Training For Long Distance Hiking Over Summer

In this episode, I discuss a few strategies a hiker can use if they are trying to fit in longer-distance training hikes over the summer months. 

​Episode Chapters:

0:11 
Summer Hiking Strategies
2:28 
Dealing with Heat Challenges
5:28 
Practical Solutions for Hiking During Hot Days
7:51 
Limiting Hiking Distances
9:53 
Planning for Future Hikes

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Want to get fit, strong and resilient for your hiking adventures?
​
Check out the Online Summit Program: https://www.summitstrength.com.au/online.html

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Episode Transcript:

​[0:02] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode,

[0:06] we are talking about training for long distance hiking over summer. And what you can do is if you're heading into the summer months and the idea of getting long distances as training hikes is just not looking super appealing. Now, when I'm talking about long distance hiking in the context of today's episode, What I'm talking about is essentially any type of hike which just has big time requirements. So this could be literally like a through hike, the traditional long distance hike where you're doing week after week after week out on the trail. This could be a multi-day hike where you're doing three or four or five or seven days, but you're doing some pretty long days and you have to be out there. This could be a challenge hike where you're doing like a 25 kilometer or 50 kilometer session over one day, and it's going to be a super, super long distance of one day, this could literally just even be just a long day hike where you may be going on a day hike, but it may be seven, eight, six hours. And you're like, hey, I need to be preparing for this. And today we're going to be talking through a few ideas around how to work around the hot weather for this.

[1:12] Because in any of these situations, when we're looking at building up for a long distance we need to get ready for. Probably the number one priority with your training is ensuring that you have a slow and steady build of hiking distance. And you want to sit down and create a bit of a plan of attack where you can go from wherever you are right now to slowly but surely increase, increase, increase. So you can build up your fitness, get the body ready for these things and make sure it's as comfortable as possible. And on top of that, obviously build that out with other training as well. Now, in a more normal situation, in a more normal climate where this is all pretty straightforward, this is pretty easy to do. You sit down, get pen and paper, get a calendar out and just say step week by week or month by month, we slowly build up time and slowly build up pack weight. That's all well and good. But recently, in the last like two to three weeks, there's been an issue that's been coming up again and again and again. In Australia and many parts of the world, summer is just around the corner. Things are starting to get hotter and people are realizing that, look, it's not a huge amount of fun to get out hiking on some days. And the thoughts of getting out for multiple days of hiking, it's getting a little bit tricky.

[2:29] And then for the people who have a particular goal they're building towards in march in april in may in whatever may be for next year and they've got a little bit of a plan building up they're kind of looking at this plan like oh my gosh if i'm struggling right now doing like three or four hours at this what am i going to do in the next couple of months where i'm supposed to be doing five or six or eight hours of hiking in the middle of summer like you know that's kind of what I was thinking I'd be doing, but it just looks impossible. Now, this is a situation so many people fall into, and we're going to talk through a few ideas to help you. Now, realistically, you could probably flip this backwards, and this could be the same thing for someone who's struggling with winter, who has a bit of a harsh winter. And a lot of the ideas I'm going to talk through probably relate to it. Obviously, you've got to adjust it a little bit, but basically any situation where you're building up for a big hike, you need to be hitting some distance, but the weather is just not cooperating. So when I was thinking about how I want to present this, there's a million and one different ways you can approach this, but I want to keep things pretty simple. And I'm going to lay out three different ways you can approach your hiking in this type of situation. It's going to be different from person to person, from goal to goal, for your own preferences. Any of these can work. You just want to have a think about it.

[3:46] Preference, strategy number one for building up through the summer months. Is you can do this. I'm not a big fan of it, but you can do it if it works for you, is you can sort of say, hey, it's summer, but I'm just going to push through. I'm going to deal with it. And I'm just going to use every heat management strategy under the sun. So in this situation, what you would do, you would still follow that training plan. You would still follow that hiking plan. You would still do that slow and steady build. But if you're struggling with the weather, you would think about what can I do to help me work around it? So you may, all right, I'm going to get up early. I'm going to get up at the crack of dawn or even before dawn and get multiple hours in before the sun even comes up or just as the sun comes up so I can work around that. I'm going to make sure I'm absolutely on top of my hydration and electrolytes and my fueling and make sure that's all good. I'm going to make sure that I'm bringing frozen water bottles or frozen poppers to keep myself cool. I'm going to make sure I slip, slip, slap, do all that stuff and every single heat management strategy under the sun I'm going to do just to get myself through.

[4:50] Now, this type of strategy, you know, it's not a huge amount of fun. I've had a lot of people do it in the past. It usually falls into the situation where someone has a big hike pretty close to their end of summer. So it's like, hey, in Australia, maybe they've got their massive hike in January or February, somewhere in the world. And they're like, I need to keep on hiking during this time. And it is doable, but there's not much fun. One thing I will sort of say on this is, you know, you always do obviously want to keep safety as a priority. You never want to be pushing yourself to silly things, and if it genuinely is unsafe for you to be hiking in certain heats, yeah, maybe don't do this. But either way, that's option number one.

[5:29] Now, option number two, something a bit more practical for some people, is essentially breaking up your hiking days. So if you're getting too summer and it's a super, super, super hot days, and you're like, you know what, realistically, I probably need to be doing about six hours worth of hiking according to my plan, then you can kind of think about, okay, six hours of hiking, it's just not practical to do, which will get me into like the middle of the day, but maybe I can break this up.

[5:54] Maybe what I can do is if I have the time and if I have the inclination, maybe I could do three hours in the morning or four hours in the morning. Then I'll go home, I'll sit in the air conditioning or sit somewhere cool, I'll chill out. And then the evening when things begin to cool down, maybe I'll go out and for another hike and finish off the hours, do another two hours or three hours or whatever it may be. Now, this isn't quite as perfect as just doing multiple hours in a row of hiking, but it's still going to be a pretty good training effect. It's still just going to accumulate in that time, and that can work out pretty well. Practicality, a lot of people may not want to dedicate a whole day to working around that, and the idea of getting out for a second hike is not super enjoyable, but that can be doable. A similar thing to this could be you could sort of break it up by doing morning and evening and doing a morning hike and then an evening just around the local area. And you could go out and do three or four hours in the morning once it starts to get hot, finish it up and then just go do an hour or two in the evening just around the local area. It's not exactly six hours of hiking but that can work out pretty well.

[6:53] Or another situation is I've had people in the past who are like, okay, I want to really kind of get my multiple hours of hiking. I want to get like that six hours in a row that is not super doable in summer. So I've had people go out and do a hike for three or four hours, and then it starts to get hot. And then on the way home, they hop in the car and they go down to the gym in the air conditioning and they hop on the treadmill for an hour or two to finish off that time. Now, the treadmill is a great option in the heat. It's not super enjoyable for super long distances, but if you can do an hour or two on that that can work out pretty well and essentially there's a million and one different ways you can break this up but just looking at your hiking days and saying okay if i want to accumulate a certain amount of time during the day is there some way i can kind of build this up and break this up a little bit you can get very very creative here but it can work out pretty well and then the third one and this is one that you know it's not the best it's not the ideal in the training sense,

[7:49] but it's probably the more practical for a lot of people. And this is essentially limiting distance over the summer. Because if you're like, hey, Rowan, this is kind of all sounding fine. I get it. It makes sense. But where I live gets up to like 40, 45 degrees.

[8:05] No chance of me doing anything longer during the summer or whatever it may be. Or maybe I just don't want to do double sessions or don't want to do that or whatever it may be. That's fine i get it and a lot of people fall into that situation so in this thing if you're building up for a big hike you know at the start of the next year you want to think about okay what is realistic for me to maintain during the summer honestly can i still do two hours of hiking early on before it gets hot can i do three hours can i only do 60 minutes or whatever may be what is realistic for you and just choose something that's realistic say look this is what i'm going to do. This is what I'm going to stick with. And over the summer months, I'm just going to do two hours of hiking each week or every couple of weeks, and maybe I'll just build up my pack weight over time.

[8:50] Do what you can there. Beyond that, build out the rest of your week with lots of cardio indoors. Get a gym membership in air conditioning, do some treadmill work, do some Stairmaster, do some cycling or whatever it may be. Do some step sessions at home if you don't want the gym or whatever, and just make sure you're nailing all of that. And then just have a really, really, really crystal plan of saying, okay, If I need to limit my hiking for November, for December, for January, maybe even February, and I have a hike coming up at the end of April, just be really, really crystal clear about exactly what you need to do with your hiking for March and April. How are you going to build things up to get yourself to the right point that you need? When are you going to start building up the distance and how are you going to approach this? Because the worst thing you can do is sort of say, hey, I'm going to limit my hiking for month after month after month after month. I've only done two hours and all of a sudden, my long hike's coming up in three weeks and I've got to do seven or eight hours on the trail and I'm nowhere near ready. You don't want to fall into that trap. So just make sure there is some longer term planning around.

[9:53] So there are a few sort of simple ideas around it, whether you just push through and just be really, really on top of your hip management, whether you just break up your hiking days or you just limit your hiking over the summer. Just plan this out. Have a sit down and really think what is realistic for you. If you've got a big hike and you're building up, you want to be smart about this. Alternatively, if you don't have anything particularly training for, you don't need to worry about this. Just do whatever's practical for you. Do what's ever enjoyable and pick up your hiking or pick up your distances again when the weather calms down. And then outside of all of this, just to be clear, you also, whatever choice you're going, you want to make sure you are ensuring you're consistent with your other sessions. Strength training, other cardio, conditioning, all of that stuff. Keep that up during the summer because you can do this indoors. You can do this in a gym. You can do it at home and that stuff is doable. Lean into it during this time. So there we go. I think I'll wrap things up there, but hopefully that just gives you a few ideas because I know a lot of people are falling into this at this time of year and it is going to become more and more and more of an issue as things heat up. So if anyone does have any follow-up questions of any of this, please let me know. But I hope this sparks a few ideas. Hopefully it gets a few people planning ahead for these hotter months and hopefully it helps you keep your training moving forward over the summer and set you up for success out the other side. So with that being said, thank you so much for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it, and we'll talk to you very, very soon.

Want to get
fit, strong and resilient
for your hiking adventures?

Check out
​The Online Summit Program