How to train for a big day hike

This is why Washington Trails Association's conditioning advice starts with hiking itself. The best preparation for a long day on trail is a slightly shorter day on trail.

1. Weeks 1–2

   Find the floor, honestly

   Get to the baseline the federal activity guidelines describe for adults: 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity, plus muscle-strengthening work on at least two days. Then take one weekend walk at whatever distance is genuinely comfortable, and write down the distance, the climb and how you felt at the end. Every later week gets measured against that walk, so be honest about it. Guessing high is a common way this goes wrong.

2. Weeks 3–4

   Add the hill, not the pack

   Make one walk a week a hilly one, and let the climbing rather than the mileage do the work. Keep the pack light for now. Adding elevation and load in the same two weeks makes it impossible to tell which one your knees are complaining about. Twice a week, do the strength work: split squats, step-downs off a low box, calf raises. It's the dullest part of the plan and the one with the most evidence behind it.

3. Week 5

   Add the pack

   Now carry what you actually intend to carry, water included, because water is most of the weight and it's the part people leave out of training. The American Hiking Society's version of this is to walk to the store with your pack and fill it with the groceries. It's unglamorous and it works. Anything that rubs at 25 minutes will be a wound at four hours.

4. Week 6

   The long one

   The biggest day of the block: somewhere around two-thirds to three-quarters of the target distance and climb, with the real pack, the real boots and the real food. Walk down whatever you walked up. If your route has a shuttle, a chairlift or a road back, don't take it. The descent is the half you can't skip, and it's the half you came to train.

5. Week 7

   Do it again, on tired legs

   Repeat something close to week 6. This is where the work starts paying out. A single bout of eccentric exercise — the lengthening, braking kind a descent is made of — protects the muscle against damage from the bouts that follow it. The adaptation has a name, the repeated bout effect, and no shortcut. The second long day usually hurts less than the first. That's why there are two.

6. Week 8

   Back off

   Keep the frequency, cut the duration. Nothing new goes on your feet, on your back or in your stomach this week. Put the last long walk at least a week before the hike, so you arrive rested rather than freshly sore.

7. The day

   Spend the first hour going too slowly

   Whatever pace feels right at the trailhead is too fast, because you're rested and the first mile is always the flattest. First-time Grand Canyon hikers average about one mile an hour going uphill. That's the honest number to plan around, not the pace you can hold for twenty minutes.

1. 01

   Pick a route you can walk both ways

   No shuttle, no chairlift, no car waiting at the bottom. The descent is half the training stimulus, and it's the half that most resembles the part of the real day you're worried about.

2. 02

   Carry what you'll actually carry

   Same pack, same load, and full water. Water is most of the weight and the easiest thing to quietly leave at home. If the real day needs a jacket and two liters, train with a jacket and two liters.

3. 03

   Wear the real boots and the real socks

   This is a blister rehearsal as much as a fitness one. Footwear that's fine for two hours can be a problem at six, and you want to find that out somewhere you can stop.

   Trim your toenails a few days ahead of this. On a long descent your foot slides forward into the toe box on every step.

4. 04

   Start slower than feels right

   Aim for a pace where you could hold a conversation, and hold it through the first hour even though it feels lazy. Nearly every long day that ends badly started too fast.

5. 05

   Eat and drink on the schedule you plan to use

   Test the food you actually intend to carry, at the intervals you intend to eat it. A stomach that refuses sweet food at hour five is a common and entirely avoidable surprise.

6. 06

   Walk the descent deliberately

   Shorter steps, a softer knee, and let the poles take the first part of each step down rather than dropping onto a straight leg. If you're going to use poles on the day, use them here. Hour eight is a bad time to figure out how they adjust.

7. 07

   Write down what broke

   Hot spots, chafe, the hour the wheels started to come off, what you wished you had. A couple of lines about your own feet beat any generic packing list.

Time on feet

Total hours walking, regardless of distance or pace. For a long hiking day it's a better training target than mileage, because what fails on you builds up slowly rather than all at once.

Vertical gain

Total feet climbed over a route, adding up every ascent rather than measuring the difference between the low and high points. It predicts how hard a hike feels far better than distance does.

Eccentric contraction

A muscle producing force while lengthening: your quads braking you on a descent rather than lifting you on a climb. It's the kind that causes most exercise-induced muscle damage.

DOMS

Delayed onset muscle soreness: the stiffness that arrives a day or two after unfamiliar effort rather than during it. Descending is a reliable way to produce it.

Repeated bout effect

The adaptation whereby one bout of eccentric exercise protects the muscle against damage from later bouts. It's why a second long training hike hurts less than the first.

Taper

The deliberate reduction in training volume before a hard effort, keeping frequency but cutting duration, so you arrive recovered rather than worn down.

Conversational pace

A pace at which you could speak in full sentences. On a climb it feels insultingly slow and is almost always the right speed for the first hour.