I gave up running because, as usual, I was crushing my ankles and knees, but I started doing forced marches instead since they're easier on my body. I've ramped up from 25 to ~50lbs (22.5kg) now, and can even shuffle-run for short periods to make a traffic light or whatever with no problem.
The 6.5km (~4mi) forced march is in the morning before breakfast with nothing in me but black coffee. This makes it harder than you would think. I'm making the distance in about 50 minutes right now, including down time for a set each of pull-ups and dips, and hope to hit 66lbs (30kg) by next month while keeping the same time. This will be about 28 - 30% of my body weight by then.
Combine the morning march with 3-4 days of endurance lifting and an odd evening march, and you'll spend all day with random cramps just like me.
I'm looking at a ruck sack instead of my backpack to ease the pressure on my lower back and get the weight up higher. That should make the treck less painful. I'm handling the winter with a motorcycle face mask and several layers of sweats, which I sweat completely through every day.
Since I haven't done any real power lifting this year, my lifts are down by 30-40%. I'll fix that in the spring. I want to drop this gut first. Since I'm not losing any real muscle size, I figure I can wait.
