Training for Alpine Objectives

[Justin]

Hi Mike and/or Mark,
I suppose I have all kinds of training questions, but resisting a full dialogue via blog post here is my question about alpine objectives:

How would training differ for you if you trained for an endurance demanding alpine route?  Something more like the Cassin Ridge on Denali?  Or maybe a better example would be the full Palisades Traverse in the Sierra.  I remember reading that one of you had a lot of focus on bigger alpine objectives like this.

I can't help but think of the Endurance Training theories I've read about, or maybe something like Mountain Athlete, or the training methods of persons like Ueli Steck (when he trained for the Eiger speed record) or Tommy Caldwell (when he trained for doing El Cap and Half Dome in a day).  I know these 4 examples are vastly different from one another but their training all incorporated volume.  Do you think high volume workouts (that might take many hours to all day) are necessary for these sort of endurance routes?

And do you all have a systematized method for training for massive and steep "hikes"?

Thanks,
Justin

[MarkAnderson]

Justin,

I certainly don't regard myself as an expert on that type of training. I have a lot of respect for Steve House, and I would guess that he knows what he's talking about when it comes to the pure alpine realm. I never put the same type of effort into refining my training methods for those types of goals. That said, I was an NCAA Division I Cross Country runner, so I know a bit about general endurance training, and I've done some alpine ascents that I'm fairly proud of, including an alpine style ascent of the Cassin Ridge and a casual in-a-day ascent of the North Face of Mt. Temple.

When I was training for Denali I lived in Albuquerque New Mexico, which is nestled at the base of small mountain range called the Sandias. North and South Sandia Peak are each just above 10,000 feet tall (Albuquerque is at about 5000'). At that point I was still running a lot, as much as 12 miles a day, but typically more like in the 6-8 mile range. So I would run about 6 days a week, closer to 6 miles/day on weekdays, and up to 12 on weekends. This was all trail running with rolling hills, in the Sandia foothills. I was also bouldering in the climbing gym about every other day, but not following any regimented training (the Rock Prodigy program didn't exist yet).

Two months before our planned departure, almost to the day, I was bouldering in the gym, and rolled my ankle really badly by landing on the edge of a crash pad. It was bad enough that I went to the ER for X-rays. Nothing was broken but I was on crutches for about a week. After that running was off the table. I could walk ok, and I could hike, so instead of running, each day after work I would hike to the summit of one of either north or south Sandia Peak (I don't know exactly how often I did this, it was at least every other day). Depending on which trail I used, this amounted to 3-4K feet of vertical climbing over several miles. As my foot improved, I started carrying 2 gallon jugs of water that I would dump out on the summit. Descending was really hard on my ankle, and I usually tweaked it several times on the way down, despite trying to be really careful. I also used hiking sticks for the way down to help limit the pounding.

I'm sure if I tried to do this now I would get all kinds of collateral injuries from favoring the bum ankle, but I was young and stupid then. It worked out and we sent the route, though I definitely felt like I was less fit than I would have been had I been able to keep running. Still, I think it helped to do some training that was a bit more specific to my objective (walking "slow" with a "heavy" load at "high" altitude). I think if I were healthy and I were designing a training plan for a similar objective, I would mix in some low intensity/high duration training like hiking up big mountains with a pack, and some high intensity/low duration training like hill running.

So anyway, it's always going to come back to your goals. On Denali, your technical ability is unlikely to ever be the limiting factor in your rate of speed, so assuming you already have the basic climbing skills you need, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to spend time on your climbing skills (if speed is the ultimate goal). On something like Nose in a Day or other enchainments, efficiency in your climbing (reading the rock, moving quickly, placing gear quickly, transitioning at belays) is far more important than your VO2 Max. That said, you still need to possess a sufficient work capacity to get through 12 or 16 hours of continual movement, even if you're never really breathing very hard during that time. I always prepared for stuff like that by simply doing big days on a regular basis. For example, one time we linked 5 towers in the Bridger Jacks in a day, which isn't all that hard or impressive, but it gets you climbing 15-ish pitches in a day, mixed in with plenty of approaching, rappelling and route finding. If we were "training" for something big and long, we would do things like that each weekend leading up to it (for 6 weeks or more), and during the week I would run and climb in the gym.

Sorry for the long narcissistic ramble. Hopefully you found something useful in there.
Mark