Final Preparations

As our start date of March 8th draws increasingly near, we’re continuing to check the final items off our to-do list. We both quit or jobs(!), we have our storage unit ready to go and have tied up most of the loose ends…but there’s still SO MUCH to do! We have about a week until we start to make our road trip east and it feels like we’ll never get it all done. One of the items on my last was to practice a post from my phone. Many people have asked us what kind of physical training we’re doing. Unfortunately the answer us not much! Our mantra has been:

It’s all about the knees.

For us, the only real physical training we are doing is to condition the muscles around our knees. I’ve seen too many posts of people having serious problems with their knees, in some cases causing them to leave the trail. To prevent this, we are:

1. Practicing proper form. Recently, we did a short hike for this purpose. According to the physical therapist Caleb visited, a common issue that can get you into knee trouble is allowing your knee to drift out of parallel with your ankle when taking a step (I imagine going bow-legged to visualize an extreme example of this). On the muddy trail we were on with a natural grade and man-made steps, it was a perfect opportunity to practice taking deliberate steps to avoid bad form!
   

   The hiking partners

2. Strengthening stretches. In addition to keeping an eye on our form, we’ve been trying to do a series of stretches every day that target the muscles around the knee. Some feel a little silly, but hopefully getting into the habit now will pay off! 
   

   A sampling of the stretches

Happy planning to everyone else making their final preparations, hope to see you on the trail!