Here’s a nice intro to getting your legs ready for hiking. Last spring I did a bunch of training hikes with 40 pounds of dead weight in a monster backpack. One thing I figured out was that the more you…
Fitness
Health, fitness and first aid for hikes, camping, backpacking and other outdoor activities.
Blister prevention
by tmangan • May 14, 2006 • 0 Comments
LIttle Po has a bunch of excellent tips on avoiding nastiness in the foot regions. A highlight: Prepare two pairs of socks and rotate them. If your feet tend to sweat a lot or you are hiking in on an…
Tick, tick, tick…
by tmangan • April 19, 2006 • 5 Comments
So during last Saturday’s hike I stopped once to wring the water out of my socks and happened to notice about a half-dozen little brown ticks crawling around on my pant leg. I dusted ’em off and made a mental…
Washing a wound
by tmangan • March 30, 2006 • 1 Comment
The Houston Chronicle has a piece on hiking and fishing first aid that includes this nifty tip: Cuts and scrapes can be especially nasty in warmer climates, such as ours, where germs thrive and can’t wait to find their way…
Don’t stop
by tmangan • March 24, 2006 • 1 Comment
Quote of the Week: There is nothing else but your effort. If you quit, you lose. From a post on staying motivated at fatmanwalking.com, the blog by the very large guy getting gradually smaller as he walks from Los Angeles…
Going long
by tmangan • March 16, 2006 • 3 Comments
Here’s a nice in-depth article on getting ready for thru-hikes. An excerpt: I have gone backpacking in the Grand Canyon with marathoners who, by the end of a 12 mile day, became complete wrecks. Their endurance was good for comparatively…
A rant about BMI
by tmangan • January 30, 2006 • 0 Comments
Joe Miller of the Raleigh News and Observer has been chronicling his fitness activities of late. The other day he had this choice complaint: Yesterday, I had a story in the paper about 10 things you could do to lead…
Shape up for that Big Hike
by tmangan • January 11, 2006 • 0 Comments
Backpacker magazine has three workout regimens for three kinds of hikes: a killer day hike, a weeklong trek and a mountain ascent. I suppose if you were into maximum efficiency you’d just train for the mountain ascent and you’d have…
Snowshoeing: Nothing to it
by tmangan • January 7, 2006 • 0 Comments
Businessweek has a quick guide to snowshoeing with enough expensive name brands to drive the GoBlog guys up a wall (which is what they like to do, as long as ropes are involved). This sentence struck me: Atlas’ spring-loaded snowshoes…