Welcome to our blog, thrutrailchicks.com! We are Emily (also known as Koala) and Jen (also known as Panda), two trail runners and hikers who are planning, prepping and eventually fast-packing the Appalachian Trail this summer. For those who aren’t familiar with “fast-packing”, it is a combination of trail running and hiking while carrying very light weight supplies that allow you to be self-sufficient on the trail. Our plan is to fast-pack Southbound- start in Maine at the end of June and end up in Georgia by sometime in October. We will be accompanied by our four legged life partners, Georgy and Chille.
The main goal of this blog is to allow our friends and family to follow along with us on our adventures. In addition, we hope to help others planning similar adventures by filling in some of the holes we found while doing our own research. What we have planned isn’t your typical thru-hike- our goal is to be trail running as much as we can, but without the advantage of a support team. We will be carrying our own tents, sleeping bags, food, etc. which is a challenge itself. Plus, bringing dogs on a long distance hike has its own set of advantages and complications which we plan to enumerate in the course of planning and executing our AT fast-pack.
Over the next few months you can expect lots of details on gear, food, planning and physical preparation. We have an amazing coach, Wendy Mader, who works with us to create a week-by-week training plan to whip our butts in shape enough to hit the trail running. Literally. We work out 6-7 days a week stair climbing, running, cycling, swimming and then running some more to build up the type of stamina we will need on the trail. (We also throw in the old ab routine as well as burpees and lunges/squats. Ugh!) We are both based in Tucson, Arizona at this time, so don’t be confused by the desert foliage in all our training pictures!
Thanks for visiting our site and check back soon!
Thrutrailchicks 