Hey Aaron,

As with anything 4×7, the key is in sticking to the waving intensity cycles. As long as you aren't cocktailing your training by choosing opposing goals, exercises, etc, you should be fine if you match the posted RPE for each of the days. (for example – avoid BER cycles that focus heavily on leg strength, such as one-legged squats, since you'll be working leg endurance and strength endurance on your hikes – those are opposing goals within a cycle.)

First, if possible space out your training sessions by at least 6 hours. You want your second session to hit that window where you're recovered enough from the first session to train again, but where your body hasn't yet kicked into "recovery mode". This window allows for a pretty cool training effect (we take advantage of the same phenomenon in a Double Density cycle – we'll discuss this in Vol 2 of the 4×7 series). So do your BER session in the morning if you can, and your hike later in the day. I'm assuming that works for you, since you wrote "evening hikes" in your topic name.

For your hikes, hit the target RPE goals on the Moderate and High days. You can do this by adjusting variables: duration of hike, load you're packing, difficulty of the trail or terrain, etc. Make the Low day a "recovery" walk. Don't carry a pack, just go for a comfortable stroll. You should feel afterwards as though you walked enough to work the kinks out, but no more. On the No days, don't hike. Deep and thorough joint mobility only.

Be sure you get a thorough prasara session in after your BER circuit, and do a targeted prasara session after your hike to release the areas where you normally store tension, or where you feel it creeping in.

Finally, in the last week leading up to your hike, stop the BER workouts and drop back your hikes. The hikes should no longer be in a "work" range where you're trying to gain new conditioning ground – you should just be keeping things primed. Think of it as idling your engine before the event. Focus the rest of your efforts on removing the parking brake with deep prasara work. If you're putting heavy miles in during your trip, then the less tension you start with the better (in other words, you don't want to start the trip all sore and bound up, with your parking brake already set at 50% – that tension will gradually accumulate during your trek, even with prasara in the evenings – your job is to minimize that as much as possible while on the trail).

Ryan