Training for Elevation Change

As our trail date looms just over a month away, training is kicking into high gear. Our training schedule has us doing longer hikes on Sundays, carrying backpacks weighing 40-100% of our planned trail weight, and doing anywhere from 30-70% of our per-day average distance and elevation change. So, for instance, we'd do a Sunday hike of six miles with a 20-pound pack that had an average elevation change of 1800 feet.

This sounds like a reasonable way to train, except that we're training in Chicago. The highest point in Illinois is Charles Mound at 1235 feet. I've never been to the Mound, but I am imagining a large (1235-foot to be exact) pile of ground surrounded by prairie. There are certainly no hills in Chicago to speak of.

But in my effort to find a moderately hilly area around the city, some internet research turned up a running club's website with elevation charts and routes.

The chart is pretty funny if you know Chicago a little. The river that runs east-west on the Google map above runs right through the center of downtown Chicago. Skyscrapers everywhere. Anyway, the only way that I can think to explain the impressive changes in elevation on this chart is that the GPS tracker that created the elevation chart was turned on at the top of the runner's condo or office building, at which point they took the elevator down and started running. Would it count on our Sunday hikes if we started at the top of the Sears Tower? After all, it's taller than Charles Mound.