We're at the end of the first month of training, though in reality we're a week short because of New Year celebrations… but it feels like we're on target, nonetheless.

To be successful, or even do-able, the daily walks need to be local, with enough variety to allow some variations through the week, but above all to be enjoyable (otherwise you just get sick of doing them); we probably default too often to our Lawson Loop, but if we do it on the weekend we generally stop for a great coffee at the shops.

Training does way more than improve your fitness. Actually, I think it does very little for your fitness; but it does do a lot to get you into good walking habits, gets your muscles and joints used to the extremes of movement, gets your eye-foot co-ordination tuned up, and gets the habitual use of your gear ingrained into your subconscious. Simple things like getting your Aarn Waterwizard on and off seems to be a skill quickly lost in between hikes, but it's an essential skill if you want to stay dry in a surprise rain event.

All the tweaking of your gear as you walk, opening the pit-zips, venting your gaiters, getting wet weather gear on, venting wet weather gear when you get warm, etc, etc, needs to become habitual… well, it doesn't really, but it does make the first weeks of the hike more enjoyable and efficient if they are.

Multi-Day hikes are essential for gear assessment and trimming. Getting into good habits with the setting up of the tent and then pulling it down again, packing up camp efficiently, cooking dinner, cleaning up after dinner, etc… I've always wondered if these become muscle memories / habits, as when you're on the track you often do them subconsciously, and often I'll ask Sandi after an hour of walking, if I did such-and-such as I have no memory of doing it that morning.

Our Classification of Training Walks

• Short ¼ Day walks: from ½ to 2 hours – often squeezed in at the end of the day.
• Medium ½ Day walks: ˜4 hours in length, either before or after lunch; mostly on a weekend.
• Full Day walk: Anything longer than 4 hours and requiring a lunch break; always on a weekend.
• Multi-Day walk: Overnight and requiring camping; we'll need to slot some of these in for testing our new gear.

The aim for these first weeks was to get over the initial hump, or get some momentum going, get the pack weight up to a reasonable level… after which we can hopefully coast more for a couple of months into the more serious last months of training, where we can increase the length and number of walks.

I'm hopeful that we should fit in one walk each week day (that'll be in the evening) and a couple of longer / harder ones on the weekend. January included Australia Day holiday, so we used that to walk out to Ruined Castle (a pretty hefty day walk in the end).

Training Walks

Walk	Type	Count	Length (km)	Ascent (m)	Descent (m)	Duration (h:m)
Lawson Loop	¼ Day	5	4.015	97	97	0:41
Turtle Rock Loop	¼ Day	2	3.240	153	153	0:51
Furber Steps - Giants Stairs Loop	¼ Day	2	6.226	375	374	1:44
Turtle Rock Figure 8	¼ Day	1	7.287	347	347	1:55
Mt Hay - Butterbox Point Loop	½ Day	1	5.192	238	237	1:35
Overcliff-Undercliff Shortcut Loop	¼ Day	1	4.210	170	168	1:05
Fern Bower - Dardanelles Pass - Ruined Castle Return	Full Day	1	18.365	2,113	2,126	8:11
Empire Pass - Echo Bluff Loop	¼ Day	1	6.897	285	281	1:59

Walks per Week

The aim is to eventually get to around the same weekly values as what we'll be actually doing on the walk, for comparison our first week's totals are (see the full weekly itinerary):

Hours	Length (km)	Max kg	Ascend (m)	Descend (m)
49	136	17.69	2,425	2,314

The first week of the Heysen is probably the most critical, as our track fitness will be kicking in after that (Sandi generally laughs when I say things like that…). Also, it will be near impossible to clock up that number of kilometres, as we don't have all that free time just for training. But it will be interesting to see how close we get. The most important targets, in my mind, is the weight and the ascent & descent: If we can get close to those averages I'll feel a little more comfortable.