Training Week Ending 3/4/12: Hiker or Runner?

Week     Planned          Actual        Long   Long       Hiking       Time
Ends  Hours  Long  Hours Climb   Time  Climb  Time  Climb On Feet
  3/4    6:34    3:03    6:36    3380    3:30    2300    3:22    850    9:58

27-Feb run 0:37 380 2.5 ram park
28-Feb run 3:30 2300 4 142 southern harriman
29-Feb run 0:27 1 gym trd
1-Mar  run 0:49 400 1.5 ram park
1-Mar  hike 0:37 150 2 ram park
2-Mar  run 0:43 300 2.5 mohonk
2-Mar  hike 0:35 200 3 mohonk
3-Mar  run 0:30 4 gym HR lower ladder test
4-Mar  hike 2:10 500 3 stony brook

I wrote up Tuesday's long run on the blog as "Stony Brook to Pomona". I will only add here that I seemed to recover pretty well from that run, though I was very sluggish the next day and did the very minimum to get my legs moving. The only time I will do complete rest the day after a long run is when something is injured and not just a little sore. I recover better with some light activity, though usually no more than 30 minutes.

This week had me thinking more about hiking vs running. How does it change my approach to outdoor recreation that I consider myself primarily a runner? What if I considered myself more of a hiker who runs sometimes? It will probably be a natural transition to more hiking and less running as I get older anyway, but there is something more relaxed in the hiker's approach and attitude that I like and want to bring more to my running.

Both Thursday and Friday I did mixture run-hikes. I was still recovering my run endurance from the long run earlier in the week, so I wanted to limit my run durations, but I also wanted to be out there longer. By combining the two activities, I could do longer more interesting routes. I've done lots of these types of combined efforts before -- in fact most trail runs include some hiking up hills.

To time these run-hikes I use the stopwatch to log running time, stop it when I'm hiking, start it again when I'm running. Subtract the running time and any stoppage time from the overall elapsed time, and you get hiking time. Seems somewhat unnatural to log different times, but it makes sense to me right now.

When doing short trail runs, the experience is different than a hiking experience. Long trail runs can be much more like hikes in that I bring more food and stuff and take longer breaks at various spots, just like when hiking. I really enjoyed those run-hikes I did this week and will definitely do more of them, even for long runs where I might run for 4 hours and hike for 3.

I can see myself doing these in the future and not caring what I'm doing, just randomly running or hiking, but for now I'm still caught up in this concept of training for running, logging exercise time and all that, really for no other reason than it motivates me to do more and to get into better shape, and I enjoy running more when I'm in shape. The goal races are just there as somewhat arbitrary goals, but when the time comes around for them I still like to test myself, as most runners do in races.