Skyline starting midnight (1am) April 12 & May 5 &12

[mattytreks]

Hey Cy (or anyone else going up early on Saturday, 5/5)...wanna meet up at the trailhead?

Since it is my first time doing C2C I really dont care when we start...1AM, 3 AM, etc. Let me know. And not to worry, I am in great physical condition and hike at a good pace.

Matt, San Diego
(858) 344-5714
thephotomatt@gmail.com
http://community.webshots.com/user/bertsview

[Cy Kaicener]

Hi Matt - I can meet you there around 2.30 am at the museum. I park on the street.

[mattytreks]

Cy- sure that sounds great! Let's meet at the Museum Parking lot at 2:30AM on Saturday morning.

Shoot me an email or give me a call asap with your contact info so I know who to be looking for.

Matt, San Diego
(858) 344-5714
thephotomatt@gmail.com

[KathyW]

C2C is looking good for me for Saturday. I probably won't start until 4 am. Hopefully, I'll meet some of you out there. I'm going to try to push on for the summit this time, but I might find I'm done when I get to the tram station.

Kathy

[Davis2001r6]

It's official, I'm out for this weekend. If I needed my body to give me an answer this week it did today, rolled my ankle playing volleyball, nice little popping sound. Can barely making it up and down the stairs at home right now.

Looks the weather was going to be perfect for this as well. I'll be out of town now till June, if we can get a cold front to come in then, I may be able to make it up there, otherwise it will probably be October or November before I return.

-TIM-

[Cy Kaicener]

Today Matt, Dave D, Cathy U and myself made it up to the tram in eight hours after a 2.30am start. The weather was very cool even a little cold - perfect conditions. Eight people passed us after Flatrock with Zippedydude in the lead. We heard that there were at least nine people that they passed including Doreen, Kathy W, and Ellen who are pretty fast themselves. Some of them started after 6 am. Next Saturday we are starting at 1 am to make it to Round Valley minimum.

[KathyW]

I started at 4:30 am and my body felt tired from the beginning - luckily the weather was beautiful, so I plodded on. On April 21 I had done a day hike from the Grand Canyon to the river and back from the South Rim and then on the 28th I day hiked to Taboose Pass in the eastern Sierra. My body just isn't recovering very well it seems. I guess that's something I need to work on too.

I felt pretty good about my time. I've done the hike to Long Valley 4 times now and I've gone down in time just a little each time from 8 hours the first time to just under 7 hours yesterday; so my speed is getting better - I need to keep working on that and also figure out how to get my endurance up and what will make body recover from tough hikes faster.

Anyway, it looked like it would be pretty windy out near San Jacinto, so I used that as excuse not to go on from Long Valley but really I didn't have the energy to do it.

It was nice to meet Ellen along the trail - I was impressed at your speed Ellen.

I have been working really hard to pick up speed because last year when I tried to climb Rainier I turned around at 11,200' because I was struggling to keep up the pace of the roped team. I'm going to go back this summer to try again and I'm hoping to be able to move a bit faster and not have to stop so often. I used to stop to catch my breath a lot, but I've gotten to the point that I can usually hike consistently for one to two hours without a break, but it's not a super fast pace.

I might give it a go again next weekend too.

[Ellen]

Howdy Kathy

It was nice to meet you Thanks for your compliment but I'm not that much faster (usually just under six hours). You've decreased your time to Long Valley by an hour in only four trips -- that's a tremendous improvement.

As you pointed out, the key is to find a pace that you can comfortably sustain over a long period of time.

Your hard hikes for two weekends before Skyline could have contributed to your fatigue level. While I'm a big proponent of how nutrition can help performance before, during, and after exercise, nutrition can't do everything. When muscle fibers are damaged from hard hikes or runs (soreness = muscle damage), they don't store muscle glycogen as well. The contractile properties of the muscle are also negatively affected by muscle damage from hard hikes. Even when muscle glycogen restoration is back to normal, this does not ensure normal muscle function.

One other consideration -- how is your iron status? Iron deficiency is fairly common in women. Iron status should be checked by serum ferritin (storage iron) and serum transferrin (transport iron) in addition to serum hemoglobin.

I'm happy to assist with advice on nutrition before, during, and after hiking as well.

Miles of smiles,
Ellen

[KathyW]

Ellen: You are so kind to offer advice. I am learning as I go along. I'm going in for an annual check-up in June, so I think I'll see if I can get checked to see if I'm iron deficient.

Kathy

[KathyW]

Cy: Are you still starting at 1am this Saturday?

Kathy