Unfortunately, I can be partial to bonking on mountains. And contrary to popular thinking and THAT trilogy of postmodern paperbacks by E L James…I can say categorically that it is not a pleasant experience.
The term ‘bonking’ in mountaineering and hillwalking has nothing to do with al-fresco shenanigans. I’ll leave that for someone else to blog (or brag) about. ‘Bonking’ is hill slang for when we suffer from glycogen depletion or perhaps you might know it as ‘hitting the wall’.
In short, it’s horrible and can ruin a beautiful day on the hills. Everyone is a little different but the surefire signs that I am about to bonk are: firstly I begin to feel fatigued; secondly my mood will darken and I’ll become really narky with absolutely everyone I’m with. It is at this point when, through bitter past experience, I’ll generally recognize what’s happening to me and I’ll eat and drink something as a ‘bonk avoidance’ strategy.
If it goes past that stage and the initial signs are missed it’s common to start to feel physically shaky until you have to sit down and can’t carry on; you simply stall. Ironically, when you bonk it can make you feel nauseous and so you don’t want to eat or drink when it happens, but this is exactly what you need to do to aid recovery.
I spend a lot of time hill walking and also helping young people round mountains in a leadership capacity. I’ve had countless conversations over 10 years of working with women who say the physical demands of hill walking have taken them by surprise and it is definitely the most frequent incident I tend to deal with.
From my experience, bonking seems to hit us ladies more than the gents. I don’t know why. I’m not a scientist. I think the semantics of the word ‘walk’ deceives people into thinking it’s a mild leisurely activity or a just a pleasant past-time for – dare I say it – the slightly older lady or gentleman who are paid up, fleece-wearing members of the Ramblers’ Association.
I really don’t know why. Some of the fittest people I know are mountain enthusiasts, they are of all ages and complete some incredible challenges.
Lots of females I work with on the hills, particularly younger girls, see walking as a way to lose weight and tone up and there’s no denying it’s great for this, but often they don’t fuel it right as they mistakenly and perhaps naively think by eating less than normal, they’ll lose weight while they’re doing it.
This just spells disaster. You need to eat probably around twice what you would normally, and in all likelihood you’ll still burn more than that and lose weight anyway if that’s what you want to do. Tough single day walks or multi-day expeditions are no time for carb dodging.
Over the last few expeditions I have been on; including a 5 day wild camp in Scotland and 3 days this weekend in the Lake District, I have begun tracking my hill walking days with my heart rate monitor.
The rate at which we burn calories on the hills surprised even me as it’s comparable to lots of other cardio based fitness classes that I do.
This weekend I wore my heart strap for about 4 hours. For 2 hours of this slot I walked and for approximately 2 hours I was stationary. In those two hours I burnt 1263 kcals and that day I was carrying just a small day sack and not following a particularly hilly route. My peak heart rate reached 166 which is clearly in my fat burning zone.
In Scotland, carrying an 18 kilo pack, in just over 3 hours, again on a relatively flat route, I was pushing 2000 kcals.
My strategy for bonk avoidance is every 500 to 600 kcals I’ll eat something, even if I’m not hungry, because I know I’m processing about 500-600 kcals an hour on average during hill walking. Even if you have a big breakfast with cereal and a a classic Lake District, Cumbrian style fry up, you’re quite likely to have burned it off in under 2 hours.
Snacks I take with me usually involve chocolate, nuts, cereal bars or homemade energy bars and these see me through so I can enjoy my walking and the beautiful scenery. Carrying hydration sachets is also a really good idea to pop into your water bottle if you’re having a wobble. Snacks need to be something slow burning and something that’ll get in your system relatively quickly.
Fuel a day on the hills right by enjoying the joyful act of eating A LOT – you’ll earn it and burn it – and you’ll have a brilliant day, get fitter and avoid the bonk!
My top three ‘kit bits’ this weekend:
Bags of mixed fruit and nuts!
MyZone heart rate monitor
North Face, Summit Series, mid layer down jacket – or my ‘long sleeved gilet’ as I called it in a moment of ‘semi-bonked’ fatigue (followed by merciless teasing by my companions)
This week’s stats:
Monday – Body pump and spin 976 kcals
Weds – Boxercise 454 kcals
Sat – Hill walking 1263 kcals
Sun – Run 600 kcals
A Female Fitness Fixation 