Who's that Homeless Guy wandering around?

So, on Monday I started walking around the business park where I work with this 28 lb. backpack on.  I also brought in my new hiking boots to start to bring them in.  My typical noontime walk is a 1.5 mile route that I get done in 25-30 minutes.  Usually, I carry a grip strengthener because a few years ago I had a bit of a run in with tendinitis and the physical therapist gave me some exercises to strengthen my grip and exercise my arms.  I guess the people in the neighborhood have gotten used to this bearded dude wandering around doing Nazi salutes at lunchtime.

On Monday, though, some bearded dude was now wandering around with a big backpack on his back.  This is a prestigious community, they generally don't let people like that just wander around at lunchtime.  Most cars that drove by gave me a double take trying to figure out what was up with that.  Before I got back to my desk, I had three people ask me what the blazes was going on.  Did my wife throw me out?  Did the bank take away the house?

So I sent out a notice to everyone at work on Monday telling them that, No, I wasn't losing my house or wife, just maybe my mind.  I explained to them about my quest, what windmills were in my way, and how I was preparing for it.  I also gave them the link to this blog, so we'll see if my stats go up.

Packing for Training.

As you can see with my exercise logs, I've been being more intentional about working out.  With the advent of spring, it is time to take it to the next level.  By that I mean putting on more weight while walking around.

Over the weekend, I decided to pack my pack full of something to increase the weight for training purposes.  It had to be relatively heavy, but soft at the same time.  It had to be something I didn't care about getting wet for there will be times where I go wandering around in the rain.  And it couldn't be entirely consistent, for the weight varies much regarding what you put in your pack.

When packing a backpack, the heaviest item should be between your shoulders nearest to your back.  Lighter items should be a little farther from your back, with the lightest items on the top, bottom and back of the backpack.   The diagram on the right will give you an idea of how it should go.

So, for the heaviest item, I chose a ream of paper we had sitting around.  For the lighter blue, I found about 60 golf balls lying around the garage, and finally, I surrounded the whole thing with the rags from the t-shirt quilt.  Voila, a backpack that weighs just shy of 30 lbs.

New Year

The last couple of weeks have been a bit odd because of my travel schedule.  Since the Monday before Christmas, I was in Oklahoma, Virginia and North Carolina, not including the stops I made at airports in Colorado, Texas and Missouri.  The travel put a damper on my training schedule, but now I am back and ready to get started again.   My kids obviously believe that I need it since I received hand weights and an exercise ball for Christmas.  Now, I just need to follow through and get cracking. 

I haven't weighed in yet, but I know the results won't be good.  I haven't passed the "belt test" the past week.  (Can you put your belt on comfortably using the same hole you were using before you left.)  Needless to say, the surrounded by family and food for a week doesn't bode well.

The other factor that should help this is the end of football season.  Between the games on TV and the home games we went to, quite a bit of time was consumed (or wasted.  All depends on your point of view.) 

Fitness

The biggest challenge that I see in this journey is actually getting in shape to hike the trail.  It usually takes between 8 and 14 days to hike the trail, which results in an average 1500-2500 feet (500-750m) elevation gain per day.  However, there are long slogs up hill followed by equally long walks down.  All with a backpack. 

The way I look at it, I need to work on the following:
- First, build up my cardiovascular endurance,
- Second, build up my lower body strengty,
- Finally, build up my stamina. 
Of course, these three goals are not mutually exclusive, I'll have to work on all of them basically at the same time. 

To start, I bought a Fitness Program for my Wii to help build up my cardio and lower body.  The amazing thing is that I've even exercised four times in the last week.  This is where I'll need the most encouragement, as well the most time in my schedule.  I haven't figured out a good mechanism of tracking my training yet, but since that's what I do for a living, I figure I can do that. 

Over the course of this blog, I'll be spending quite a bit of time on this topic (or at least I should be).