6 TRAINING TIPS FOR HIKERS & RUNNERS
One mile is a 1000 steps.
We get this from the Romans. The Roman army marched 1000 steps every milia (mile) One kilometer is 660 steps. One extra pound carried for 1000 steps is 1000 extra pounds absorbed by your feet every mile. Evaluate EVERY piece of gear, carry NOTHING you do not need, and carry everything high and tight NOTHING below the waist.
Ounces equal pounds, pounds equal pain.
This is a principle taught to Marines in basic training. Weight can be a surprising thing in the way it quickly will add up on you. Small items add up and everyday items are shockingly heavy if you have to move them any great distance. A good example of this is water. Something most of us use and carry around everyday without giving it much thought.
One pound on your feet equals five pounds on your back.
It takes 4.7 to 6.4 times as much energy to move at a given pace when weight is carried on the shoe versus on the torso. In practical terms, this means you could carry half a gallon more of water (a little over 4 pounds) if you buy boots that are a pound lighter, which isn’t hard to do; and that’s a lot of water.
One pound on your feet equals five percent more energy expended.
Heavier boots don’t just affect you because of their weight. They’re stiffer and less responsive as well. This reduces the efficiency of your body’s stretch reflex on hitting the ground. Five percent doesn’t sound like much, though, so how does five percent translate to run times? Well, five percent would slow your mile pace time down by 30 seconds, depending on how long you’re running. But, the faster you attempt to run, the more than five percent will affect your performance.
Ten percent grade incline cuts your speed in half.
Grade greatly affects speed. By “grade” we mean how much terrain incline or decline there is. Percent grade is a term that describes how much you go up versus how much you go forward. 10%, for example, means that for every 10 ft you travel forward, you’ll travel up 1ft. Not all inclines are the same. But any incline is very detrimental to your hike. This may not seem like a lot, but after miles and miles of hiking it really adds up. How much? About a 50% decrease in your speed. Yes, even a 10% incline or decline can take off 50% of your speed. Ouch.
Going up slows you down twice as much as going down speeds you up.
Don’t believe you’ll make time up on the other side of the hill. You won’t. You’ll only make half the time up. Famous running coach Jack Daniels provides numbers to this relationship, saying that uphills will add 12–15 seconds to your mile time and take off 8 seconds from your mile time on downhills. Think of it like this: if your uphill is 100 ft. uphill, you’ll run it 18 seconds slower than you would over flat ground. Why don’t you gain as much by running downhill as you lose running up? Braking forces. As you descend, you have to break your speed with your quads to keep yourself under control. The steeper the downhill, the more braking. This added load on your muscles further affects your uphill performance if you have repeated bouts of up and down work.
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