Thanks again everyone!
I will definitely remember to drink plenty of water to help acclimate.
I've also read around and keep hearing about Steve House's book, Training for the New Alpinism. I'm going to buy this book and see what it's about. That being said, I have hit my first, serious wall and that's knee pain on the descent. It only happens when I've been climbing/descending steep hills for 2-3 hours. Around the 2.5 hour mark, I start experiencing pain in my right knee. The pain is similar to what I've experienced in some of my half-marathons. It was a bit demoralizing to be honest. I would have hated to give up such a sport due being physically incapable of coming down a mountain.
Fortunately, I usually put up a fight
So off to the Internet I went to research. As a result, I've ceased running and replaced it with cycling. As a precaution, strength training was put on hold. Some of my friends are athletes, so they have put me in contact with a physiotherapist. He's helped both runners and few mountaineers (some that have even summited Everest!) deal with various leg-related pains, so I feel I'm in good hands. The game plan right now is more yoga, cycling and stretching to help build the knee to last longer. I'm still going to continue my weekend plan with climbing hills as I think that's key.
I've signed up to climb Mt. Washington in NH with EMS Climbing school in January 2015. It's a sort of test to see where I am and what I will need to work on for Rainier. Plus I'm really impatient and just want to climb mountains
Based on the results of this climb, I hope to bring back more focus to strength exercises.
Worst case scenario, I'll summit mountains (no knee pain on ascent) and ski down.
The loads most folks take on Denali is about 100lbs, however, most climbers use some combination of sleds and double carries so you really never need to carry more than 50lbs on your back.
Interesting. I did read about how sleds are used to carry stuff. I also read to train for that, one should just tie a rope around a tire and drag it around. But again, I think it would be wise to do a few 14ers before attempting Denali (this would be guided too).
Dragging out my soapbox (sorry!)... Are you patient? If you want to be able to say "I climbed Rainier" by next year, you can pay $1000 to some guide and another $1000 or so for the gear they make you buy, and you're done. Replace "Rainier" with "Everest" and "$1000" with "$60,000," and you can probably do that, too.
But what happens the next time you want to do something similar? Most guiding companies make their money getting people to the top of mountains they want to climb, so they have no incentive to teach people the skills to do it by themselves. If you choose the right program, you may be able to learn enough to make it worth the cost, but it's by no means guaranteed.
I would LOVE to summit mountains with a partner and not a guided service but no, I can't wait that long.
Also, I live in Ontario so my access to mountains are limited. I do overtime hope to learn to truly climb mountains with a partner though but that will probably take a lot longer time.
Off topic everyone - I'm not sure if I'm having trouble posting replies but does everyone's post get reviewed by a mod? Or am I experiencing some glitch? This is my 3rd time trying to reply to this post...