172 pounds and out of shape
I started working for Apple in Mar 2013. That fact, combined with a race against time to save a downpayment, made my first 2 years there pretty stressful. Needless to say that, I stopped taking care of myself, instead preferring the relaxation of gaming or watching movies when I got back home. I was close to the worst-shape of my life, but not quite there. I have been worse. I had reached 180 pounds sometime in 2011. |
| Me on the right, nice and porky! Jan 30, 2015 |
After having bought the house in Jan 2015, I became a lot more relaxed about long term career objectives. And I thought to myself, that this is a good time to get back into a healthier routine. So I started doing a little bit more. I weighed about 172-175 pounds at that time. I would find opportunities to walk whenever possible. The apple health app helped me keep track of my rising activity level.
But this was not nearly enough. When Tina went on her vacation, I bought a bike and put in some early morning miles on it. I rode more or less exclusively on the coyote creek trail. The trail is more or less flat, though it keeps undulating over small humps and hills.
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| Biking Weekly Mileage and Calendar |
I enjoyed the calm of riding in the morning, with very few other people on the trail. My initial rides were north towards downtown, but I later started riding south to Morgan Hill. The ride north ran through too much urban backyards and also ran through a homeless camp. The ride south was more isolated and ran through farms. Typically I would start at around 7- 7:30 and the ride out was tough with strong headwinds and the ride back was a lot faster. On the 22 miler rides my fastest was ~14.6 mph.
Around this time, Rahul suggested that we attempt Shasta, I was quite concerned about my fitness level because he wanted to attempt it in 6 weeks. I suppose, in breaking with my tradition of "being ready before you try", I agreed to the timeline. Its not everyday we feel enthusiastic about climbing mountains.
I have always wanted to climb something of note. I am sure my fear of heights will be a big factor.
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| Coyote Creek Trail near Morgan Hill. |
Coming back to my cycling, when I started doing my cardio workouts, I realized that biking the way I was, was not pushing my cardio-threshold. So I stopped biking and started doing fitness blender.
Practice Hikes:
At the same time as I was biking, I started doing hikes with Rahul, Ashwin and Nitish in preparation for Shasta. We did the following trails. All of them were 10+ or about 10 miles and over time we started adding weights to our hikes. I was at 30-40 pounds for the later hikes. We hiked three trails. In all, I did seven hikes over as many weeks.
- Alambique trail in Wunderlich Park, Woodside
- PGE trail in rancho San Antonio
- Kennedy Trail in Sierra Azul Wilderness, Los Gatos.
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| The whole of south bay visible from Kennedy Trail. |
Final Preparation
We are now 8 days out to our Shasta Hike. I have started doing stair climbs at work. I try to do them 4-6 times a day. I climb 8 floors in as little time as possible The fastest I have gotten so far is 55 seconds. As of three days ago, I have stopped drinking alcohol and coffee. I am drinking much more water than I would other wise. For the last few days, I am planning to focus on doing at least 5 stair climbs in a day. Focus on cardio with 2 break days in a week.
Equipment List
We will be going up shasta with the help of a guide, since most of us have little to no experience backpacking. They have provided us a pretty exhaustive equipment list.
This is their website:
http://www.swsmtns.com/guided-shasta-clear-creek/
As of now, our equipment list is kind of drawing to a close. I will be renting sleeping bag/pad, trekking poles, and the two outermost layers. Bought some of my equipment, namely boots, Hiking pant, thermal inner wear, water bladder, socks, underwear, glove liners, wool cap and gaiters. I borrowed a fleece jacket, and ski gloves.
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