Bad News Blisters

I hope you haven't missed my pithy commentary too much over the past few weeks. Family and other obligations have kept me pretty busy during the times I usually write the blog. My goal is to always put up one entry every week, but I won't always succeed at that.  

Today I want to talk about that dreaded malady of hikers and runners everywhere: blisters. As you may remember from an earlier post, I developed a blister on my right heel during my trip to Utah with friends. Up until that point, I hadn't had a blister in several years. During the trip I wore a relatively new pair of trail runners, which up to that point, had not caused me any blister problems. But a powerful combination of sand and water combined to weaken my skin in that area and plague me with the dreaded affliction.  

Fast forward to now and I'm still suffering from a recurring blister in that same  spot. It usually shows up during when I'm hiking, but it also has more recently been popping up when I do some of my running--particularly during trail runs when running uphill forces more contact between my heel and the shoe. It's mostly showing up with those same trail runners, but now I also have to careful in my running shoes due to fact that the area is just not very tough since I seem to keep aggravating it.   

I've tried taping the area before hiking or trail-running to limited success. Sometimes it works, more often lately it doesn't. I've had to stop using my trail runners to run and I will probably need to figure out something to do for hiking--or at least stop hiking for awhile if I want to give the skin a chance to heal fully. Since I’m training to run the Cutthroat Classic in August, it's difficult to stop running for a few weeks as it will interrupt my training regimen, and besides it's not really the running shoes that's causing the problem. If this keeps up, I may end up hiking and doing my trail runs in my road running shoes!  

Hopefully you have not been dealing with blisters as you've been increasing your hiking this season, but if you have, here's a link to a good article on the Internet about dealing with blisters both proactively and retroactively. One thing I would add is to work with some lacing techniques if your heel is slipping (see this YouTube video for a really great demo of the technique). You can also use your laces to in a similar fashion to tighten or loosen other areas if you find they are rubbing in bad ways. If you need more help, go to an outdoor store and get an experienced staff member to help you with some different techniques.  

One thing I don't like about my trail runners is that they don't have conventional laces; rather they come with a "quicklace" system which while making it easy to tighten the laces and keep them tight, doesn't allow for customizing the lace fit in different areas of the foot. If I tighten the laces enough to keep my heel stabilized, I also tighten them equally around the sides of my feet--which is too tight for my comfort. So I may be in the market for a new pair of trail runners--this one with good old fashioned laces! 

Of course, this advice comes with the admonition that you must deal with the hotspots that are the telltale signs of blisters-in-the-making as soon as you start feeling them. Blisters don't get better if you ignore them--they get worse. And you're not slowing the group down by dealing with them in their infancy--you're taking care of yourself so that you can continue to enjoy the trip and not injure yourself. Happy feet make for happy hikers! 

Hope to see you on the trail soon--without blisters, of course!

Nutrition--Revisited

My blog from last week on nutrition had a couple of good effects: (1) it generated quite a bit of discussion on the Facebook page and (2) some of the comments posted on it got me thinking about my hiking food and how well the mix of what I eat is working for me. 

I learned about day-hiking nutrition back when I started hiking in 2000. At that time, the suggested food composition for day hiking was 60/20/20 (60% carbs, 20% protein, 20% fat). Since adopting those guidelines and discovering foods that worked for me and were tasty, I must admit that I really haven't put much thought into what I eat when I hike--or even how well I was conforming to my adopted guidelines. I feel generally energetic when I hike, so why mess with that?  

Well after last week's discussion I really started thinking about how much of my day hiking diet is fueled by junk food (quite a bit). One person also pointed out that I wasn't even conforming to my own guidelines when it came to the amount of protein I was consuming (less than 20%). I'm also really not sure if given the current state of research, if the 60/20/20 mix is still the recommended mix of nutrients or if there is some better thinking out there. There's been a lot written in the past few years on the increasing importance of both proteins and fats in the diet, as well as a larger focus on the "quality" of carbohydrates in that there's a difference between the type of carbohydrates and how quickly they're converted by the body into useable energy. 

So I've set a new assignment for myself--delve into recent nutrition advice written specifically for hikers and see if the 60/20/20 advice has changed given recent findings. I'm starting my education by reading The Outdoor Athlete written by Courtenay Schurman--a Mountaineers member and owner of the wilderness sports coaching company, Body Results (http://www.bodyresults.com). I'll report back to you what I learn, but feel free to obtain your own copy of the book (or another one that you find helpful) and learn along with me. 

I'm also going to work on bolstering the amount of protein in my hiking fare so I'm at least consistent with the 60/20/20 guideline and also work on replacing some of junk food I bring along with more nutritious items. You may still catch me with a bag of Cheetos in my lunch, but it'll hopefully be a smaller portion of the total calories of my lunch. After a few months with my updated hiking fare, I'll report back and let you know how I'm feeling while I'm hiking. 

Stay tuned!

What Are You Eating?

I don't know if any of you caught the really nasty cold that seemed to hit in April just as spring returned, but I was nailed by two different versions of it. It seems like I've been recovering from having a cold for a month! I'm mostly better now with the exception of a really chesty cough that seems to hit me mostly after I'm done exercising or when I lie down to sleep at night. It's very annoying and just seems to hang around forever. I have still managed to get out do some running training and do a few hikes, but I don't really feel on top of my game. My energy level is lower than usual and I'm more tired after my long runs than I should be. 

While you can't always control your energy levels due to health issues, another thing that dramatically affects your energy level is the food you consume both before and during the hikes.   

As we get closer to our June hikes, you’ll notice that the hikes will be getting a little bit more difficult, including more distance and gain. I encourage you to take a look at the food that you bring along with you and make sure that it’s adequate for your needs on the trip. All groups will be in the 8 mile range which means that you need to not only need to bring a filling lunch, but you also need to bring snacks to have along the way. Make sure that the food you are bringing along is around 60% carbohydrate, 20% fat and 20% protein. Your snacks particularly need to be mostly carbohydrate as that will provide you with quick energy as you hike. Make sure your snacks are accessible without taking off your pack, so you can snack as soon as you feel the need.  

After you get back from a hike, assess how you felt during the hike. Did you feel generally energetic and able to tackle the challenges of the trail, or did you feel listless and lack energy? While some of this can be attributed to physical conditioning, it can also be affected by what you eat and when you eat it. Don't wait to eat food until you're hungry or feeling your blood sugar plummet. Be proactive and have a small snack every hour or so--more often as your energy output increases during the season. 

And be sure to have a good breakfast before you head off in the morning to meet your group; or if it’s too early for you to feel like eating, bring something with you to snack on during the car trip. Don’t start a hike feeling hungry, you’ll already be low on energy if you do and will have a hard time getting into your hiking pace and then you’ll be playing food catch-up all day—not a great place to be in energy-wise. My favorite breakfast foods are homemade smoothie, (banana, other fruit, yogurt, water or watered-down juice, and a scoop of whey protein  powder) and oatmeal (nicely beefed up with a bit of brown sugar and whole milk). Both are fairly easy to take along with you and eat in the car if you can figure out a way to keep the oatmeal warm until you can eat it.  

Happy hiking (and eating)! 

Getting in Some Hill Work

On Saturday, Matt and I met up with a couple of CHS hiking friends and hiked Umtanum Ridge. We met up at the Preston P&R and imagine our surprise when we encountered two other groups of CHS hikers rendezvousing for their hike also! It was nice to see seasoned and new CHSers heading off for a fun hike on a beautiful day! 

I'd never been to the Umtanum area before and had heard that the flower displays this time of year are pretty spectacular. It did not disappoint--my favorite lupine was in abundance everywhere and smelled wonderful! It was also a nice day and the views were pretty spectacular from the ridge as well. If you haven't done this trail before, it should be on your early season list. But one thing I should warn you about is the steepness of the hike. The last quarter mile of the hike up to the ridge is incredibly steep and knowing how to do the rest step is important. It's also extremely helpful if you have seasoned yourself on a few hills first too. 

There are a few ways to prepare for hiking up hills that you can do around town in a short period of time. If you work in or near a building with several flights of stairs you can walk up and down the stairs with or without weight. It works even better if you can turn it into an interval or Fartlek training session by walking fast or running up the stairs for 30-60 seconds and then walking down the stairs for double that time.  Repeat that 10-15 times each. Throw in a warm up and cool down period and you've got a quick workout that will prime you for hiking hills. 

Another way to practice hills is to find a good hill or series of hills in your neighborhood and walk or run up and down them for 45-60 minutes at least once a week. You can also make this into an interval as well. If you live on the eastside near the Tolt Pipeline trail, this is an awesome place to do that. But Seattle is full of good hills so I'm sure you can find something that will work. Throw on a pack with 10-15 lbs of weight to add a little challenge and up the weight occasionally to increase the workout once you've gotten used to previous weight.  

Doing this type of training at least once a week will really help you motor up the hills on your hikes a lot faster and with less exertion. Even the really steep ones will seem easier!

Getting Social

Last weekend I participated in the Mt Si Relay Race with Steve Payne and three other CHS graduates. We ran a 59 mile course and each participant ran two legs out of ten total legs. The legs varied in length and elevation gain/loss. We had a great time despite intermittent rain showers throughout the day.  

We got our results a few days later and while we weren't competitive we did pretty well. Aside from the running, the best part of the day for me was spent catching up with the other runners; I hadn't seen a couple of the people in a few years and we had some catching up to do.  

I'm not a real social person. As an introvert I suck at making small talk and I love to spend time alone, but I find I really enjoy spending time talking with fellow runners and hikers. The time just seems to fly when I'm running down the road or hiking up a trail with others. Sharing an activity together, it's easy to find things to talk about whether it's the scenery, the weather, how we're feeling, or some other topic that pops up.  Steep switchbacks don't seem so bad when I've got something interesting to talk about. Plus it makes me moderate my pace a bit so I'm not hiking up the hill too fast and huffing and puffing. 

Even if you're not the most social person in the world, I hope that as the summer progresses you will also enjoy hiking and talking with other folks who share your hiking interest. So here's a challenge I'm issuing to everyone reading this: Try to talk to everyone on your hike for at least a few minutes. You might find that you have something in common. At the very least, you'll get to know a little bit more about your fellow hikers. 

I Confess My Lack of Personal Responsibility in Utah

In this email I'm going to admit to violating a basic tenet of the CHS Way on my trip to Utah and in retrospect I feel like a total heel for doing it. The overarching tenet is "We bring personal responsibility to the group." I am admitting here and now to what I did on the Utah trip in the hopes that others might learn from it. I admit to: treating my hike leader (in this case my friend who was organizing the trip) as a tour guide whose personal mission was to make sure I had a good time. There, I've said it! 

How did I do this? By not finding out a single scrap of information about our hikes or our backpack trip beforehand. Heck I didn't even  buy a damn map of the area or look at a single hiking book that described the trips even when I had them sitting in front of me! Instead I followed my friend around like a sheep expecting her to tell me all about the trips and what challenges I might expect. As you might remember from my last posting--this plan turned out kindly of poorly for my feet. It also meant that we when we got the trailhead for our backpack trip, I didn't have a friggin' clue as to which direction our trail was supposed to go from the trailhead. If you haven't hiked in the desert before, I can tell you that washes sometime look like trails and the terrain all looks a lot alike. 

So needless to say, we headed off in the wrong direction and spent about an hour trying to figure out what we were doing. I wasn't any help in the trail navigation because I was the only one in the group that hadn't read any trail beta. When we finally got back to where our car was parked to regroup, I was feeling pretty sheepish and admitted to my friend that I was guilty of treating her as my tour guide and resolved to behave differently. I still didn't have a damn map of the area, but I did pay attention the route for the rest of the trip and made sure we were on a trail on our travels through the desert. 

Oh sure I have lots of great excuses as to why I behaved this way--I was really busy at work before the trip and had been dealing with a lot of stress beforehand, blah, blah, blah. But none of it counts for a hill of beans. I should have been more prepared. I should've bought a map of the areas we were going to beforehand and I should've read the trail descriptions so I could provide meaningful input to the group's decisions on where to go. 

So this is my advice to you: be an active participant on all of your hikes. Don't be guilty of treating a hike leader or a friend (if you're going on a private trip) as a tour guide, expecting them to know everything about the trail and destination. Bring a map and read up on the trail before you go so that you can provide meaningful input on navigation or route finding should the need arise. Plus it's just really nice to know about where you're going should adverse circumstances arise (I'm sure you would never plan to get lost would you?).  

So be sure to bring this up next time you're with me on a hike. I deserve it. But I won't be behaving that way again in the future, you can count on it.

Anticipating conditions

I've been out of town for awhile, going on a hiking and backpacking trip in Utah with some CHS girl friends. We had a great time and saw some pretty amazing sights. And I spent some of my time doing some research for a return trip with Matt. And of course, I had a few experiences which should provide some good subject matter for this blog. I'll relate them over the next couple of weeks.  

I like to think of myself as pretty experienced hiker and backpacker. I try to anticipate things that can go wrong and mitigate them in advance. For this trip, we were going to be spending some time walking through water and sand, so I bought a pair of non-Gortex trail runners to wear for the trip. The idea was that they would easily rid themselves of water and dry out quicker--especially in all of that dry desert air. I made sure to break them in on several outings in the weeks prior to the trip. Plus a also brought along a pair of lightweight shoes I could wear to cross the rivers in. The idea being that I would change into these when we crossed the river, then would change back into my trail runners for the hiking part.  

On our first hike trip, we crossed the Escalante River about ten times going to and from a place called the Golden Cathedral. It was an awesome place to visit--well worth the trip. However we ended up crossing the river so many times that I abandoned my idea to change back into my trail runners and instead opted to keep on my water shoes for the multiple crossings there and back. I also discovered that not only does water get into your shoes, but sand as well, creating a wet gritty environment around my feet. Once I put my trail runners back on, I also discovered that sand got into my shoes pretty easily--creating a nice gritty environment.  

It was this way for five days in a row as we day-hiked two days and then went on a backpack trip into Coyote Gulch for two nights. On our second day, guess what I developed between my big toe and the next toe on my left foot? You guessed it, a big, raw blister. Water weakens the skin's toughness and the grit worked away on the tender skin between my toes. There was really nothing I could do but grin and bear it if I wanted to go out on the trips. Taping it helped somewhat, but the wet environment would eventually destroy the adhesion of the bandage and then the lovely sand would come on it to scour it out some more.  

The only real solution was to stop hiking, so after our backpack trip, I decided that I shouldn't do any more hiking and just wear flip flops so the blister could start to heal. At that point we were  heading to Capitol Reef National Park. I made the most of though, dropping my friends off at a trailhead and then checking out some cool sites I could drive to. Later I picked my friends up at a different trailhead. I also got a lot of reading done and basically enjoyed some time by myself--which I enjoy greatly. 

What did I learn? It probably would have been better to either wear some sort of water socks that would keep the grit out from around my feet. Or I should have been a little better about getting the sand out of my shoes each and every time I emerged from the water. Proactive taping before the river crossings might have been helpful too.  

Moral of the story--make sure you understand all of the conditions involved in your trip and how it might affect you. I was a bit lazy on this part--not quite catching on to the fact that we would not only be crossing water, but dealing with a lot of sand as well. The friend who planned the trip mentioned this beforehand, but I kind of forgot about it or didn't think it was important. Now I know better! 

How do you apply this on your CHS trips? The Ten Essentials provide you with a good start--making sure that you have items with you to help with both warm and sunny or cold and wet conditions. But think about other things that you can bring to improve your experience and mitigate unpleasant conditions. Would an umbrella keep the rain or sun off of you? Would some extra water or food make your day better? How about an extra pair of dry socks or shirt to change into at lunch? Would some chemical hand warmers make that cold, wet day a little better? Think about these things as you pack for your day hikes. 

Hope to see you on the trail soon!