[at-l] Your health on your hike: staying out of the myth

[sloetoe at yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

--- Jim and/or Ginny Owen <spiriteagle99@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hmmm - this just got to be FUN
### Hmmm, I might try "twisted" maybe. "Sad" works. 

> Did you use any of those [food items], Toey?
### You bet your ass, Jim. I "ate like a king" remember? In the
post you last parsed-without-reading, I mentioned Carnation
Instant Breakfast and SlimFast. As sugar/fiber go, pretty heavy,
but a buttload of nutrition. That's what puts the permanent
weight on my kids (muscle, Jim, not fat). Also, I had a can of
meat on my AT hike every day, along with 1/2 pound of gorp a
day.

> Or were you workin' on that - what? 19 year-old body?  And now
you want to project that performance onto what is, in some
cases, 50 or 60 year-old bodies?  Really?   <G>
### If you knew anything about physical performance, Jim, you'd
be on better ground. Here's a word for you: "metabolism"; your's
is slowing right now. Mine's greater. My kids are like little
chipmunks, hyperdrive calorie time. Try keeping that fed and
warm and then oowwwwww, trying growing some on it. While hiking
up bigguntall mountains. You're smarter than this.

> Keep in mind that you haven't gotten to the 60 year-old body
> yet - you have  some surprises comin'.
### Oh bullshit, Jim. Sheeesh. Go train (just *train*) for one
ultra, like I tol' ya last time, blah blah blah). 

> > Ask Mr. Mags which throughhike took more out of him, "in"
shape or not. Try six ultra-marathons in 8 weeks, ... Try
> >20+ miles per day for a year ...followed by a calender year
Triple Crown hike ...like Brian Robinson. 

> Yep - and you just labelled yourself as "NOT an average-bear
> thruhiker," didn't you?
### Not at all. I labeled myself an ordinairy person doing
extraordiary things. And if you let prospective throughhikers do
that too, and let them train for their hike, and let them focus
on maintaining nutrition and hydration when they hike, then the
rest of the ordinairy citizens can hike a boatload more
comfortably and increase their enjoyment and prospects of a
finish.

> If you're gonna talk about thruhiking, then talk thruhiking -
> not ultras.
### Would that you had a clue. Go *do* an ultra, Jim, rather
than prattling off about things you can't see. You see, you've
already put in *exactly* the kind of effort needed -- Mags
already told you, but you've got to have the Transmit button in
the off mode. 
Here's a clue: try just once to send one of your tirades without
tripling the size of the post you started with.

> In fact, the "in" shape part is mostly irelevant as well - it
> applies to the first month or so on the trail.
### Ohhhhh, you mean the toughest month? Check.

> After that, those who are still hiking show little difference
in performance regardless of what physical condition they were
in before starting.
### I here *all* the 4:00 minute milers are saying that this
season. Engineer. You want a grant or do you think you can
figure out why on your own?

> Hmm - you might want to pay more attention, too - I understand
> that Brian Robinson just went through reconstructive knee
surgery. That's reality, too.
### Oh, crap, Jim. Cut it out will ya? Four months ago Brian
missed the John Muir Trail record by 9 hours after getting
horrendously cold and lost. There's a great write up on the web.
Google it. (So not only did he put in a GREAT performance, but
-- no accident -- he had to endure the (hellooooo?) *training*
beforehand.) Come on, Jim. This is way below you. (On the other
hand, Flyin' Brian deserves a little credit, too, for you insult
him as well.) BTW, the record on the PCT is held by (I think)
Peter Bakwin and Buzz Burrell -- two of the toughest
throughhikinest ultra-runningest hombres walking the little blue
dot.

> Getting off the trail in New Hampshire because you're "tired"
is a head problem aggravated by self-starvation and vitamin
deficiencies.
### "Self?" Wot's zat, Guvnuh? "Self?" You mean it's *not*
"reality" but a CHOICE? Whoaaaaa, what a concept.

### I'm glad we had this talk.

### Whoops! Here you go again....
> Yep - and the problem we started talking about is that most
> thruhikers DO NOT eat well on the Trail.  And that they DO
continue hiking even when injured - which is a point you've
ignored in your rush to prove that everyone should finish the
Trail happy, uninjured and in peak physical condition.
### "Rush"? You paint all as idiot-savant-automatons, including
your own allegedly broken down butt; you ignore that we all have
a CHOICE in the manner: Hmmmm carry the right bag, put on a
parka in the rain, change my socks before they have to be cut
off --- but somehow I don't have the CHOICE, as a RESPONSIBLE
ADULT, engaging in a VOLUNTARY activity for FUN and GROWTH, to
take care of myself ...... shit.

> >I started out with  the intention of buying all my food along
> >the way. When my parents started sending me Care
> >Packages, I raved and they sent more and more and  more. I
> >spent less time in town (and spent less money there and less
> >on food) as I went north.
> So - you ate better, not by your own plan or design, but
> because of your parents. ... Most of us have to plan for
ourselves
### Ah, no Jim. First, I only had drops where the guidebooks
ended. (This was back in the stone age.) Second, my parents had
no clue as to what they were doing. Go find my recent tale about
leaving Front Royal with a pack full of canned meat and hopping
the barbwire fence to get away from the ticks painted all over
my body from the nipples on down.

> - and most of us aren't  willing to carry the pack weight that
I strongly suspect you were carrying.
### Can't win, eh Jim? Smart hikers starve in the JimO trail,
and suffer in silence -- stoic, noble, limping. But their packs
are light! Idiot hikers carry sufficient food. ("OHHhhhhhh.") My
base weight was ~16 pounds at Pearisburg. I left North Woodstock
carrying my cotton duck pants and fiber pile, along with enough
food to get me to Gorham, and thought I was gonna die. Probably
about 30#. I did 20s through the Whites -- as much as to clear
out of AMC territory as to have fun loving a trail.
> So tell us - what was your pack weight?
### And whatever your point, it's lame.

> >When I hit my old home state of Connecticut, I took five days
> >off and planned out the rest of my hike. I averaged my
> >hiking-day mileage, projected that to Mt. K, and bought and
> >packaged and mailed everything  off for $150 in 1979, (about
> >800 miles' worth?).
> Smart - but once again - not relatable to what 99% of
> thruhikers can or will do - both because of your home location
- and because of the time off-trail.
### Bullshit. I took 5 days off to play at a 3 day party (held
*at* my house) and *then* did my work -- and in the same manner
I do it now, on a picnic table in front of the Long Trail Inn,
in a Gifford Woods leanto, at a Kancamagus picnic table,
planning for 9 hiker/weeks at a time. It's automatic, no
different than what any throughhiker does -- *regardless* of
what they're eating or for how long they're carrying.
(OK: Here's a message, Jim. You're clueless in thinking you're
the only one with a clue. Just for example do you know how many
times, in the MONTHS the boys and I have been hiking, that we've
spent the night in a ROOM? Once. A thousand miles one way drive,
hiking for weeks at a time, for years in a row. And this is
something throughhikers can't do? You think I don't know? You
think you're the only one that does? ["Ding!' Light dawns.]
"Ahhhhhhhhh."

>   And it bears no relation whatever to what either you or
> anyone else does/did with the first half - two thirds of the
trail.
### so WHAT?!?!? How LAME!!! What was that word we used above?
"Choice"? Try it sometime! CHOOOOOSE to hike a better hike, Jim
-- it'll do WONDERS for you disposition.

> >I ate better than the whole of the previous trip, I was never
> > hungry and was always psyched. AND I was cheap, cheap,
cheap.
>As for being psyched - if a thruhiker isn't psyched at that
>point, they go home.  There's nothing special about that part
of the story.
### You missed it again, rocket scientist; that *is* the story.
Train, take care of your body, your food and water, and watch
your chances of a finish, and your enjoyment along the way,
soar.

AND SO WE'RE BACK TO THE BOTTOM LINE:
> >Anyone has the right to have a bad hike, Melissa. I am *way*
too much of a wimp to suffer long or silently. Hike, eat a
boatload (maybe favor carbohydrates early on if your
conditioning is down, or crank up your "machine" to where it
burns fat more efficiently), mind your nutrition (a multivitamin
is light, but I go the Carnation Instant Breakfast/SlimFast
powder route), drink to keep your pee clear, stay away ibuprofen
as a "habit" (hard/easy days just like your 'thon running
should've taught you), and run and climb stairs (both
directions) before you go.

sloetoe

=====
Spatior! Nitor! Nitor! Tempero!
   Pro Pondera Et Meliora.

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