Training To Hike The West Highland Way

​In this episode I interview Summit Strength client Cyril, who at the age of 74 has recently completed the West Highland Way hike in Scotland.

Inside, he shares some insights about how he trained for this 107-mile hike, the strategies he applied to improve his breathing, enjoyment and leg cramps and his experience on the trail.

​How To Train For The West Highland Way 

"I never struggled. Not once."

At 74, Cyril set out to walk all 107 miles of Scotland's West Highland Way, eight days on trail, up to 16 miles a day, over some seriously rough terrain.

It was great to have Cyril on the Training For Trekking Podcast to talk about his prep for this bucket-list trek.

Inside we chat about:

• Why 60+ years of hiking experience didn't stop him carrying decades of bad habits into his training and the one fix (his breathing) that made a dramatic change to his enjoyment
  
• How he went from post-hike leg cramps every night to finishing all 107 miles with zero leg discomfort, start to finish.
  
• What training 'hard enough' that you never have to struggle looks like (and why he says it's the difference between surviving a hike and enjoying every step of it)

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Mentioned In The Episode:
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Maximum Adventure (the tour company Cyril used for his adventure):

"Maximum Adventure specialises in walking and cycling adventures across the UK and Europe, including some of the UK’s best-known long-distance trails such as the West Highland Way and Coast to Coast. We take care of the logistics, accommodation and baggage transfers, allowing you to enjoy the adventure at your own pace.”

Find them here: https://maximumadventure.com/
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Episode Transcript:

Q: So I guess to kick things off, do you just want to give us a little bit of background and just let us know who you are, where you're from, what you do, and what is your background in hiking?

I'm Cyril Stewart. I'm an architect in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, and I've been hiking since I was 11 years old. I'll turn 75 this year, so I've had a lot of experience with hiking. What we wound up doing was a couple of friends and I decided we wanted to do the West Highland Way, and I realized I needed to improve my hiking skills. That's how I reached out to you and found you on the internet.

Q: And before we started working together, what was your typical approach to training or preparation leading up to your hikes?

I'm a typical American. We try to find a steeper hill, go straight up it, put on a big heavy pack, and try to go faster and harder and stronger all the time. That was the typical approach and philosophy of getting ready for the hike.

Q: You mentioned the big goal you'd set yourself for this time, the West Highland Way in Scotland, which is awesome. What was the instigator for this particular trip and this particular goal? What was the inspiration there?

My best friend and I went and hiked in Ireland a few years ago, and we loved that hiking in Ireland. We decided we wanted to do something more adventurous, more than just day hikes, something longer. We saw the West Highland Way on the internet, looked it up, and researched it. As you well know, there are tons of videos on YouTube about people taking on the West Highland Way. We set that as a goal almost a year ago, and I've been working toward it until we finished up with it.

Q: And with this in your sights, what did make you decide to reach out for extra help with your preparation? And was thereanything specific that you felt like you needed to improve on leading into this trip?

There was. I knew I was going to have to train for it and that I'd have to be in better shape to do hikes up to 16 miles a day, eight days of hiking, over some rough terrain. So I started working out here as far as hiking, and just trying to hike longer and harder and more. But the problem I had was I wasn't improving in the way I thought I should be. I was still able to get through it, but it wasn't making real progress from the standpoint of feeling like I had more endurance, more strength, more ability to take on the West Highland Way. So that's when I reached out. There are very few hiking coaches, and I found you halfway around the world. It's worked out beautifully.

Q: Out of curiosity, how did you find me? Was it through Google, was it through social media, or where did you actually find me?

It was Google. I looked for trainers and hiking trainers, and like I said, there are not a lot of them out there, and you came up. I love the way that you set up your website and the way you communicate. I placed a questionnaire, got a call back, and then you sent the questionnaire out. It wound up being really seamless as far as being able to connect with you and get the program going.

Q: So tell us a little bit about the training we did together, and the training you did through Summit Strength. What did your program look like, and what types of things were you doing?

Having over 60 years of hiking, I thought I knew what I was doing. It took me a while to figure out that I really didn't, that I'd had 60 years of bad habits. One of those examples was the breathing. I was trying to do it harder and faster, and I was doing mouth breathing for the most part. Your breathing exercises that talked about doing nose breathing and slowing down were a game changer for me. Being able to slow down, nose breathe, increased my endurance and increased my appreciation of the hike. One of the side benefits I hadn't thought about was, gosh, the smells I was experiencing were really surprising in the same places where I hadn't been smelling those when I was mouth breathing.

Q: Was there anything else in there which you hadn't done before, or anything different that you hadn't really explored in your training previously?

I thought it was really interesting, the questionnaire that you sent out, because you really had some fitness tests in there that we logged. One of those was being able to sit in a chair and lift yourself out of the chair with one leg, and I couldn't come anywhere close to that. So I realized that I really did have a lot of strength training to do, and all the exercises you did were amazing as far as being able to transform the way I did things. When I was hiking before, if I did a long, strenuous hike, I would come home at night, and at some point during the night I would have leg cramps. They didn't last long, but they were sure painful. With your recovery exercises that you showed me, I have not had any leg discomfort. I did 107 miles on the West Highland Way and slept fine at night. No leg discomfort whatsoever, no cramps. There were tons of things like that in your training that really helped me prepare for and execute the hike, and then recover from it too.

Q: Through the training journey, as we always say on this podcast, no training journey is ever linear. There's always things that come up and get in the way. Through your preparation, were there any roadblocks which did come up, or any issues that came up along the way? And if so, how did you go about overcoming them?
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There was definitely a major roadblock. You're in Australia, and the seasons are totally different, so as our mid-July hike approached, summer was coming on in Nashville, Tennessee. The real problem we had was that we wound up with summer temperatures here getting up into the 90 degree Fahrenheit range, equating to 35 degrees Celsius, with humidity up in the 80% and 90% range. As I was trying to do those training hikes, they got more and more difficult, and I didn't know whether I was just having the effects of the heat or I wasn't getting any better. I was hoping that in Scotland it would be cool enough, and sure enough it was. The highest it got when I was in Scotland was in the 80 degree range, and it felt wonderful as far as the hiking. I had plenty of strength, no jelly legs. It was pretty amazing to be able to enjoy it like that. I thought one of the things that you said that really resonated with me was that the goal should be to work very hard on the training so that I wouldn't struggle on the hike, because if you struggle, you're not enjoying it. For the 107 miles, I never struggled. It was a challenging hike, it pushed me, but I didn't struggle. No jelly legs, and I had enough energy, so I really was able to enjoy every step of the hike.

Q: So let's talk about the adventure and the actual trip. Give us the rundown, take us through the journey. How did it all go? What did you experience?

The trip was really amazing. We used an outfitter named Maximum Adventure, and what they did was carry our baggage from one hotel to the next, a lot of them historic and really quaint hotels. In a lot of places there was a pub or a place to stop for lunch, and then a good dinner at night. I loved one of the things you said during one of our coaching sessions: when you go in for dinner at night and you're offered fries or the salad, don't get the salad, get the fries. I'd always gone for the salad, thinking the fries weren't good, and you said no, you need protein, you need fat, and you need the carbs every night. So that's what I did, and that was a real treat, being able to enjoy foods I generally don't spend a lot of time with. The views were amazing. Even the Scots couldn't believe it, we didn't get a drop of rain the whole trip, eight days on the trail, not a drop of rain. The temperature for them was hot, but for us it was fine, especially early in the morning. It's really interesting the way the West Highland Way is designed, because almost everybody hikes south to north. The first day on the trail is nice, walking through some countryside and towns, but it's a little boring, and as you go further north it gets more and more exciting as you travel. If you did it north to south, you'd have the beautiful views early on, and then the last days would be a downer, so I thought it worked out well. The first days were easier, the third day was probably the hardest, and then you sort of knew you'd had it and could go on through the rest of the hike. Views were amazing, people were amazing, it was great. Eight days is what a lot of people use to take this hike, so we met people on the trail, followed them, stayed in similar places, and got up with them the next day. The friendships we had from all over the world were pretty amazing as well.

Q: One thing we did talk about very briefly before we head off was the beer at lunchtime when you're out in the pubs having lunch. How did that go? Did that go smoothly? Did you have any slow afternoons after that? How did you approach that one?

Your advice on that was perfect. You said drink a dark beer because I won't drink as much, and get a half pint instead of a pint. For those lunchtime beers, I would get a half pint and not have any downside whatsoever. At night I'd go ahead and go for the full pint, but for lunchtime it was a half pint, and that really worked out well. You also talked to me about the electrolytes and being able to fill up a bottle in the morning, drink in the morning, and then be finished by about one or so with the electrolytes. That worked out perfectly as well. I had my two liter water bladder and also a bottle of electrolytes, and that wound up being enough water for me for the day.

Q: So let's talk about challenges. It sounds like you had a really, really good time over there. What were the challenges you faced? Was there anything you ran into on the trail where you're like, oh, that's something that'll take work around, or something a bit harder than we expected?

Between the YouTube videos we saw and the training that you led me through, we had no real big challenges on the trail. All that worked out just fine. The only challenges we had were with air travel, getting over there and back. We had some weather and delays and that kind of thing, but fortunately on the trail we had no problems whatsoever.

Q: Outside of challenges, was there anything on the trail that you ran into which maybe wasn't a challenge, but you just hadn't really considered before you set off? Something that maybe surprised you, or was a little different than you were expecting?

Not really. I went prepared for everything. Everybody said the midges are terrible this time of year, and everybody said you'll get rained on, it'll be windy, it'll be cold, so I went loaded for bear, all prepared for that. I never had to pull out my midge net because we were staying in hotels. Had we been camping, I would have needed it, but there was enough wind during the day to keep them away, they only come out at night or in the afternoon when there's no wind. So I never really had any problems with them. It was warm the whole time, so I kept all the fleece and the high tech gear in my suitcase instead of my backpack. That was a real surprise, and it was great.

Q: Once you did come to the end of this adventure, and you'd been on the trail for days, how did you feel? What was going through your head, and was there anything you did at the end to celebrate?

Absolutely. It was such a high to finish up. At the end of the West Highland Way, it finishes up in the middle of Fort William, and at Fort William there's a bronze statue of a bench with a man sitting on it rubbing his foot. It's called Sore Feet, and it's traditional for people to sit there and have their picture taken with their boot off, rubbing their feet. Obviously our team did that. Then the Italians joined us, and the people from the Netherlands joined us, and there's a great beer and pizza place behind there, so we all went and celebrated with beer and pizza. The next day we jumped on the Harry Potter train, called the Jacobite Express, which goes up over the pass and through the areas that were filmed in the movies.

Q: So I guess if anyone was looking towards this, and they were considering the West Highland Way in Scotland, maybe it's on their bucket list, or they have it coming up in the next 12 months or so, is there any particular advice you would give them if they were considering this trip?

Absolutely. I think it's a wonderful hike, and it's well supported, whether you're camping out, there are tons of camping places along the way, or whether you're staying in hotels like we were. It's an amazing hike, the scenery is phenomenal, I don't know of anything else like it. We're trying to find another hike similar to it to do next year or the year after. I'd really highly recommend it, and I'd also highly recommend that they work with you to get their hiking up to par, because the training you took me through was critical for me being able to enjoy the hike.

Q: And on that note, with the hiking, what is the plan of attack? Are there trips you're considering, or anything on the list, or what are you kind of considering moving forward?

We have a place near a national park. It's the most visited national park in the United States, called the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and we have peaks up to 6,600 feet that rise a vertical mile above the land below them. I've already started hiking there and will continue to hike in the Smokies as we seek out another hike similar to the West Highland Way.

Q: Before we wrap up, was there anything else that we haven't had a chance to cover today that you would like to add?
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I think one of the things we probably haven't talked about is the education videos that you have, those education videos about nutrition, about recovery, about your pack and all that. Those education videos were instrumental as well. I learned an awful lot from those.
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