I personally need 8 to 9, but I'm sharper if I only sleep ~ 6 hours (and eventually crash and have to recuperate).
Really. Carrying a 20kg pack for eight hours over rough terrain is less strenuous than bike riding? Do this for over 500 miles? Ever done this before? Hike on foot with 20kg packs on consecutive days? Make camp, make food, rest, break camp. Everything on your back. This is a lot more strenuous than you think. Hands down racing on a bike is much easier ^physically^ than hiking on foot carrying weight over broken terrain over long distances.
Actually, this is probably true. 8 hours a day, averaging 18 miles per day for 486 miles over 29 days is not that much. I don't see where they say they had 20kg packs, which is quite high weight for a thru-hiker. (EDIT: See now where he says he had 40 pound pack, which is probably at heaviest point with full load of food, still high for thru-hiking and maybe a reason they logged less miles/day.) 18 miles/day is probably right around average for thru-hikers, who are mostly out for enjoyment and sense of accomplishment, not for speed. You have to be in decent shape, but it's not a high-intensity endeavor.
There is a fairly sizeable subset of thru-hikers who do go for speed, though. Many average well over 40 miles per day for several months and over 2000 miles. (They're definitely not carrying 40 pound packs.) They accomplish this mostly by hiking for longer hours each day, not by moving faster, since going faster breaks their bodies down. E.g., see this article:
http://www.adventuresnw.com/heather-anish-anderson-speed-que...
Altitude would stop a lot of people. How long to acclimatise living at sea level?
Have you done this?
It doesn't really make sense to compare that effort to a race of any kind, let alone a mountain bike race -- since the thru-hikers we're talking about were not doing it as a race. Of course their effort was done at a lower level of intensity. For some perspective, a fellow recently set the Colorado Trail record with a time of 9 days 12 hours, almost three times as fast as the thru-hikers in the article: http://johnzahorian.com/coloradotrailfkt
For anyone interested, here's a youtube video documenting the record effort. The guy is kind of a celebrity in hiking circles, in large part because of high-quality videos he makes of his adventures:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk6CrWJdRto
(Zahorian's effort set the "unsupported" record, which means he carried everything, including all his food, from the start, and didn't stop at any towns along the way to resupply. Most hikers carry only enough food for 3 to 5 days at a time, and resupply along the way -- understandable because it's much easier than carrying everything from the start.)
With a pack? I ask because running over this terrain is hard. Hats off hard. But with a pack, things are different. You don't move as fast. Thanks @hsitz for the video.
"Most hikers carry only enough food for 3 to 5 days at a time, and resupply along the way"
Unsupported. I did't see if the original was unsupported - can't imagine carrying 30 days food. Even the PR1M I've used is pretty heavy. [0] Possible but you'd strip out all but the useful food. With re-supplies, do they have access to water?
"lower level of intensity."
Totally agree with this. Still hard yards.
Reference
Yes, some people are overconfident. I would suggest that the main problem in the context of endurance activities, though, is that people tend to be underconfident. People never get started because they think they can't do it, or that it would be too hard for them. They hear about people doing something like a thru-hike and they think these people must be gifted, special, or athletic in some way that they aren't.
That thought is almost entirely misguided. Certainly everyone has different abilities. But the vast majority of people out there doing these things have fairly average physical abilities. (For perspective, 2,000+ mile thru-hikes have been completed by children under 10 and people over 80.) They do probably have more motivation and dedication than most people, which are by far bigger determinants of success in these kinds of endurance endeavors than physical ability. But part of getting this motivation and commitment hinges on believing that they have the physical ability to do it (and/or that they can build themselves into physical shape to do it). Hence my post.
BTW, this is pretty much borne out by the guy who wrote the original article we're talking about. He didn't claim to be in great physical shape or have special physical ability, saying:
"Before the hike, I was fit but not training for anything. I ran five miles a couple times a week, went mountain biking about once a week, and periodically lifted weights. Like most Americans, much of my day was spent in front of a computer. I was 35 years old, 5'9" tall, and 150 pounds, with a BMI of 22.2 and body fat composition of about 13 percent."
8 hrs & 18 miles/day is pretty slow and short day. This is a novice thru hiker pace, but I doubt they were trying to set any records--
8 hrs is nothing, once you have trail legs many thru hikers will basically walk the entire day. 3*15 = 45 miles per day give or take. In CO it will be slower generally as CO is not the easiest hiking, but still 18 miles/day is very chill pace.
The CT is also only 450 miles, so when they finished, they were just starting to get in shape really. On a longer trail is it generally considered that around 500 miles is where people start to observe really obvious improvements.
Yes on the many "hike all day" thing, but regarding mileage this is starting to shade off into hyperbole. E.g., when Scott Jurek set the (then) AT speed record in 2015, he averaged 49.2 miles/day, and that was with support (van carrying food, gear, and meeting him for sleeping spot each night, people helping with massage, etc.). And Jurek is (or once was) a world-class athlete.
Heather Anderson set the "unsupported" (she had nobody helping her carry anything and no help with camping or resupplies) AT record, also in 2015, and she averaged just 42 miles/day.
The speed records on PCT are a little faster in terms of miles/day, but not much. So I would not say that "many" thru-hikers are averaging "45 miles/day give or take", although I agree that 18 miles/day is pretty average. A lot of people may hit a 45 mile day somewhere along their hike, but it's exaggerating to suggest that more than a handful average anywhere near that over the entire hike.
We averaged 3.5. Carrying heavy packs, every day for a week. All it takes is practice, motivation and youth.
On the MTB I got more fatigued each day due to the pace we were riding at. This meant we were burning glycogen most of the time. When you run out of glycogen you really struggle to keep pace.
On the hike the pace is usually at a level that allows effecient fat burning. Finding palatable food that has a high enough energy density and protein content to weight is a challenge.
If we rode slower then I would have been less fatigued each day.
Both types of activity are tiring but in different ways. The biggest difference though will come from the pace you set.
Your body will definitely be stressed differently if it's spending a lot of time near (above/below) lactate threshold as might be the case in a long bike race.
In the cycling world that might be called power zone 4(ish).
You'll probably also have to throw in a number of VO2max efforts for small hills; zone 5.
In the case of hiking with a 20Kg pack, in a non-race situation, for 8 hours a day I would guess you'll mostly spend your time at a lower heart rate doing tempo work, which would mostly be zone 2.
This is somewhat similar to the long, slow, steady training winter bike training that was popular before current practices of interval based training became popular. It is designed to improve muscular mitochondrial density.
Another way to put it, if the through-hike had been a race against the clock the hiker might have been much more degraded by the end of the race because he wouldn't be able to pace himself the same way.
I'm not a qualified sports scientist so would very much appreciate someone with more knowledge than me clarifying or correcting anything I've written.
I've actually considered trying to hike the Colorado Trail unsupported - carrying everything I'll need from the start (except water) with NO resupplies until the end. My target time would be around 9 days. If you're trying to gauge how strenuous the types of effort I put forth when I go and do the things I do.
Anyways, 8 hours seems like an easy day on the trail for sure. 8 hours hike + 8 hours sleep leaves you 8 hours for $Other_Things. Might as well hike some more!
These are good points. The distance this bloke covered was 800km. Every day another 30km. That is hard.
So, a 9Day pace would be a new record if you went for it.
No. I think the OP was referring to road racing. One question, "do you carry the bikes uphill?"
It's asinine to get into this dick measuring contest, you shouldn't claim your sport is more hard-core than a sport you don't know. This mentality is why Lance Armstrong got his ass handed to him the first time he tried mountain bike racing because he thought it would be easy. And yes, there are race format where you carry bikes uphill: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclo-cross.
I've done 100- and 200-mile bike rides in one day, and foot races up to half marathon, and I'd absolutely consider those to be harder.
For one, the backpacking I could get up and do TOMORROW. The racing, not so much.
And the racing I could not do 2 days in a row. The backpacking I could do, again, tomorrow, for 2 weeks, without a doubt.
There's a great documentary about Transcontinental race from 2015 at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/transcontinental which is well worth watching. Seems to be behind a (cheap) paywall now but it's well worth it as an intro to how it's done.
It's absolutely mesmerizing to watch for regular crazy people (as opposed to the crazy crazy people who partake) and there is some great behind the scenes footage on youtube. These races are great to watch in real time because you can follow every GPS tracker and since each rider chooses their own directions it can get really exciting.
On the other hand, there are limits. Some of the scenarios discussed int this thread (distance races for time, SF training, etc.) are causing damage to your body that will require recovery time - and the longer you go for the more recovery you will need. Other levels of exertion seem extreme to us from the point of view of a mostly sedentary life, but if you manage the sleep and diet stuff (a bit better than a typical thru hiker does), you can handle medium-high level physical exertion (e.g. 8 hours hiking) basically indefinitely.
I've done multiple 1000km bicycle rides (with full gear) at a similar pace that, once you are settled in, feels a bit just like routine. On the other hand I've ridden distances on a single day or weekend that knocked me out for a week afterwards. It's all in the balance.
Agreed with other comments on here, the thru-hike is a totally different situation, and 8 hours a day hiking is half the time I was on a bike probably.
I'd love to do it again!
He's the strava activity https://www.strava.com/activities/341380125
I wish there was some perma-link from:
- HN comment threads about insomnia (lightbulb colors, screen brightness, silly apps)
- HN comment threads about light to moderate exercise
It's amazing how simple the answers to these problems are and how close at hand those answers are ...
Light issues are about melatonin, which is production-inhibited and rapidly destroyed in the presence of blue light. Increasing melatonin levels is the point of Flux and blue glasses and all the rest.
Exercise issues are about adenosine, which is produced over time and gradually with physical activity, and consumed during sleep. (It's also what caffeine inhibits.)
These aren't entirely interchangeable, so there's more to be gained from addressing whichever one is the largest personal issue. (Anecdotally, I have a suspicion that the feeling zombie-tired insomnia is about a bad mismatch from sedentary tiredness.)
I do think that people preferentially worry about light issues without trying exercise, though.
I would call my fitness before these races as "peak", but I wouldn't call myself anything but near, "onset of over training syndrome" afterwards. The only thing I experienced similar to the author's was a slight bit of fat loss. Every other part of my body was wrecked, which took months to recover from.
One thing that stuck out with me is that they only hiked for 8 hours/day. That seems like a light day! compared to these races, where 5 hours of sleep is spoiling oneself. I guess the moral of the story before doing a, "thru hike for fitness" is to not to overdo it. It also seems like the author was in pretty alright shape to start out, with a fairly low pulse and overall bodyweight.
[0] http://www.climbingdreams.net/ctr/ [1] http://longranger.justinsimoni.com/tour14er/ [2] http://tourdivide.org/