No Pain, No Gain

I've never been much of an athlete, and I definitely have had trouble staying motivated to maintain an exercise plan. So when we decided that we wanted to go to Nepal and do some hiking, I thought I should really do something to try to prepare myself for a few days of hiking in mountains at a significant higher altitude than I am used to. I've hiked in the Rockies and at Yosemite before, but I think this is going to be a little higher altitude and a little longer than anything I've done before.

So what's my plan? Well, three weeks ago I decided that the best exercise I could do to prepare myself would be going up and down stairs. Of course I also thought cardio exercise would be a good idea. After some thought and trial and error, I have settled on a training program to get me ready. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I will do a 5 min. warm-up and cool-down on our elliptical machine with training on the stairs in between. I started at going up and down the stairs for 10 min. the first week am adding 1 min. to that each week. Today I just finished 12 min. I also decided that since I will be carrying a backpack, I should also do that in my training. I have some 7.5 lb. disk weights, and on Mondays, I wear my backpack with 1 disk in it, Wednesdays, 2, and Fridays, 3. I also decided that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I would do cardio training, so I usually do the elliptical machine for between 20 and 30 min. On the weekends, I try to ride my bike or go for a long walk.

You may be saying to yourself that that doesn't sound too terrible. For the most part, you're right. I can do 30 min. on the elliptical machine without too much difficulty, but the stairs are pure torture. To give you an idea what I am doing, today I went up and down the stairs 48 times in 12 min. with 22.5 lbs. in my backpack. That's 624 stairs and 390 vertical feet up and down. The first 10 times aren't bad. The second 10, I start to feel it. The remaining 28 are gruelling.

Based on pictures of Nepal I have seen online, I think it will all be worth it. Only 7 more weeks to go. Please pray that I make it that long.