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Ep. 30: Day 3 Inca Trail musings
55 Plays2 years ago
What can you learn about yourself hiking the Inca Trail? Bobby chats about training and challenges as he makes his say on day 3 of 4.
Do you need a challenge? Is Machu Picchu on your bucket list? Give a listen and come along on the adventure!
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Transcript
Beginning the Inca Trail: Physical and Mental Challenges
00:00:00
Speaker
this is still day three Inca trail it is about 845 in the morning
00:00:10
Speaker
We've made an ascent for a couple hundred meters. It was actually quite tough. Lots of people were complaining of calf soreness and hip flexor. My hips were a little tight, not too bad. Part of the purpose of these audio recordings, quite frankly, is to be my journal of this experience.
00:00:39
Speaker
also just tell a story and share my experience my tips my trials and tribulations um for me i'm fairly tall i'm six two and uh not real thin and uh hiking poles are critical quite frankly on the up and the down and uh
00:01:06
Speaker
learning some hiking pole techniques if you're here with guides which you have to have a guide if you're hiking the Inca trail they really kind of help you out with pole length pole placement make sure you ask their input if they if they don't tell you but I imagine they would this is September before rainy season
00:01:29
Speaker
I almost hate to say we haven't had rain yet for fear of that. I brought a rain jacket and a poncho. I ended up on, after day one, dropped the rain jacket from my bag. Day one's an easy day. This is a four-day Inka Trail track, which is the pretty common
Therapeutic Reflections and Scenic Beauty
00:01:55
Speaker
track. They call it training day. See how your pack works for you.
00:02:02
Speaker
Even though we're going down it's still you know, it's exercise Anyways, I dropped that off so I'm just carrying a poncho just as a safety measure
00:02:19
Speaker
it is a little tough carrying some audio equipment because it is a little bit heavy you know I'd been advised really not to record anything by friends and just say
00:02:34
Speaker
lets us be a spiritual journey. But frankly, this is my journal. This is instead of me sitting down and writing something. And I've been doing that at the end of the day and in the morning time. But frankly, I haven't done that much of that.
00:02:55
Speaker
This is my therapy. This is my time to kind of be alone at my thoughts. You know, I see these beautiful mountains on both sides of me. We're getting into more rainforest area now. Beautiful birds off to my right. There's sort of a little bit of a lagoon off to the right as well.
Preparation and Health on the Trail
00:03:20
Speaker
These rocks are rough on your ankles. And I know that was a pivot. If you're trying to get yourself ready for this,
00:03:32
Speaker
doing stairs and even if you're in a spot where there's only like two stories you go up you go down. I would definitely make sure you don't skip the down. I think the down is actually very dangerous. Going up is cardiovascularly
00:03:53
Speaker
challenging and difficult. As I've reported before you know day two is the tough cardiovascular day. I kind of did heart rate monitoring and as soon as I hit about 150 155 160
00:04:12
Speaker
I was pretty out of breath. That was my cue to stop and even have about a 45 minute rest. And I was not going to fast pace, but when you're at altitude, we are taking Dymox. First time I've taken it, side effects are numbness and tingling. They say take it. I had read something, take it 24 hours to 48 hours beforehand, so.
00:04:40
Speaker
It started at 48 hours before Cusco. I'm coming down to a spot now where there's a cave on the left side. The road is flattening out a little bit. On a lot of even the flat straightaways, the rocks are still
00:05:02
Speaker
very round very uneven you know they call this a moderately difficult trail i think from everything that i've read i guess that's how they classify it
00:05:20
Speaker
You know, this is doable. As I've said on prior things, if you've listened to, it's pretty amazing what you can do if you go your own pace and know when to kinda slow down, know when to rest, make sure you hydrate.
00:05:44
Speaker
We've used water filters. We use one of those kind of the smaller platypus water filter. We've got no financial things to disclose on this. Wish we did, but we don't. It's been great, lightweight, portable.
00:06:02
Speaker
They boil the water. Giardia is kind of the main thing to worry about. The filter itself will filter that out, but we just use this as an extra step for caution.
Trail Community and Personal Growth
00:06:16
Speaker
Being on this trail, doing this hike with diarrhea would be, make something that's difficult, incredibly, incredibly difficult. So touch wood, I'm not touching wood, I'm touching hiking poles to granite rock, but no challenges there. So being precautious. But back to sort of the spiritual journey. I love being around others.
00:06:48
Speaker
people come here by themselves usually in a group because you have to have a guide you'll be with a group it seems like somewhere between around 10 people in a group and you have together time and you have separate time and if you're at a really slow pace
00:07:10
Speaker
usually there be a guide will keep an eye on you and make sure you're good but it's really a great sense of community the adventure we're on here has mostly Aussies someone from Manchester England
00:07:28
Speaker
And then us. You know, we're from Dallas, Texas. And just a great group. Most of them are 20s. I guess some early 30s. And I guess a cautionary tale is to maintain your, or do what you can to maintain fitness as you get older.
00:07:55
Speaker
That's something I didn't do. I went to dental school, medical school and residency and then built a practice and had kids and I did not make my own health a priority and it's been a bit of a slog getting back into that.
00:08:18
Speaker
As I have previously, past year and a half, I've done something every day, but that something's kind of been a minimal amount, 15 minutes a day. Quite frankly, it made it easier to kind of ramp up my training before this, only had about a one-month runway after we made the decision.
00:08:44
Speaker
Excuse me, but it allowed me to do stairs and I did a flight of 25 flights and it wasn't easy, but it wasn't terrible. And that gave me a chance to do 60 flights once again with my backpack on.
00:09:01
Speaker
I didn't weigh it down fully initially. And I probably didn't do that to my full kit. Quite frankly, that probably would be something that would have been beneficial. But anything you can do to go over uneven surfaces to help your ankles would be helpful. Incline on a treadmill.
00:09:31
Speaker
Crank it up and go slow. You don't have to go fast especially if you're older You know see You know, you got to listen to your body my ankle 10 days before we took off Was giving me trouble and I've had trouble with that ankle previously and my ankles said no go and I had to back off things a little bit and really stretch out my calves and
00:09:59
Speaker
and so far it's been okay the blessing when things are so kind of challenging from a cardiovascular standpoint on the Inca Trail you actually you don't really notice things like blisters of which I have one on my right foot that's bandaged it's doing okay today I talked previously about just wearing one pair socks
00:10:26
Speaker
I'd read about wearing two pairs of socks, real thin one on the inner and medium on the outer. So I'm trying that today. Never good to try something on an active adventure, but what I was doing wasn't working. So I guess that's one of the things in life. Maybe that's part of the spiritual journey here is if what you're doing in life is not working,
00:10:55
Speaker
an appropriate person, I think, sort of interacts with the environment, get the best information from the environment around you, and then figure out if you got to make a change.
Practical Tips and Gear Adjustments
00:11:09
Speaker
And so that's what I did today. There's been a lot of that with what goes in your day pack. What doesn't go in your day pack? How much water do you need?
00:11:20
Speaker
You can buy water, quite frankly, beer, Gatorade, treats, all that kind of stuff on the trail at multiple points. As you go higher up and further into the trek, there's less availability of things like Wi-Fi. I've had no cell service for two days.
00:11:43
Speaker
You can get Wi-Fi at a couple spots. You basically have to pay for all kinds of stuff. Recommendation. Make sure if you get money from a change station or bank, try to get small bills.
00:11:58
Speaker
a lot of coinage with one soul but fives and tens I think they've got fives fives and tens and twenties are wonderful it's hard to change hundreds it's hard to change two hundreds banks love to give you two hundreds so just be mindful of that not that you can't use them like in bigger cities but if you come into Lima or Cusco
00:12:25
Speaker
Try to use your larger bills and change them out for smaller stuff there What am I learning today from a Just a spiritual standpoint I had stuffy stuff walk with me for the initial asset and once again, this is day three We probably had about 300 meters or so that we were going up And
00:12:53
Speaker
it was a brutal way to start the day frankly looking at absolutely beautiful bird right now super duper tiny you know we're still up at high elevation beautiful colors
00:13:09
Speaker
But I had staff, she is cardiovascularly fit, very fit. In fact, she kind of had a bit of a challenge run with some mid-20 year old, very fit, very athletic footballers from Aussie.
00:13:29
Speaker
I think kind of cleaned, mopped the ink of trail with them. If those guys are listening to this, you know, I'll say, okay, maybe it was close, but I didn't see it. I was way back. But Steffi-Steff and I hiked today. It was actually tough. I think it's tough hiking with someone on a track like this,
00:13:55
Speaker
when you have different levels of cardiovascular fitness, especially if one is fairly competitive.
Navigating Fitness Levels and Trail Comparisons
00:14:04
Speaker
You know, Steffi-Steff's kind of like a wild Mustang that, man, hard to hold that, hard to hold back a wild Mustang, and probably not good for the animal, and it's difficult for the animal. And for me, going at my own pace,
00:14:25
Speaker
Oh boy, it's an absolute blessing. Bad things can happen when you don't go at your own pace. From a cardiovascular, cardiac standpoint, from a I'm pushing myself, I'm going a little too fast. You're going to roll an ankle. That's tough.
00:14:46
Speaker
For me I end up getting a pair of hiking boots that had really good You know, it's a hiking boot it's got great ankle protection I was gonna I bought them a month before the trip probably put maybe about a hundred miles Maybe more on them
00:15:11
Speaker
My intent was to actually have those plus some low rise hiking shoes that I was going to switch out. But weight wise, it didn't work. Gore-Tex with me, my feet sweat and get hot, thus the blister.
00:15:29
Speaker
And my plan was to switch out shoes during midday, but that didn't work due to weight. I did get a pair of ultralight sandals. So on days where we stop and kind of have a proper lunch.
00:15:45
Speaker
Like today, I think that's going to happen. I'll probably take my socks off, take my soles out of my shoes, and just try to air things out for that period of time. But definitely make sure you've got great hiking boots. We ended up going with ultra A-L-T-R-A. I think it is. No financial affiliation.
00:16:13
Speaker
Get them early break them in See how you'll like them. I Really like the treads on the bottom of these things because I'm telling you this is not a flat trail I'm on a flat spot right now and These rocks are
00:16:34
Speaker
Bonkers. Nothing's flat. And coming from America and hiking Smokey Mountains and Big Bend National Park, I've never seen anything like this before and that's what makes it such a different challenge. So
Personal Motivations and Overcoming Fears
00:16:55
Speaker
let's talk about challenges.
00:16:58
Speaker
And why, you know, why go see Machu Picchu? Some would say because it's there and it's got certainly historical significance. It's a sacred site. I hear it's quite beautiful. We'll kind of figure that out.
00:17:20
Speaker
For me, it was trying to figure out, not so much about Machu Picchu, but more so the Inca Trail, and trying to figure out how
00:17:36
Speaker
How do I feel when I push myself physically? I was quite nervous going into this adventure. I didn't think I had trained enough, which frankly I hadn't. There were lots of unknowns that kind of worried me. I don't like known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
00:18:06
Speaker
But it was a challenge, and I think for myself, I don't grow if I don't put myself out there and challenge myself.
00:18:21
Speaker
This is probably one of the biggest challenges that I have faced. I've done 70.3 Ironman triathlons, three of them, and a bunch of shorter distance. I had a little more runway to train for those. I was early 40s.
00:18:40
Speaker
a little bit of a different time but you know figure out what's what's your challenge gonna be do you need to push yourself do you need someone to push you do you need to push someone else
00:18:58
Speaker
getting an event, a physical event on the calendar six months down the road can be a great incentive to really ramp up your training and so that was the one downside that we picked this fairly early or fairly late a correction
00:19:19
Speaker
So, but so far it's been an amazing adventure. It's been brutal. It's been wonderful. It has been amazing. And we'll see how things go. All right. Thank you.