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Let's go over what the 52 HIKE CHALLENGE is and a few takeaways I had from my experience committing a year to 52 hikes! We'll dive into pros and cons, what it entails, and my honest thoughts on the challenge itself!
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What is Fit for Hiking?
Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discuss here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. 2s Hello and welcome back to the fit for hiking podcast. This is your host, Brady, and today we are going to be diving into the 52 Hike Challenge. What exactly it is, and a little bit about my personal experience with it from a few years ago, if I would recommend it. The pros and cons, all of that good stuff because I know that it's kind of a trendy thing in the hiking space, but I feel like, you know, if it's something that you want to commit to, it's helpful to know what you're kind of getting yourself into. And from someone who committed 52 weeks of my life to this challenge, it's a pretty intense commitment, and I wanted to kind of share my experience because I realized I did it several years ago, and I didn't really talk about it a ton. Like, it was kind of a personal thing for me. That was a very transformative year in my life. I was going through some major life changes, and I just kind of used that time to kind of heal and focus on my own personal growth, and I just didn't share a lot about it. And in retrospect, I kind of wish I would have because it's a really cool experience and it was an awesome challenge. So I wanted to take the time today to debrief on what that looked like. So. For anyone who's wondering, a 52 hike challenge is simply hiking every single week for an entire year. So really, from start to finish from January to January, you are hiking every single week. Okay, sounds really glamorous and cool, but the reality of it is it is a big commitment. It is a challenge. Like that's exactly what it is. It is hard, um, because you are really committing for an entire year to put yourself out of your comfort zone, to summon the energy when you maybe don't feel like it, when you've had a hard week, when you have a lot going on, maybe you're sick or you have just crazy life stuff. Time's running short. There's always going to be things that come up and you're really committing to push through those things and show up on the trails. Anyways, um, so it does test your discipline. Um, but I will say it also will really level up your hiking and it's such a great encourager to get outside year round, which for someone as myself who does not love winter, this was definitely a really helpful push for me to enjoy the outdoors more than just in the summer and fall here in Colorado. Um, so I wanted to share my takeaways in both the positives and the negatives from the experience. For anyone who's considering maybe committing to such a challenge, or maybe you're just now hearing about it as I'm talking about it and you're like, that sounds pretty cool. Um, then hopefully this will provide some insight. So firstly, I wanted to share just some general recommendations. If you're considering a 52 hike challenge. So one is to consider the weather climate where you live, because inevitably if you live somewhere where there's four seasons, a lot of this challenge will take place during winter months. So if you consider yourself a fair weather hiker or you really have no interest in getting outside and doing snow hiking, then this probably isn't for you. Along the same lines that you're going to want to invest in micro spikes and or snowshoes. I do recommend both if you live somewhere pretty snowy. Um, many of the hikes will likely require these if you do experience snowy winters where you live. So if you're not really accustomed to using these spikes are really great for in particular, spring hiking. So if the if the trails are kind of patchy and there's not fully, you know, fully covered snow and you're kind of seeing some snow melt, that's when the ice happens. Or it's like part dirt, part ice, part snow spikes are perfect for that because they just help kind of give you some more grip and prevent slipping. Um, and if you see trails with reports saying they're still pretty snow covered, then you're going to want to go with snowshoes. The thing with snowshoes is it does damage them if you are on trails that aren't fully snow covered. So when in doubt, bring both in your car and you can always kind of like ask around the trailhead or kind of take a look around based on what the drive up has been like and what the trail conditions are looking like from the trailhead. Um, sometimes I've also started with, uh, snowshoes and kept spikes in my backpack, and then I will switch out if I need to and, you know, clip the snowshoes to my outside of my pack and throw on the spikes. So it's always helpful to kind of be aware of what you're getting yourself into. And checking trail reports is one of the best ways to know what you need to bring. As far as footwear, um, for snowshoes, if you're unfamiliar, you clip those on over snow boots. Same thing with spikes, so you will want either way to have good snow boots with traction. I don't like to use just general hiking boots because they don't usually have as good of insulation. They're not going to be as warm. 2s Um, and then the final thing is that this challenge is definitely easier. I would say if your home base is somewhere with accessible trails. Personally, I like to pursue a variety of different trails because I just get bored if I do the same exact trail over and over again. So if you are like this as well, and you only have like one trail within an hour of you, then this might get stale pretty quickly and you might not love it because you're going to have to do a ton of driving if you're up for the driving once a week. Awesome. So it's just a general note. If you live somewhere where there's multiple accessible trails within an hour, it's probably going to be easier to actually implement this. Especially, you know, once motivation kind of fades off and it's not as exciting anymore, or if you just have a crazy week. Um, okay. So let's go over the pros. I will say, when I did this challenge, I became a much more experienced winter hiker. Um, like I said, I'm not a big winter girly at my core, so this was helpful for me to push myself to get out. And that particular year when I did it, oh my gosh, it was the snowiest, coldest winter and spring. I'm not even kidding when I say that the trails were icy until June. Like it was insane. So every single week I would think, okay, maybe I'll finally be able to do a proper hike with hiking boots. And most of this challenge I was doing in micro spikes or snowshoes. Um, so it definitely pushed me outside of my comfort zone a little bit with that. Um, Colorado hiking in the winter is no joke. And of course, this is going to be totally subject to where you live. Um, you know, if you're somewhere like Southern California, then this is not going to be a thing for you. But definitely in Colorado. I don't think I was prepared for how much of this I was going to end up doing in like, snow pants and micro spikes. Um, but it really did help me become a more experienced winter hiker and to learn to appreciate it, because obviously I was spending half of my year going out every single week. In hiking in the snow. So if I just had a bad attitude about it the whole time, probably not going to be super enjoyable. So that was definitely a pro of the experience. The second one is that it urged me to get out more often, when I probably would have otherwise sat on the couch all weekend. Like I said, that year was a really hard year for me. I was going through a lot personally, and I feel like this got me out of the house. It got me out in nature, which is so healing. Um, and sometimes you need to change an environment, like if you're just stuck in kind of a mopey mode, it's easy to just sit on the couch and drink wine and eat chocolate and watch Netflix, which I also did plenty of that year. But I will say that this really helped, like, revive me in so many ways, and it encouraged me to get out when I otherwise just wouldn't have. Like, I wouldn't have had the motivation to do it if I didn't know that I needed to in order to stick with my goal that I'd set at the beginning of the year before I knew that crap was going to hit the fan. That year. Um, I didn't know that when I set out to start the challenge, so it was helpful when things got real and things got hard and it made me keep going. 1s Another pro is that I saw so many amazing places and trails that year. It was probably the year that I experienced the most Colorado scenery ever because like I said, I like the variety. So I would, you know, at the beginning of the week, start looking into, okay, when am I going to hike this week? For me, it was always weekends because at the time I was managing a fitness studio Monday through Friday. So I was a weekend warrior through and through. And I still am even though I work for myself, but even more so then. So I was going out on the weekend, so I'd start researching where do I want to go? Do I want to drive a little further? Do I want to go more local? But I learned so many cool places within a couple hour radius of Denver that I would have probably never, never otherwise discovered. I also did amazing hiking in California, Oregon, Washington, Utah all the way up to Canada. Like, that was such a cool year for, um, just discovering new national parks, new places, lots of road trips. I got creative with it. I had a fun with it instead of just always doing like, local, you know, doing the same trail over and over again. I really tried to push it and see as much as I could make the most of that year. Um, and that was really, really cool. And a year that I will truly never forget. Um, the next pro is that it made me mentally stronger. Because anytime you commit yourself to something that forces you to show up, once the motivation wanes, you're going to become more mentally strong. Like, it's just hard. It's hard work. You can commit to something in the heat of the moment, which is why so many New Year's resolutions we don't follow through with. Right? Because life happens. We say, oh, I want to do this. We come up with these romanticized New Year's resolutions, and in the moment it sounds great. But then when you're tired, when you're exhausted, when you're going through it. Do we still show up a lot of times? No. And so that mental fortitude to push through and do something consistently for a full year, that made me mentally stronger, for sure. And I was really proud of myself for following through despite the crappy year that I had and all of the things that were going on. 1s Um, the final pro is that I really do feel like I became a stronger hiker in general that year. I gained so many good experiences, um, from traveling to different places to hike and making lots of mistakes. Inevitably, if you put yourself on a lot of different trails in a lot of different places, you're going to learn some things. You're going to make mistakes, you're going to come unprepared. You're going to have no clue what to do. You're going to show up at trailheads that don't even exist on a map anymore. And you're like, what the heck? All trails like, I made all the mistakes, but it was so helpful because those were that was, uh, maybe a few years into me really starting to hike much. And that was probably the year that I became, I would say, an avid hiker. Like, I really started to fall in love with it. And I had to learn through mistakes and through lots of experiences, um, lessons that I still hold dear now and have been helpful years later. Um, so even though it's not fun to learn things the hard way, I do think it made me a stronger hiker as well as just putting myself in this situation time and time again. And I didn't just choose like the same 2 to 3 mile loops like I did backpacking treks in some really treacherous terrain. I hiked all over tons of national parks, did some really big summits, like I pushed myself that year to get out of my comfort zone and try some new things. And I'm so glad I did. Like those are always the moments that grow us the most as hikers. Okay, so let's get into the cons. There aren't many, but I do want to be real about some of the things that might come up for you if you were doing this challenge and they came up for me. So there is a chance that hiking could start to feel kind of like a chore by the end of the year. If it's something where you feel like you have to do it right. Burnout is real. And when you're adding another thing to like your weekly to do list, depending on the season of life you're in, it might not feel super fun. It might kind of feel like a chore. And so I think it's good to be realistic about. Obviously, you can't totally foresee exactly everything that's going to happen in your life that year, but if you can. Kind of be realistic and introspective and say like, is adding this to my list going to add to my life or detract from my life? Is it going to add to my stress list, or is it going to help just motivate me and like, de-stress me? And so, um, and you know, you might get into it and realize, I don't know if I want to be like this, locked in to hiking every single week. And that's okay, too, like you might learn along the way if it's for you or if it's not. Um, but I will say, like towards the end of the year, there were times when I was like, oh my gosh, like when I got to the final November, December, I really did not feel like going out and doing more snow hiking after, what, a long like winter and spring on the front end of the year we had experienced, and I was feeling kind of drained by the end and I'm glad I pushed through, but that's a very real feeling. You might start to feel kind of burnt out with hiking. 1s Um, and sometimes that pressure of just feeling like, oh, I have to do something doesn't feel great. Like I would beat myself up if I got sick and didn't hike within that seven day period. Like, I think once I had to defer one of my hikes to the following week. So I did two hikes the next week, and at the time I was like, oh my gosh, I failed. And now I don't look at it that way at all because I ended up hiking probably like 100 trails that year. I mean, it was crazy. I was hiking so frequently and so yeah, maybe I missed one of the like seven day periods, but ultimately I still felt really good about the effort. Um, so I will say, with all that said, if you are someone who puts a lot of pressure on yourself to be perfect with the things that you do, this might not be for you. If you can be flexible with it and use it to like, encourage you to get outside more and hit the trails more frequently, then I think it's an amazing challenge for you, both physically and mentally. Just be prepared to show up with some grace for yourself and some flexibility because it might not look perfect. But if you want to enjoy the experience and really get the most out of it and not feel like it is a chore or just something to check off your to do list, you have to show up with some flexibility. Like yes, obviously it's ideal to do different types of hikes throughout the year, but there might be a month where you just have so much going on and you maybe do the same super local hike for a week straight like that might happen and that's okay. So those are my takeaways. That was my honest experience from doing the 52 hike challenge myself. Um, I hope that it's provided some insights as we are coming up on a new year. I do think it is one of the coolest New Year's resolutions that you can set for yourself. I feel like so often we set resolutions that are super, um, like end product based, like I want results in this area, like I want to have saved this amount of money or lost this amount of weight or, you know, do this or that. However, something that is more of like a process based resolution or goal, I think is. So much more legit, so much more fulfilling. And that's what I loved about the 52 high challenge, because it was more so about like showing up week in and week out and getting it done instead of just like reaching an end result a few months later, like it was a true commitment for an entire year. And I do think it was a year of massive growth for me in so many areas. So I definitely do recommend it if you are going into it with the right mindset. All right guys, that is a wrap on this episode. Thanks so much for tuning in. I would love to hear if you've ever done a 52 hike challenge, what were your takeaways like? I'd love to share those with anybody else on our Instagram who is interested so you guys can hear more than just my perspective. So if you've ever done it or thought about doing it, you can either drop your honest assessment of how it went for you or any questions that you have on the fit underscore for Hiking Instagram page. Just shoot us a DM. I'm on there every day. I will check that out. We'd love to hear your experience. All right you guys, that is all. And I will see you in the next episode. 1s Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on a trail comm. Happy and healthy trails.