Trying to Judge my fitness for moving from hiking to mountaineering
Hi all,
I made my first summit, Monte Perdido (3355m). Not a massive summit or a technical one, but man, am I hooked! I have been hiking for about a year consistently. Prior to that, I was in the military and was very accustomed to rucking with a large pack for distance. So now I am looking to move from hiking to mountaineering. I scheduled a 6 day course in Chamonix to learn some basics. I am curious if anyone who has made this switch can give me some insight into a good training plan and/or how "prepared" I already am to make this switch.
So here is what I currently do.
- Once or twice a month a 17-20km hike with about 1200m elevation gain. Occasionally this turns into a hut to hut, back to back day with similar stats. I usually feel tired after, but not horrible or wrecked.
- 1-2 times a month I do via ferratas.
- 5 days a week in the gym for strength workouts.
- Stairmaster twice a week in Z2 for an hour. Which equates to a 790m elevation gain. This is starting to get easy and boring. So I think I will start carrying my pack for this.
Do I need more cardio? I freaking hate cardio haha! It's insanely boring to me. I have 0 issues if it's a hike, but just 20min on a treadmill and my brain is so over it.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I unfortunately have no one near me who is into hiking, let alone mountaineering. So I feel like I am going at this solo.