Jon Hinds Training blog:
As you might have seen on my training blogs I have been training for the "Snowman Trek". So I have been doing my best to prepare for this by putting myself in a ‘high’ altitude feel here in Madison, Wisconsin:) haha yes, very funny as Madison is about 30 feet above sea level. So what I have been doing is adding a weight vest to every workout I do and not only wearing it but tightly wearing it to make it even harder to breath. And you know what, I think it is working:) The times in my life I have been above 10,000 feet I remember what that felt like and this feels a lot like it. Of course it is a totally different story hiking up to 17,000 feet:) But we do our best!
So, some of my favorite "Snowman Trek" workouts have been the University of Wisconsin football stadium, 70 rows of bleachers up, over to the next row, then down, then over and repeat for one trip around the stadium. It is tough enough without wearing a tight weight vest, took me 24 minutes last time I did it, but it was brutal with the 25lb weight vest on Saturday. You might have guessed from my training that I go pretty hard and don’t like to lighten workouts out once I’ve started…it’s a mind thing. So when I did the stadium in 24 minutes last time, I ran to the top each time, jogged over and down and over and then ran up again. This time…NOT HAPPENING, I gave it my best but at about the 1/3 mark I was crashing:), so the better sense got to me and said just hike it like in the mountains anyways:) so I did and finished in 36:30. I felt like I was at 12,000 feet for sure, hard to breath, legs burning, lungs burning…GOOD TRAINING
I really liked how it felt for preparing me. So next I did the same workout in a big building in downtown Madison…okay, big for Madison… it ’s 14 floors with 10 foot ceilings each floor. One time to the top is 140 feet in elevation, not bad, add in the 25lb vest and now your talking a great workout again. I started out doing the same pace as I was doing at the stadium of skipping every other step, sort of a good hiking pace. Anyways by the time I get to the top I’m feeling it big time! Same high altitude feel, which is great!! One trip (up & down) took me just under 5:00 so I said I’m gonna do this 10 times in 45 minutes, so I have to keep this pace….and I did! What an awesome workout!! I know this is gonna prepare me as well as I can for the "Snowman Trek". The Building and the stadium steps (with the tight vest) are two great prep workouts that I highly recommend for anyone wanting that "high altitude" feel but in a low altitude terrain.
Stay tuned for more of my training and hope your training is going great too!!
Jon Hinds, Owner & Founder of the Monkey Bar Gymnasium
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