I've done quite a few very strenuous, multi-week races on bike, including riding the Colorado Trail in 7 days [0], and riding to, then summiting all the Colorado 14ers in 34 [1] - as well as participating in the Tour Divide [2] twice.
I would call my fitness before these races as "peak", but I wouldn't call myself anything but near, "onset of over training syndrome" afterwards. The only thing I experienced similar to the author's was a slight bit of fat loss. Every other part of my body was wrecked, which took months to recover from.
One thing that stuck out with me is that they only hiked for 8 hours/day. That seems like a light day! compared to these races, where 5 hours of sleep is spoiling oneself. I guess the moral of the story before doing a, "thru hike for fitness" is to not to overdo it. It also seems like the author was in pretty alright shape to start out, with a fairly low pulse and overall bodyweight.
I would call my fitness before these races as "peak", but I wouldn't call myself anything but near, "onset of over training syndrome" afterwards. The only thing I experienced similar to the author's was a slight bit of fat loss. Every other part of my body was wrecked, which took months to recover from.
One thing that stuck out with me is that they only hiked for 8 hours/day. That seems like a light day! compared to these races, where 5 hours of sleep is spoiling oneself. I guess the moral of the story before doing a, "thru hike for fitness" is to not to overdo it. It also seems like the author was in pretty alright shape to start out, with a fairly low pulse and overall bodyweight.
[0] http://www.climbingdreams.net/ctr/ [1] http://longranger.justinsimoni.com/tour14er/ [2] http://tourdivide.org/