrated. Before you go to the hike, go to the toilet. Look at your urine color. If it's clear to straw colored, you're good to go. If it's a little bit darker than that, drink a glass of water. While you're hiking, regularly drink water. If you're hiking more than two hours, probably worthwhile having some electrolytes as well. And when you get off the trail, again, go to the toilet, look at the urine. If it's a little bit darker, rehydrate as quickly as possible. That's really, really basic stuff that makes a massive difference to energy and recovery.

[9:04] Number five is mindset. Quite often I'll ask people if they're struggling on the hikes, what is their mindset like? Are they feeling really positive on their hikes? They're feeling really good. Are they kind of like 50-50? Are they negative quite a bit on the hikes? One tricky thing can be is if we are negative, if we're beating ourselves up internally and saying, oh my gosh, this is so hard, or your legs are so weak, whatever it may be, that in itself can make things harder. That in itself can stress us out. That in itself can burn through more energy. So if you're aware that you're a bit more on the negative side of things, well, maybe that's something to look at. How can I reframe things? How can I get a bit more positive? How can I find a bit more fun on these hikes? That might just be all you need.

[9:45] And then finally, looking at your training the days before. If you're always tired after your training hikes and you're doing day hikes, and the day before that, you're always doing a session, well, maybe adjust your week. Maybe plan a bit of a lighter day before you're hiking. So you can actually get out and hike and enjoy yourself and recover well and not feel really, really tired. Some people think, oh, you know what? I'm doing a back-to-back hike or I'm doing a multi-day hike. I should structure my training week so I'm doing day after day after day and get that challenge there. And yeah, if that works for you, great.

[10:16] But if you feel like it's negatively affecting your hiking, well, you may want to adjust things there.

[10:23] So with that being said, that's kind of all I've got to say today. If you do feel in the situation that you're hiking all the time and you're always tired, but you're doing your training, you're building things up, you're getting through things, but just that fatigue's there and it's worrying you a little bit, go through this checklist. Have a think about that. I guarantee you something in there is missing. And if you're nailing all this and you're absolutely smashing it, well, then there's probably something else in your training you need to look at. But I think that will sort out 95% of people for this.

[10:53] So with that being said, I am going to wrap things up here. If you did want to get access to that tutorial, I'll leave a link for that in the show notes below, which talks you through how to put together a hiking training plan. And beyond that, you know, if you do feel like you need some personalized help with this and you need a bit of direction helping building up your hiking, building up your training, making sure you're covering all your bases and all of that, you can check out our online personal training for hiking at summitstrength.com.au slash online. I'll leave a link for that in the show notes below as well. But with that being said I'm going to wrap things up here I really hope this is useful for a few people I really hope this can kind of you know get yourself asking a few questions which may make a bit of a difference and hopefully can help a few hikers get out get out in their trails get out in their training hikes and feel a little bit better so with that being said that's enough from me today thank you for listening hope you've enjoyed it and we'll talk to you soon bye.

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