I kayak and raft all spring and summer till it’s dry, then I hike/mtn climb, then I get my ride on on my downhill/road/downhill/xc/downhill bikes…in that order…the road and xc bikes stay out mostly all year.

….Hey Will, I sent ya a pm

The question is how much fitness do you want?
If you want to get bombproof fit then find a really BIG hill climb that takes you a solid hour to climb riding your mt. bike and climb it at least couple times a week or until you get past being familiar with every rock and rut in the trail. If you don’t have a BIG one hour climb…go for the 30 minute version and do it twice in a row…If you do that every weekstarting this week, by the end of December you’ll be able to chatter on endlessly to your BC mates in January during an ascent.

Last time I checked though…we weren’t required to pay an entry fee..Which is why I switched from USCF road racing to splitboarding…

My other comment is that the running deal is fine until you get a little older and then you will wish you had ridden a bike instead(you get all the power and aerobics and no pounding!)…I had stuff removed from my knee that required surgery..(knee is 100%+ now)…just consider that…

And don’t forget the beer and surfing…..a well balanced splitter is a happy splitter….

For balance, and training those core muscles, I like to get an old skateboard deck and a wine bottle covered with a sock and try to balance on the bottle. After a while, try to throw in kick flips and such.

I’ve seen something similar that you can purchase at http://www.indoboard.com, but who likes to spend money?

For core strength, I like to rock climb at the local crag. I also do hanging leg ups on a home pull up bar – that works great. I try to ride the bike for an hour or so 3 times a week – usually at the damn gym because the hills around here are a 30 minute drive from my house. In the fall, I like to bowhunt, which gets me into some pretty knarly terrain hiking several thousand vertical. Also, I go snowboarding once a month in the off season – usually backcountry which involves lots of hiking in the summer. Living in the northwest has allowed me to ride for 23 consecutive months to date…

As for eating, I usually try to keep it clean by eating stuff others have mentioned – spaghetti, rice, etc. The morning of I’ll slam a whey protein shake before I set out. I get that at Walmart because it’s gotten so expensive everywhere else….

I’m trying to get fit myself. I just retired from the military and had been in a very sedentary supervisory job for my last several years. I’m an avid road rider, hike the warmer months and snowshoe the colder ones. I’m picking up split because I think it will be a good way to get fit myself. I love to ride in powder, so the snowshoeing has always been worth it. Now I’m almost 40 and tired of lugging my board on my back, so why not split an old one. I did, and built it up with a kit in about 3 hours. I will be spending some training days in the Olympic National Park hiking, skinning and boarding a few of the nice areas that are not technical and safe. Once I get my skill level up and fitness level up I hope to go full on backcountry and maybe I will try to hook up with some of the splitters in the Baker, Stevens or Crystal areas. I have a nice weight vest that I wear on many of my rides close to home, on many of my hikes and for the runs around my very hilly neighborhood. I have dropped about 12 pounds in just the past two months, maybe 12 more and I will be respectably fit again. Oh, I’m still pounding the beer and eating, some pleasures are worth the need to get out and hike more to stay in balance. I also love using three Hammer Nutrition products, hammer gel, HEED and Recovery, all do well in my body with no bonking, fast recovery and good hydration. I have had trouble with other products not sitting well in my fat belly as I ride or hike, but Hammer has it formulated well for my body.

OK – don’t laugh 😆 but besides lots of mtbiking, I put my headlamp on, grab a backpack with 35 lbs of bricks inside, strap on 5 lb ankle weights, and hike hills at night with my dog. Wifey took this picture when i got back last night w/ her cell phone to send to our friends in hopes of embarassing me 🙄 Everything else is loads of fun after this…. let it snow dammit! ~dry in cali…

I thought the same thing…it took me a second. Funny. Also SteveP, I’m glad I had my tickets…to the gun show.

… 😯 stuffed!? He’s 90 lbs already – i would HAVE to stuff him with something light. Until then, he’ll have to carry his own weight. BTW, if anyone has experience splitting with Golden’s, i’m all ears (so to speak).