When I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, I met plenty of people during and after who expressed their interest in doing the same. They asked me for advice. I’m not a gearhead, I can only show you what works for me and recommend that you find what works for you. I don’t have any kind of special workout regimen or diet plan. Stay active, stretch a lot, do regular strength training and some cardio, and just be mindful of what you put in your body.
My biggest piece of advice for the aspiring long-distance hiker is to test yourself. Find where your limits are, mentally and physically, then work on pushing them. When it comes to long-distance backpacking, the only real way to accomplish this is to just get out there and do it. I’ve met thru-hikers who successfully completed the Pacific Crest Trail or Appalachian Trail without ever having camped a night or hiked a day with a backpack prior to that experience. But why run a marathon without first putting on a pair of running shoes and jogging a few miles?
I recommend doing a long-distance, point-to-point backpacking trip. There is no car to turn back to (as there typically is in the case of a loop hike) and there is no end in sight, at least until the last few days. This is important for testing your mental fortitude: Can you handle this day after day? Does a rainy day deter you from hiking? How are you going to treat or just live with minor wounds and irritations on the trail? How are your legs, ankles and knees feeling?
It's better to answer these questions in a two-week trip, where you can address some low-hanging fruit like your overall fitness, aches and pains, food and water and even the general comfort or useability of your gear. More importantly, you’ll learn if hiking a couple hundred miles is an agonizing experience that you don’t want to repeat, or if you find yourself inspired to do it again, and perhaps on a bigger level.
You really can’t prepare for a thru-hike if you’ve never done it before, but you can at least mitigate some of the minor issues and figure out if it really is right for you by getting out there and hiking a smaller version first. Besides, training for a thru-hike is a great excuse to go outside and enjoy the great outdoors.
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