View of the Hudson from summit of Bear MT.
Lake at base of Bear Mt.
Whew, Sunday's 10 mile hike was surprisingly difficult. Whereas I did 20 miles last week in 8 hrs, it took me 6 hrs to do the 10 miles this weekend. After a ~11 mile relatively flat hike on Saturday, I was looking forward to a challenging hike at Bear Mountain State Park on Sunday along the AT. The 10 mile hike took me up Bear mountain (1200 ft ascent), then 1000 ft descent and a 800 ft ascent of West Mountain, then returned on the same trail. So this was a total of about 3000 ft ascent. Unfortunately I was really worn out by the last ascent, and for the first time, I needed to take rest breaks on the final ascent. Considering I did 20 miles last week without any significant issues, I have a few hypotheses for why Sunday was so tough.
1) Dehydration, both Saturday and Sunday were really hot and humid. On Sunday, although a thought I was drinking water regularly, when I got home I was 6 pounds lighter than the day before! After a lot of ice tea I "regained" the 6 pounds. Also I've been drinking just water while hiking, with this magnitude of fluid loss, I should be adding back sodium and potassium. I've ordered some "rehydration" salts from REI, hopefully I'll have them by next weekend.
2) Over training? Since last Sunday I've either hiked or biked every day, and have not had a recovery day. So today, will be a rest day with no training.
3) Nutrition: Previously, I relied on a peanut butter sandwich and fruit while hiking, but on both Saturday and Sunday I substituted "energy bars" for the peanut butter, they certainly didn't help!
It was a pleasant surprise to run into Joanna Tyszkiewicz and her husband coming down from the Bear Mt. Summit as I was going up.
On a positive note, at the end of Sunday's hike my feet and legs felt pretty good only a little sore, no blisters, and the knees held up well on both the ascents and descents. I saw an immature 5-lined skink, also known as a Bue-tailed Skink, because of its brilliant sky blue tail.
Tough indeed, but wasn`t the view from the top rewarding?? It was very nice to see you in Harriman as well! Seems we all like to train there even if it`s ~100 degrees! It`s truly the hottest spot around:)
ReplyDeleteWe`ll keep our fingers crossed for your safe and successful summit of Kili!
Best of luck, Joanna