I am planning to climb Mt. Rainier and then Denali sometime mid next year (2016) - approximately one year from now. I have little mountaineering experience, so I'll be practising climbing skills on Mt. Shasta several times (>7-8 climbs for sure, I live in Northern California) and taking self arrest, crevasse navigation classes, etc.
In the meantime, I want to start working out on my fitness and general preparedness for the climb. Now, here's a little background:
- I have been working out (mostly functional training) for more than 1.5 years now and am reasonably fit already.
- I can run half marathons in sub-2 hour marks (although I don't have (nor do I wish to develop) endurance for a full marathon - I mostly enjoy doing functional training). I can maintain sub 8-minute per mile pace for first 3-4 miles.
- My lifts are above novice category (and some are well within intermediate category according to http://www.strstd.com/). I work my posterior chain (glutes, quads, hamstrings and adductor muscles) pretty seriously, so I have strong legs and hind.
I have been thinking of making a switch to CrossFit for a while and I have made up my mind pretty seriously. I love their workouts and the believe it will get me in a state of general preparedness for the next year's climb. I do understand that CrossFit is broad generalization of various abilities and one needs to tweak it for one's specific purpose (and also that elite mountaineers would suffer from such a broad generalization, but then I am not an elite mountaineer. See other posts on this forum and Mark Twight's Gym Jones program for more on this topic). Here's how my workout for next year is going to look like:
- Bike to and from work - 6.5 miles, elevation gain/loss of 500ft each way on weekdays.
- Crossfit on weekdays.
- Rest - Saturday.
- Running - 6-7 mile loop, elevation gain/loss of 500ft on Sunday.
Please care to critique my workout plan. I know there aren't any interval training or hill/stair climbing workouts there, but I am hoping CrossFit will make up for that and improve my anaerobic threshold. Is it too light on endurance? Towards the end of the year, I'll introduce hiking with heavy backpack.
As I said, I have little mountaineering experience, so really need inputs here.
Thanks.