Mixing things up

Like many people I travel for work, and last week landed me in Lethbridge for a couple of days. Trevor Stuart is an old friend that I did a couple of trekking peaks with, including Kilimanjaro. I noticed from his Facebook posts that he is training hard for another adventure, so I sent him a message to see if I could join in a training session with him while on the road.

Training on the road is hard, so to help me stay dedicated I try to partner up. Sometimes if it is only me I will let things slide. But if you commit to train with a partner, you do not want to let the partner down so you always show up. When I do this I ask to work in on their routine, I am the guest and I am just happy I have someone to help motivate me.

Trevor is training hard: at six in the morning with ninety pounds in his pack he climbs stairs up and down, starting at of the bottom of the coulee in Lethbridge for an hour one day, two hours on alternate days. For added fun, he does push ups at the bottom and top. The push ups at the bottom are incline push ups off a sitting bench, so the full weight of the pack is not engaged. The push ups at the top, however, are in a spread eagle position suspended over the hand rails, so the full weight of the
pack is really engaging your core.

Trevor is mean but fair. As it was my first time doing his workout, he told me to only put fifty pounds in my pack. I did not object as I had two days of ice climbing ahead of me, one with a long approach uphill.

The hour went by quickly up and down the stairs, push ups at the top and bottom, with a final “quick as you can” burn up the stairs just before 7 a.m. With the hour done I was sweating, my calves were trembling and I felt great. Mixing things up is a good thing, I was just hoping my calves would not be too sore for ice climbing…