Two-Heel Drive

This thread at the BAHiker.com discussion board is getting more timely as summer approaches: how to cope with the sun and heat.

You could just spend all your time hiking under forest canopy, but there’s always something to be said for getting out in the sunburn zone, especially if you’re into taking nature pictures, which tend not to come out so well when taken in the depths of the redwoods. A thoughtful post from Fasthiker:

I try to cover up as much as possible when it’s especially hot. I have one of those goofy looking sun hats with an oversized brim by “Sunday Afternoons”. I bought my current one at REI. Under the hat I have a bandana to keep the sweat out of my eyes. The hike is so much easier when I don’t have the sun or sweat in my eyes.

I also try not to roll up the sleeves on my long sleeved shirt. I currently use the Mountain Hardwear Canyon Shirt. Sometimes I can’t help myself and uncover my forearms.

I hate sun block which is why I cover up as much as possible. I sweat a lot anyway. Sun block just makes we sweat a lot more until it gets washed off. On the other hand, I’d die in long pants so I always wear shorts unless it gets down toward freezing.

Then, of course, you have to keep drinking something on a regular basis. You’re more likely to drink if you have a water bladder.

Of course, the first time I used a bladder on a real hike I got dehydrated. I was drinking every 15-20 minutes but wasn’t drinking nearly as much as I thought. Those narrow tubes take a fair amount of effort to get a relatively small amount of water.

Once you get dehydrated all you can think about is drinking more water. You drink until you can’t hold any more. This prevents you from eating. When your stomach empties out a little, you drink some more rather than eat.

Many have noted before how you have to be careful with water bladders — if you wait till you feel really thirsty, it may be too late, but you also have to guard against over-hydration (See “Hyponatremia: Losing your water balance.”)

Hmm, maybe it would just be easier to hike in the shade.

I used to be a fan of PowerBars but have stopped eating them since my wife started baking me her trademark oatmeal-walnut-chocolate chip cookies. Most energy bars compare so closely to a sawdust sandwich that I’d just as soon avoid them altogether, though they are an alternative to having to actually cook something on a backpacking trip (many of us go to extravagant lengths to avoid mess duty, including sleeping on the ground in the middle of nowhere for days or weeks on end and eating stuff we can’t stand.)

I stopped by backpackgeartest.org to see what the reviews were saying. One guy was fond of the Clif bar shown here.

First and foremost, the Blueberry Crisps taste great. As noted in my Initial Report, it’s like a bar made of blueberry granola – pronounced flavors of blueberry, oats, and sugar, with a hint of apple. Thanks to their airtight packaging Clif Bars don’t dry out; they retain their chewy texture and their entire flavor. Once I ate half a Bar at lunch and returned the uneaten portion to the opened wrapper, rolled up the wrapper, and returned it to my pack. When I ate the remainder at the end of the day it was as tasty and chewy as ever. I ate half the frozen Bar for breakfast on a Monday and stored the other half in the refrigerator, without packaging, until Friday morning. Again the taste and texture remained the same. I waited about twenty minutes for the frozen bar to thaw, and when I ate half of it I detected no loss of flavor from a week’s freezing.

Wow, so these things might have some promise.

Men’s Vogue taste-tested — and assigned reprehensibility ratings — to a bunch of energy bars.

POWER BAR HARVEST
50% Reprehensible

Basically, this is one big granola cookie. So why not get a big granola cookie?

You could always make your own. Sarah at Freezerbag Cooking has a bunch of baked goodies, some of which could do energy-bar duty.

If you need more ideas, just google “homemade energy bars” — you’ll get gazillion hits.

And finally, here’s my wife’s recipe. Follow the instructions to the letter for best performance.

Melissa’s Magnificent Hiking Cookies

1-1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup Crisco Butter Flavor shortening (do not substitute butter or margarine)
1/3 cup milk (Must be whole milk or at least 2%. Do not use 1% or skim milk.)
1 large egg (Crack egg into 1/4 cup measuring cup. If egg does not equal a full 1/4 cup, add additional milk to to equal 1/4 cup.)
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups quick cooking oatmeal
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line cookies sheets with parchment paper.

Cream brown sugar and shortening together. Beat in milk, egg and vanilla until well blended.

Combine oatmeal, flour, baking soda and salt. Add to shortening mixture and mix just until blended. Do not over mix.
Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

Drop dough by scant 1/4 cup (or extra large cookie scoop) onto prepared baking sheets, pressing dough down slightly.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until cookies are just set and lightly browned. Cook 2 minutes on baking sheet.
Remove cookies to a sheet of aluminum foil to cool completely.

Makes 18 large cookies.

*The secret to these cookies is is to mix the batter by hand. Also, the flour and oatmeal must be measured carefully by the scoop and level method.
Scoop the flour and/or oatmeal out of the bag or canister and level with a measuring cup level or table knife.

These are truly awesome cookies.

It’s been so long since I had a blister that I keep forgetting they’re the bane of hikers everywhere.

What I do to prevent them:

Wear the right socks: soft synthetic hiking socks like Wigwam’s Coolmax work great for me. Heat and friction are a like a blister factory — wearing socks that help regulate foot temperature goes a long way toward preventing blisters.

Wear the right shoes: If they rub you the wrong way at the store, don’t buy them. If your feet get hot, get shoes that have lots of ventilation. Don’t obsess over how waterproof your shoes are — the more waterproof they are, the more heat buildup you’ll get inside and your feet’ll get wet anyway. GoreTex and other so-called breathable waterproof fabrics are nice for short, damp hikes but if you’re putting in over five miles, they’re pretty much irrelevant because the act of walking will keep your feet warm and will dry out your shoes as you go.

Rest when your feet start screaming. Especially true if you have a long hike planned. Give yourself a foot massage (and if you’re out there with the one you love, offer to share.)

What I do if I’ve got one: I’ve noticed that on backpacking trips, the extra weight and pressure will produce blisters much sooner than if I were hiking unloaded. If fluid is gathering, I take a needle from my first aid kit and poke through the skin to let it drain. This does raise the chance of infection, so you’ll want to disinfect the area and cover it to keep it clean. (One PCT through-hiker almost died last year because her blisters got infected — so the risk is there).

After I’ve got one: Like most injuries, rest is the key to healing. Not always a choice when you’re out in the woods for several days, which makes prevention all that much more important.

As always, your tips are welcome. I’ve heard some long-distance hikers have had good luck with duct tape.

Here’s a nice overview of what to do about blisters once you’ve got ‘em.

The sectionhiker.com blog has a brief overview:

It is a repetition injury often caused by hiking or running and presents itself as chronic heel pain. This pain is caused by the inflammation of the ligament that connects your heel bone to the ball of your foot.

I’ve found that the best way to cure plantar fasciitis is to simply stop hiking for an extended period of time, like over the winter, AND to get a pair of boots with better arch and heel support.

I can’t recall having linking to this blog, which has a wealth of info for lightweight backpackers and thru-hikers. Definite bookmark/feed list potential.

(Hat tip: The Sock Site’s hiking blog page).

This story got some press last week: People who walk with a pedometer go farther and get healthier, according to a Stanford researcher:

Bravata and colleagues explain that although there has been a surge in popularity for pedometers as a tool to motivate and monitor physical activity, there is a lack of detailed evidence of their effectiveness.

They looked at 26 studies with a total of 2767 participants (eight randomized controlled trials and 18 observation studies); 85% of participants were women, and the mean age was 49 years. The mean duration of pedometer use in the studies was 18 weeks.

They found that, on average, pedometer users significantly increased their physical activity by 2183 steps a day over baseline (p<0.0001), or by 26.9%.

I bought a pedometer once but ended up exchanging it for something more useful because I thought its main purpose was measuring distance –  I knew from hiking that I never spent more than five minutes at the same pace, so telling a pedometer your pace is 2.5 feet or whatever results in  little more than a wild guess, distancewise.

Didn’t occur to me that the more fundamental business of counting steps could prove beneficial.  A wristwatch with a stopwatch function does pretty much the same thing, seems to me, but deprives you of the opportunity to buy an activity-specific toy.

More on buying a pedometer here.

The New York Times ran an interesting piece the other day about staying in shape, getting out of shape, and matching your workout with what you do for fun. The story opens with the experience of a competition rower who lost and regained fitness.

It shows, exercise physiologists say, training is exquisitely specific: you can acquire and maintain cardiovascular fitness with many activities, but if you want to keep your ability to row, or run, or swim, you have to do that exact activity.

It also shows, they say, that people who work out sporadically, running on weekends, for instance, will never reach their potential.

I realized this on the first hill Sunday at Mount Diablo (which has lots of hills) … I hadn’t been on a serious hike in nearly a month, and my heart rate was way up there after maybe five uphill minutes.

The story mentions that if you’re pressed for time, it’s better to crank out a short, high-intensity workout.

For hikers, it’s not really practical to hike five days a week — best I’ve been able to come up with is stair laps (we live on the fourth floor) for leg strength and jogging for cardio capacity.

How about the rest of y’all? Any tips on finding time to work out, especially at the holidays, are welcome.

Link via sportsgeezer.

Your body can take a hike at pretty much any age, this article says, provided you follow some commonsense advice:

If you have exercised or participated in sports throughout your previous decades, talk with your doctor and be sure you are a candidate to continue. As we age, we do lose muscular mass and strength, aerobic capacity, bone density, balance, and blood volume. The percentage of our body fat is directly related to the percentage of active hours in our days. Our sleep, immune functions, and appetites are affected by both aging and exercise. But, we are not condemned to sedentary decades at the end of our lives. Quite the contrary! We can, presuming medical clearance, continue to exercise at a high level for all of our remaining days.

Here are the two factors we must consider:

1 ñ A “high level” is relative to our age and condition ñ not to a 20-year-old Olympian!

2 ñ We must honor our rest days. How often do we marvel at the 70-year-old cyclist, the 80-year-old Nordic skier, or the 90-year-old hiker? Yes, they do it, but they must rest and recover between physically challenging sessions.

My mom, an expert in employee wellness, says she’s seen study after study showing that regular exercise builds strength, stamina and bone density at every age. People into their 90s can lift weights and build muscle mass, within reason.

Lots o’ stuff on losing weight and chasing off the fat, but our little just-walking-upright corner of the world rates 9: (source: Nursing Online Education Database).

Walking & Hiking

One of the best exercises in the world is walking. Although you might consider
‘walking’ as moving from the couch to the fridge, the individuals who write
the blogs listed below are a bit more ambitious. Some merely count their steps
each day, while others hike obscure trails.

41. Cutter’s Blog: Cutter loves bicycling,
    but he’s also into hiking, walking, backpacking, and kyaking. This blog focuses
    on hiking destinations in southeastern U.S., including the “South Beyond
    6000,” or the 40 peaks in the Southern Appalachians that rise 6000 feet
    or more above sea level.
42. Discover Walking: This blogger
    has an affinity for walking, and shares that enthusiasm with readers through
    tools for walking, paths, and methods that are easy and enticing enough to
    make the unwilling walker to want to walk.
43. Fat Man Walking: Steve Vaught
    chronicles his, beginning with his fateful decision to walk across America
    to lose weight and regain control of his life. Although he lost weight, was
    part of a documentary and a book deal, he faced divorce and a few other trials.
    Steve also mentions several other people in his latest entry who have faced
    weight-loss issues and how they conquered them. Although the ‘journal’ is
    sporadic lately, the site is a great tool for inspiration.
44. Just a Thought: Margie Hunter
    is 51-years-old with three kids and a husband who writes a sports column.
    While she chronicles much of her life through her blog, her focus is on walking
    and health. Some of her entries are simple, with interesting stats about odd
    facts, but she always provides stats about her weight, calories burned, steps
    walked, and the weather.
45. Modern Hiker: Casey,
    this blog’s author, is “60% Geek, 40% Granola.” Located in southern
    California, Casey provides information about the area’s walking and hiking
    areas, but he also is interested in the latest walking and hiking tools (that’s
    the ‘geek’ part). He writes about gadgets for a local TV show, and he also
    provides great photos for the armchair hiker.
46. Nordic Walking USA:
    Nordic Walking is low-impact fitness walking using specially designed, lightweight
    poles. The poles relieve stress on the lower body, which creates less pressure
    on ankles, hips and knees. This blog introduces Nordic walking and offers
    advice, information, and tools for this activity.
47. Two-Heel Drive: Tom Mangan
    fills his blog with personal interests as well as information about his walks
    and hikes. Although he’s located in northern California, his interests go
    well beyond that area. Great link resource for other walking and hiking enthusiasts.
    Like Casey in the “Modern Hiker” above, Tom is a writer; so, his
    entries are very interesting.
48. Walking Blog:
49. Walking Notes: Bryan White lives
    in Melbourne, Australia, and he writes about walking as a form of exercise
    and as a way of getting from A to B. Bryan logs his weight, daily steps, and
    provides inspiration through his blog entries.

Speaking of which, I jogged a full mile again Tuesday morning and plan to repeat on Wednesday. Not a big deal to folks of normal fitness levels, but I could never run a mile at any time in my life until the past few months.

Walking releases chemicals that improve mood and reduce anxiety — yeah, we know that. Some poking around online this morning led me to this story mentioning a local psychologist who pioneered the practice of getting counseling off the couch and into an ambulatory mode.

“It speeds up therapy,” says psychologist Keith Johnsgard, PhD, professor emeritus at San Jose State University, who is considered a founder of the practice. “Vigorous physical activity elicits emotions better than slouching in a chair does,” he says.

Johnsgard, who started using the mobile-couch technique in the 1970s, reviewed studies of exercise as a treatment for mood disorders in a recent book, Conquering Depression and Anxiety Through Exercise (Prometheus Books). In some instances, physical activity can be as effective as medication for treating depression, he says, with none of the side effects. Exercise releases feel-good chemicals that provide post-workout feelings of well-being, and exercise-induced hormonal changes are likely at the root of the more permanent relief from depression that can come from routine physical activity.

No research has yet looked at the effect of exercise during psychotherapy, but Johnsgard and others say the combination can work better than doing both separately. Kate Hays, PhD, a clinical and sports psychologist in Toronto and author of the book Move Your Body, Tone Your Mood (New Harbinger Publications), says, “For some people, physical activity seems to allow more access to right-brain thinking, which is more holistic, more intuitive. They’re able to figure a problem out better than if they were sitting down with it.”

Hmm, must be why my best ideas always happen in the shower (double hmmm… maybe I’d blog smarter if i did it standing up)

I found out about Dr. Johnsgard from another article about a recent hike he led at the Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve, in which he pointed out and described the medicinal herbs of the Ohlone Indians.

The group stopped as it approached a sprightly, yellow-tinted plant Johnsgard identified as poisonous hemlock.

“This is what Socrates used when he decided to say ’sayonara,’ … and when the plight of the Indians became so god-awful, they would chew the leaves to commit suicide,” he said, prompting a morbid silence.

Cynthia Leeder sent me this link yesterday: A description of “hyponatremia,” which happens when the body has too much water and not enough salt. An excerpt:

Ultra endurance events including marathons, triathlons and even the popular “eco-challenges” are seeing an increase in incidents. Last year, there were 30 documented cases of exertional hyponatremia, seven of which were admitted into the icu with intracranial pressure (icp). Although most of these occur with hikers, passengers on commercial/ private river trips have also developed hyponatremia.

When your salt balance gets out of whack, water can build up in your stomach and you can drink like crazy and never get hydrated. Oddly enough, the treatment for heat exhaustion — rest and fluid restoration — actually makes people worse if they’re suffering serious overhydration and salt depletion.

Prevention is the key.
Stay hydrated and nourished. Once hiking, keep a steady intake of water or electrolyte replacement drink and eat. I cannot emphasis this enough. Sport physiologists assume people are eating and therefore do not need commercial electrolyte replacement. The truth of the matter is that people don’t eat when they are hot, and they don’t eat once they become dehydrated and sick. Gatorade, which contains the highest sodium concentration, doesn’t even come close to the 35 mEq/liter/ hour needed to replace lost salt through sweat. What kind of food, my personal preference is salty snack food. This is not a time for power bars. Leave the health food behind. Junk food is great. Stock up. The rangers now routinely give out saltine crackers, pretzels and cheezits. Stay ahead of the sodium curve!

I’ve gone on a few summer hikes that left salt stains on my backpack’s straps. This is probably nature’s best signal that salt is leaving the body but isn’t going back in.

Read the whole thing – it might save your bacon.