Appalachian Trail Thru-Hiker Situational Training

As someone who has successfully completed thru-hikes, I’ve occasionally been asked about my pre-hike training routine.  As a contributor to Yogi’s PCT Handbook, I described my PCT training  like this:
I watched “Jeremiah Johnson” and “Lawrence Of Arabia” and I read a book about the Donner Party called “Desperate Passage.”

. . . but until you start, maybe stay on that couch.

When asked what I would do differently next time, I said I would get “Desperate Passage” in paperback instead of hardcover.

So I’m not that into pre-trail physical training.  Why?  I’ve come to believe that the best and most efficient exercise for hiking the trail is actually hiking on the trail.  So I could spend two months physically training for a five month hike.  Or I could spend the first month of that hike physically training for the other four.  Will that first month hurt more than it will for someone who’s been exercising for two months?  Possibly.  Because they spent the previous two months in pain, while I spent them on the couch blissfully eating Funyuns.  I’m pretty sure I win that round.

Now, if I had to hit the ground running?  If I was attempting a speed record, or had to be in school by the middle of August, or someone was paying me by the mile?  Yeah, absolutely, pre-trail physical training makes sense.  But for most people, there really isn’t any sort of necessary rigorous schedule at the beginning of an AT hike.  There aren’t 150-mile stretches without resupply.  No 35-mile stretches with no water.  No one coming up from behind and killing the slow people just for being slow.
People who are used to the rat race sometimes have a hard time listening to their bodies and adjusting to life at walking speed.  But sooner or later most realize that being on trail isn’t a race.  Although there is rodent feces pretty much all over the place.

And the thing is, blind people have thru-hiked.  So has a guy with one leg.  Diabetics.  Smokers.  Obese folks.  A guy carrying a tuba.  I’ll repeat that slowly:  A guy.  Carrying.  A tuba.  If there’s anything even remotely healthy about you, you can thru-hike without exercising beforehand.  People who think Nutella is a food group have done it.  Come to think of it, most of the people who successfully thru-hike think Nutella is a food group.

So let’s say you accept the proposition that you don’t need to exercise.  That doesn’t mean you don’t have to train.  You do.  You just need to train mentally.  You may have heard people say that thru-hiking is 90% mental, and that works out well for me because I have often been described as “completely mental.”  So I figure I have 10% to spare.  But maybe you don’t have that margin of error, or like me you just want to make sure.  In that case, you need to do what I call “Situational Training.”

Situational Training prepares your mind for the situations you’ll face on trail that aren’t part of your normal life.  And that’s important.
So here (after the longest intro in the history of trail blogging) is my 14 Day Appalachian Trail Situational Training Schedule.  If you’re like me, you’ll do it and successfully complete an AT thru-hike.
(Note: I can’t imagine you’re like me.  That’s just a turn of phrase.  Still, do the peeing outside part anyway, if only to horrify your neighbors)

Starting on day one, and for every day of this schedule, put on the clothes you wore yesterday, stand in front of the mirror, and prepare to answer questions about your hike by saying, “about 2100 miles.  About 5 months.  About 15-20 miles.  I haven’t seen any bears.  I was carrying an accordion but I sent it home” (the last is the answer to the question, “are you carrying a weapon”).

Appalachian Trail Situational Training Schedule

Day 1
Start peeing outside.

Day 2
Go online and look up possible exercises.  Realize all of that looks exhausting.  Instead, lay on the couch and flick around the channels until you come across Cliffhanger starring Sylvester Stallone.  Realize that the bad guy’s girlfriend also played the mom in The Princess Diaries.  Resolve never to let anyone know that you’ve seen The Princess Diaries enough times to notice that.  Because that's exactly the sort of thing that gets you a trail name you don't want. 

Day 3
After dressing and talking to yourself in the mirror, put in iPod earphones and play Wagon Wheel on a continuous loop all day.
Hour 1 will be somewhat enjoyable.
Hours 2-4 will be progressively more annoying.
By hour 5, you will fantasize about traveling back in time and murdering the person who wrote Wagon Wheel.
Somewhere between hours 7 and 8 you will no longer notice it at all.  That’s right where you want to be.

Day 4
Go on an online hiking forum or Facebook Group and ask what tent you should carry.  More than half of the responses will involve why you should carry a hammock instead.  Realize that talking about gear makes you hate people.  And gear.

Day 5
Wash underwear.

Day 6
Start eating nothing but Lipton Sides, Idahoan Potatoes, cheese, and Snickers bars.  Continue for the remainder of the training (see exception below).

Day 7
Turn heat off in house.  Open windows.  Sleep on floor.

Day 8
In the morning: think about showering, but decide against it.

In the afternoon:
Carefully measure out 1/4 cup of Gold Bond Medicated Powder.
Swallow it.
Begin vomiting.
On a yellow legal pad start writing the following: “I will stay away from unlabeled bags of white powder in hiker boxes.”

Keep writing until you stop throwing up.
Maybe go ahead and take that shower after all.

Day 9
Change socks, throw underwear in trash.

Day 10
Eat a pint of Ben & Jerrys for breakfast and an entire large meat-lovers pizza for lunch.  And another pizza for dinner, with a pint of Ben & Jerrys for dessert.

Day 11
In the morning, attempt to hitchhike to the next town over by yourself.  Give up after two hours.  In the afternoon, stand in the same spot and try again, but with a female friend.  You’ll learn the importance of this lesson later.  Hint: It’s not that hitching is easier after noon.

Day 12
Start reading “A Walk In The Woods.”  Quit a few hundred pages in.  Instead, find someone you recently met but don’t know very well, and invite them to share a hotel room with you.  Assuming that, like me, you’re not attractive enough to get away with that sort of thing, they’ll look at you like you just asked them if you can hide a body in their basement.  The response isn’t important; the asking is the thing, and you need to practice.  Because on trail they’ll say yes if it means a hotel room costs twenty bucks instead of forty.  Has anyone explained to you that you’ll be staying in forty dollar hotel rooms?  No?  You will.  They’ll be just south of appalling, and you’ll think it’s a forty dollar slice of heaven.  Unless you can get in there for twenty.

Day 13
Go into a local upscale swanky hotel and tell the desk clerk you’ll give him $20 for a room for the night.  Tell him you’re not leaving until you get a room for that price.  This isn’t really part of the training, but did you see the look on that guy’s face?  And the security guy’s face?  He looked angry, didn’t he?  And he had fists the size of Tom Clancy novels.  You probably would have soiled your drawers if you hadn’t thrown them out on Day 9. 

Day 14
Get in shower fully clothed and turn the temperature all the way to cold.  Stay in there for two hours chanting, “no rain, no pain, no Maine.”  Upon exiting shower, slip and break ankle.


Before sharing this training schedule with you I submitted it to three Appalachian Trail hikers for review.  Sharon “Wonder” Hart called it “something you’d have to be a complete idiot to do.”   Angela “Roots” Sally said it was “at best ill-advised and at worst verges on reckless and irresponsible.”  Mike “Cool Breeze” Smith said it was “just what the doctor ordered.  Dr. Lecter.  Dr. Mengele.  That kind of doctor.”
Since I could easily describe thru-hiking using all of those phrases: the plan is perfect.

And if you need one final bit of demotivation regarding exercise, keep in mind that most healthy people aren’t any fun.  All they want to talk about is their Vegan CrossFitBit and their Broccoli Kale P90X Smoothies and how many burpees they can do.  I don’t even know what a burpee is.  Until recently, I thought it had to do with vegetable seeds, but it’s apparently some sort of exercise.  Let those people get on out ahead of you.  Hike with my people.  Your people.  The alarmingly out of shape, mentally strong people.  We’ll see you out there!  Unless you start a day ahead of us, in which case we will never, ever, ever catch up to you.  So have a great hike!

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