When I think about training for Whitney it reminds me of my first time to the summit as opposed to my best time which was the second time.
The first time I had run the Big Sur marathon and running daily until October when a friend of mine (12 years younger) and I decided to do the hike. I think we did one hike to Mt. Baldy before that day. Basically we were runners who thought we would give Whitney a try. After hearing about a fellow worker talk about his hike and how cold he was I decided to do the hike with heavy hiking boots, jeans, long underwear, sweats, and a heavy jacket among other things. Oh and I almost forgot...an extra pair of running shoes. The night before I ate lots of pizza and quite a bit of beer. We stayed at lower Lone Pine campground that night and got on the trail by 6AM. We thought that was early. Needless to say I was a mess the entire way up the trail. It is a good thing there were solar toilets back then because I could not have packed enough WAG BAGS. It seemed like I had spent most of my time going up inside the solar toilets. Somehow I made it to Trail Crest and from then on the boots felt like anchors. I thought about switching shoes "I think" but I did not want those anchors on my back. I trudged up from Trail Crest barely one foot in front of the other chanting "HUL-DA, HUL-DA, HUL-DA" very slowly. I made it to the point up to the summit where you can see the hut from the trail, but I thought I was done. My friend said I looked like death and I could feel my neck throbbing. It would have been hard to tell if I was suffering from altitude sickness because I was sooo dehydrated from my upset stomach I was barely able to stand. I told my friend to go ahead and I would see him on the way down. I ate a granola bar and got a sudden burst of energy. I went back to chanting "HUL-DA" and my friend was shock to see coming up to the top of the summit. This was over 20 years ago and from Trail Crest to the Summit it wasn't a flat trail to the top. You actually had to climb over several large bolders that were in the way of the trail.
I have thought about this defeat, yes I said defeat because I made the summit but the mountain defeated me that day. I guess I thought I could never let that happen again and a couple years later I would make my second summit.
I trained for the Baldy Peaks 50K (10,000 foot total elevation climb and descent). I ran in the mountains of Southern California, and included Mt. Whitney as part of my training.
This time there were three of us runners. No pizza and no beer for me the night before and we stayed at Whitney Portal that night. Since there was much less parking at the trail head then we started our hike from the campground. We went up in 5 1/2 hours and down in 3 1/2 in basically running shoes, running clothes, a hip water belt and a small pack (no trekking poles). Now I know people have said you can't sight see while running in the mountains, but after awhile it's like walking on pavement while sight seeing. I guess what I am saying in preparing for Whitney is to make it part of what you already do on a consistent basis and maybe your lucky enough to remember something you were make it through, even Mt Whitney itself. Everybody is different but remember "where ever the mind goes the body will follow...follow your dreams".