Pacific Crest Trail 2: As Training Time Begins, Chloe and I Love It!

The Pacific Crest Trail is a daunting adventure, stretching 2,650 miles (4,265km) from Mexico to Canada. While my partner Seth plans to complete its entirety; I plan to hike the longest dog friendly stretch that spans half the country. We will walk 1300 miles with the great company of my dog, Chloe Rue. While this hike will begin next summer in 2023, Chloe and I have begun to take strides (literally) to improve our strength and endurance for the undertaking! Do you want to learn more about our planning? Keep an eye out on our Pacific Crest Trail series as we dive into our physical, mental, and dog-knowledge training program to help prepare us for this grand adventure.

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What kind of training are we doing to prep for the PCT?

While I am beyond excited for this upcoming adventure, I also know my adorable, smart dog, Chloe Rue and I need some training to prepare our bodies for such an adventure. Sure, we’ve gone 1-2 nights out on the trail and savored every second of it, but we have yet to “through” hike together. We are SO excited to put together a training program to help both of our bodies be ready.

We have attached below (way below) a PDF file that describes our training program this year. My favorite part of this program is that Chloe and I are training together, so we both feel ready mentally and physically to hike half-way across the country.

How exactly DO you start training for a through hike? That is an excellent question, and now that Chloe is ready to train per her veterinarian, we can start our adventure to greater endurance together.

I am not the most structured person, so having a variety of ideas to use each week to help us gain strength and endurance is the best way we can follow a program of any kind. I do have sporadic goals this year, including a 10,000 foot mountain climb (Eagle Cap Mountain in the Wallowa Mountains!) and a longer 7 day winter backpacking/skijoring trip planned. When Seth is hiking through the California portion, Chloe and I plan to join him for a couple of weeks. I am also planning a 5k and a spartan race just to keep me motivated! Here is the PDF I put together of our first month of training.

Training-for-the-Pacific-Crest-Trail Download

I have started out pretty easy, with 2 rest breaks a week for the first month. On my opinion the best way to prepare for a hike, is to HIKE! And hike and hike and hike a LOT. I can’t go out into the wilderness everyday unfortunately, due to time constraints but I feel this program allows a lot of room for movement.

Every week includes yoga/meditation, where I also spend time training Chloe on her dog skills (recalls, positive reactivity to animals, prolonged stay, emergency u-turns etc). I cross train once a week which is biking, climbing, or skijoring-really any exercise that moves quickly. Chloe can’t climb so most of the time we will be biking. We also have a trail walk/run twice a week and alternate between strength training and altitude training (probably just doing both) on weekends where we will be doing some hiking!

If it is winter in the Midwest, it is easy to replace biking with skijoring as a dog activity- take out those cross country skis and let your pup pull you along!

Overall, Chloe and I are SO excited to begin our journey towards training for the PCT! While we enjoy biking, climbing, and hiking SO much we decided to do these with weight and with the extra distance challenges throughout our training program.

Month One has Been Daunting, but Fun

My very first day on my very first attempt to trail run, I managed to find the longest and hardest hill in Benton County, Oregon. I am not even kidding, Chloe and I wanted to do our little half mile trail run and we, in fact, began doing a half mile MASSIVE HILL run. While it was definitely a daunting way to begin our training adventure, I have to admit it was fun to have Chloe help me run up the hill. I have her attached to my waist using my skijoring harness since it has some bounce to it and helps support my back quite a bit. However, even Chloe was panting, short of breath and not very happy with our first day of trail running. But let the records state- we did it. 2 minute intervals of gentle running on a trail, straight uphill until we ran for .5 miles. And that is what matters most: we did it.

What I have Planned Next

I had a 5K run planned this week, however I naturally ended up getting sick. So while I was SO excited to attempt this 5K run through wineries, I had to miss it. My friend Jessica hopes to climb Broken Top Mountain in Oregon and I am hoping we can stick with that plan as well! Then we will continue our training as I signed up for a Spartan Race in Portland this September.

Isn’t it strange how races are not usually dog friendly? And what about a dog friendly gym; does anyone have a dog friendly gym near them? I have found it particularly challenging to find ways to exercise with Chloe and while I do feel that I need it more than she does, it really helps me stay motivated to know that we are growing our muscles together, building our endurance so we can be healthy and strong during our nearly 1,000 mile hike.

I hope you all are also staying healthy, COVID free and marching toward your summer goals! I am so happy to share our progress with you all! Chloe and I wish you many happy trails and happy tales this week!

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