Build the Base Before You Build the Bold

Whether you've set your sights on the Coast to Coast, a Lakeland ridge traverse or a long weekend linking Snowdonia's summits, the fitness you need is built rather than summoned. The single biggest mistake walkers make is leaving training until a month before, then hammering out enormous days that leave them injured, exhausted and doubting themselves. Muscles, tendons and the small stabilising muscles around ankles and knees adapt slowly. Give them eight to sixteen weeks and you'll arrive at the start of your route feeling like a different person.

Aim to be comfortably walking three to four hours on consecutive days before you begin any structured build. If you're not there yet, simply walk more often — the commute, the lunch break, the school run — and add one longer outing at the weekend. Once that's routine, more specific work will do the rest.

Hill Repeats: Short, Sharp and Shockingly Effective

Ridges are won and lost on the climbs, and the most efficient way to train for them is hill repeats. Find a slope with roughly 100–150 metres of ascent — a steep fellside path, a forestry track, even a long flight of steps in town. Warm up for ten minutes, then walk up at a brisk, purposeful pace. Note your time. Descend steadily and use the walk down as recovery, then repeat.

• Beginners: 4–6 reps, once a week
• Intermediates: 6–8 reps, building towards 10
• Advanced: 10–12 reps, or carry a rucksack of 8–10kg

Keep the effort hard but sustainable — you should still be able to speak a short sentence at the top. Add one rep each week rather than trying to go faster. This session builds the climbing-specific endurance that flat miles simply cannot.

Back-to-Back Walks: The Multi-Day Multiplier

Multi-day routes don't test your best day; they test your second, third and fifth. The adaptation you need is recovering overnight and walking well again on tired legs. That means back-to-back walks — two consecutive days out, ideally across a weekend.

Start modestly: a 12km day followed by 10km the next. Over several weeks, build towards something like 20km on the Saturday and 15km on the Sunday with a loaded pack. Walk them at a realistic pace, including the stops you'd actually take, and don't dodge the hills. If you can only manage one big weekend a month, that's still far better than nothing.

Strength Work That Protects Your Knees and Quads

Ridge routes punish your legs on the descents as much as the climbs. Eccentric quad strength — the ability to control your leg as it lowers you — is what saves your knees on a long, rocky drop into a valley. Two short sessions a week, twenty minutes each, will pay for themselves many times over.

• Step-ups: 3 sets of 10–15 per leg onto a knee-height box, wearing a rucksack once bodyweight feels easy
• Split squats or lunges: 3 sets of 8–12 per leg, slow on the way down
• Calf raises: 3 sets of 15–20, single-legged where you can
• Single-leg deadlifts: 3 sets of 8 per side for balance and hip stability
• Planks and side planks: 3 holds of 30–45 seconds

Progress by adding weight to your pack or slowing the lowering phase, not by rushing the reps.

Load, Feet and Recovery

Train with the pack you'll actually carry, and build the weight gradually — no more than 10 per cent a week. Get your boots and socks sorted early and wear them on every training walk, so any blisters happen near your kitchen rather than on a col in the Cairngorms.

Recovery is training too. Sleep well, eat protein with each meal, and keep easy days genuinely easy between the hard ones. If a niggle lasts more than a week, back off and address it rather than pushing through. Practise your fuelling as well: eat little and often, roughly 50–60g of carbohydrate an hour on long days, and drink before you feel thirsty.

The Final Fortnight

Two weeks out, cut your long walks to about half their usual length. In the last week, keep moving but keep it short and gentle — a couple of 40-minute strolls and your strength session at low volume. You will feel restless. Resist the urge to cram. Arriving at the start of a long-distance route with fresh legs, a well-fitted pack and confidence built on weeks of steady work is worth far more than any last-minute heroics.

The hills reward patience. Build gradually, train the specific demands of climbing and descending, and the day will come when a long ridge feels less like an ordeal and more like exactly where you want to be.