Mt. Whitney Hiking 2016 Report (5) ~ Data analysis Day 2 Descending

Trail Camp from the switchback

Not enough training for descending!

   This is descending data from Trail Camp to Whitney Portal on the day 2. 

 Walking speed in 2016

Average heart rate in 2016

   This result is similar as descending from the summit to Trail Camp. 

 Walking speed in 2015

Average heart rate in 2015

   Due to the muscle strength for descending was not good enough due to a lack of training, I was not able to walk as fast as the last year.   Then I had to slow down the walking pace.  So overall trend is very similar, but actual value for the speed and the heart rate in 2016 is lower than 2015.   The total time is about 30 minute difference between this year and the last year.

	Time (H:MM)		Average Heart Rate (BPM)
	2015	2016	2015	2016
Trail Camp	---	---	123	130
Outpost Camp	1:24	1:33	130	131
Lone Pine Lake	0:24	0:29	127	124
North fork junction	0:47	0:57	132	127
Whitney Portal	0:16	0:20	133	130
Total	2:51	3:19	129 (average)	128 (average)

Some options

   Training for descending is different from training to improve LT (Lactic Threshold).   The priority is clearly to improve LT.  Since this will be a big impact to improve ascending pace and minimize the impact of high altitude sickness.   For this purpose, some training in a gym would be helpful.  However the training for descending might need to run or actual descending on the trail with some load.  Thus, it might not be very easy to do if people are busy in weekdays.

   Then the other option is just slowing down the descending pace.  It will help to reduce the stress to leg.   Obviously, I could not keep a similar pace as last year.  However once I was slowing down, I did not feel any problem and only difference between this year and the last year was 30 minutes.  This impact is very small over all hiking.  One the other hand, ascending would be more impact if we did not do aerobic training to improve LT.

   My case was a kind of a special case, because I had stress fracture on my leg and I could not run for a long time.  Actually, I tried to avoid any impact to my leg during the training.   However “impact” is what we get in descending.   Therefore, my muscle was getting weaker.   As long as people can run, I think it helps to train the muscle for descending.   But this is very interesting data, what we need to train for hiking.

Summary

   This year, total walking time for 2 days was about 15 hours +.   The first day is tough, but it was only 5 hours+ walking time and it was not too bad.  However the second day was about 10 hours.  It was still good plan for this hiking.  However, I started at 4am for the summit attempt and came back to the trail head around 2pm.   Then I took 6 hours driving back.   With my fitness situation, it was still not too bad.  However, more reasonable plan, I would think 2 nights in the trail would be much easy plan for many people.   Especially, this case I did not have enough training for descending, therefore, I felt it was a little tougher than the other years since the majority is descending on the second day.  One the other hand, ascending with heart rate base pacing did great help even if my condition was not very good.   I did not feel exhausted, it was reasonably easy.  

   The key is really having a reasonable training in advance to improve LT and understand a good heart rate to manage the walking pace.   For descending, if you feel you got tired, just slow down the walking pace and it will help to minimize the impact to your leg.  Overall time for descending would not much impact comparing ascending.