Mt. Whitney Hiking 2016 Report (3) ~ Data Analysis for Day1

Trail Camp June 2016

   I posted some data analysis for Mt. Whitney hiking in the past.  Now I have a new data for 2016 hiking.  I started analyzing the data.

Walking pace

   The pace was defined based on the heart rate as similar as the past hiking.  This year I set the maximum heart rate is somewhere around 150 ~155 bpm.  It is a little lower than the number I used last year.  This year my condition was not very good.   I felt some high altitude sickness symptom when I started walking from the trail head.  I also felt that my pace was somehow slower than the last year with a similar heart rate.   So it is a good example how the heart rate base pacing works.

Data for Day 1, Whitney Portal to Trail Camp

   Based on the data analysis for the past data, a section between Outpost camp and Trail Camp is one of key sections in Day 1.  Therefore, I started looking into the data for day 1.   Overall, I took 5 hours from Whitney Portal to Trail Camp this year.  As a reference data, I took 4 hours 24 minutes last year.  The difference is about 36 minutes.  As I felt, the heart rate at the start was higher than the last year even if the pace was actually slower.  This indicating my condition was not very well or my fitness situation could be worse because of injury early this year.  However, if I look at the average heart rate, I did well managed the heart rate compare with the last year.  I kept the heart rate below 150bpm.

	Time (H:MM)		Average Heart Rate (BPM)
	2015	2016	2015	2016
Whitney Portal
Lone Pine Lake	1:49	1:56	137	142
Outpost Camp	0:30	0:37	145	133
Trail Camp	2:05	2:26	152	137
Total	4:24	5:00

   Although my condition (fitness) was not very good, I did not feel I was really exhausted.   Of course, I was tried.   But this indicating that if I manage the pace with the heart rate, I can still optimize my walking pace which is not over pace.  Therefore, I did not really feel it was really hard hiking for me.   It was a reasonable.  Overall time was not too bad as well.   Five hours were not too bad time as well.

 

   Here is the more detail data for this year.  The elevation value is probably offsetting by about 300m somehow.   But the trend is very similar as the past data.  Walking pace is slowing down after Outpost camp, however, the average heart rate is pretty much constant this year.   It is clearly indicating the impact of altitude.  The overall time is a little slower than the last year, I think there are two reasons:

1.       My condition is not as good as last year

2.       Since I limit the maximum heart rate strictly this year, overall pace is also slowing down a little as well.

   As a reference, I also show the same data from 2015 hiking as well.