Question:Training programs say you should rest 3 days a week. This is walking, not
body building. What's wrong with walking 6 miles a day for 5 days and
walking in the hills for 10 miles on Saturday, resting on Sunday? 5 to 10 of
these miles can be power walking.
Answer:
The point of rest is to allow your body to recover, and that applies to
all fields of athletic endeavour - body building, swimming and yes,
walking. The idea is to stress your body through training, recover and
then train again. If your training is genuinely stressing your body
enough to get fitter through doing it, omitting the rest can lead to
over training and a worsening performance. Of course too much rest is
also a bad thing.
Now whether or not 6 miles walking is enough for you to need a rest day
afterwards depends on your initial state of fitness (and the 6 miles you
walk) - but there's a huge difference between walking 6 miles and 26
miles.
Personally I think you will get fitter, faster with training hard 3
times a week and getting decent rest in between than with gentle
training 6 days per week. Remember also that as you get fitter you will
need to make your training sessions more intense. It may also be
helpful to make some of the training sessions something other than
walking - so long as it's aerobic. Swimming will give your heart &
lungs an excellent work-out if you start having lower-limb joint
problems. Weight training can be aerobic, and so can circuit training
and (of course) cycling.
The point of rest is to allow your body to recover, and that applies to
all fields of athletic endeavour - body building, swimming and yes,
walking. The idea is to stress your body through training, recover and
then train again. If your training is genuinely stressing your body
enough to get fitter through doing it, omitting the rest can lead to
over training and a worsening performance. Of course too much rest is
also a bad thing.
Now whether or not 6 miles walking is enough for you to need a rest day
afterwards depends on your initial state of fitness (and the 6 miles you
walk) - but there's a huge difference between walking 6 miles and 26
miles.
I'm 54 years old and an avid hiker. I know that your post is right, and sometimes you just need
someone to set you in the right direction. So I am going to try this: Monday
4 easy miles or whatever my body wants to do. Tuesday 7 hard miles,
Wednesday 4 easy miles, Thursday hard 7 miles, Friday 4 easy miles and
Saturday is a longer moderate hike. Monday - Friday walks are split up so I
will walk 2 or 3 times a day because of my schedule. I never did a marathon
before and I want to do one when I'm 55 years old. This will be in October.
Any comments are always appreciated.
What you need to do depends on your initial level of fitness. For walking
(as opposed to running?) the distance of a marathon, the ability to just
keep going is what you need.
I'm 46, I haven't walked more than 15 miles in a day since my early 20s. I'm
overweight at 16 1/2 stone and 6 ft 1 in. Although I'm used to doing walks
of 12-15 miles, sometimes with a weekend camping rucsack and usually with
quite a bit of ascent/descent, these walks are not that frequent (once or
twice a month). I do tend to walk 3-4 miles a day just in the general course
of going to the shops etc.
Two weeks ago I did a 27 mile walk without much trouble or any additional
specific training. My only problems were a couple of blisters due to me
taking the wrong sock combination for the boots I was wearing and my feet
being a bit soft. I tend to dehydrate easily and I found that at around 18
miles I was somewhat dehydrated and my thigh muscles were starting to feel
tight. A 5 minute stop, some drink and a couple of biscuits cured that.
Some people suggest that topping up with carbohydrates is counter-productive
because once your glycogen stores are depleted, your body'll start to burn
fat efficiently. Personally, I find that I get significant thigh-tightening
if I don't have a few carbs on the trip.
