How long does it take to build up OTR stamina?

It's always the first day or two out after a break at home when doing ~280 miles straight is difficult. After that it's smooth sailing. If you have to keep the left door closed to make money or keep dispatch happy, then that's crazy.

 

Sometimes you just gotta roll tho. Today did 489.9 miles in one go and just beat out my 8hour clock. I did that becuase I choose to sleep at a petro last night instead of settling for whatever I could find a few hours down the road.

 

Yep those days of driving straight through without stopping are long gone. And not a moment to soon.

 

Yep. After a week at home i can barely run 300 miles before im ready to call it a day.

 

It's gonna be rough for the first few months. Most important thing to learn is your limit. Too many guys fall asleep and keep pushing till they're in a ditch. Over time you'll adapt and knock out 650-700 day in day out!

 

Stamina for me requires quality food. Steak, taters wif gravy, salad, corn, bread and a fudge sundae for a after. Coffee and oceans of coffee. I take a rest for about an hour then take off once the food takes hold Im good for the night long. The best meals cause me to run without breakfast the following morning because it's still going real well. I'll spend some money in the truckstop for food. Breakfast is a favorite meal.

However.

If I am 6 hours into the 10 hour push to get somewhere and the food is not that great and it's a little difficult to keep it moving, I'll take a 3 hour nap. OR... Simply take a 8 and keep moving on a new 10 hour push because every 24 hours you need to show a advance of at least 16 hours driving to keep dispatch happy. It's a little random.

In the beginning it was caffinee pills but that got stopped for life right quick when people were almost killed one day waving me off a interstate. They would not stop waving and literally incorperated themselves into my dream state that day. That helped me understand there is a problem in the flying dutchman (A sleep with eyes open when the brain decides enough is enough and goes into a sleep state whatever it is youre doing.)

later after I built up stamina, it's resolve. If I wanted to leave Garden City Kansas via Armarillo to Bakersfield then Sacremento with a hot load of meat straight through it will happen. Takes a couple days and nights but it will happen. That also requires a fantastic truck and perfect seat etc. For me for that kind of running it happened to be the FLD120 condo sleeper truck with the big 500 detriot on a rockwell 9. and coffee plus cigerettes. Lots of same.

I'll get out take a walk around the rig. Or even get into a shouting argument with some random problem stranger on the radio. That is usually enough to lose the temper problem and stay awake half the night with sleep no longer the problem. If that truck cannot be between the lines safely then I'll park her and get some sleep, dispatch be ######. They already know by then that I have done what I can do in the time we have so they will wait and make a new appointment if necessary.

But... all of that was nothing when I put my wife on the road as a team. and we started running cross country twice a week. 7 or 8000 some odd miles on the ground in 5days and part of the 6th. Every week a round trip. Once or twice I asked her to stop that thing right quick, hop out and lean on the drives puking. I call that road sick, we usually find a hotel for the day and night just to get out of that thing when we run hard enough long enough.

The biggest problem with awake most people do not understand is biological. In each and every single one of us, the moment we wake up after a good rest overnight, we begin to accumulate toxins in the body and blood after a certain period of "Awake time" waiting on a load all day you are tired now when it's finally loaded and you have to be somewhere 1000 miles away by morning. That wont happen. But yet it does.

Repeat that overnight every day of the week and you will understand just what tired is. You might be paid a thousand dollars on friday but sleep until sunday too tired to do anything. That's normal.

Another form of being tired is stress. If you argue, yell, scream and fly off the handle with a bad dispatcher or a really abusive shipper and reicever it takes a toll on you. And you end up paying a price for that before too long.

Getting used to trucking requires endurance and stamina. That will be built up with good food and hydrating. Those two items are really good at keeping you going with protien a focus in the food. If you eat too much carbs or sweets you get all sick and stupid, then fat over time. And if you put on too much weight, just walking any where is too much.

Finally but not last. Winter problems in mountain work is exciting to me. Motivating too. I rarely need sleep in those conditions. Not when the trailer is fixing to try and come around on you. That helps alot to stay awake and keep moving. Otherwise you get bored and lazy then sleepy for no reason.

If you run a fever or are sick and especially taking medicine? Forget driving. There is no way that is going to happen. You will put away a hundred miles and then lean on the wheel wondering what are you doing?! all blown out and too tired for the next 500. You are sick, go to bed. stay there until the fever breaks. Then hydrate a day and rest. You will get back into the driving on the second day after it's all over. You owe on the bills and need that payroll anyhow. Time to go.

 

Not long at all for me. I've driven four wheelers for stretches of twelve hours or more. The daily grind of 11 ain't ####

You're right about one thing, everyone is different.

 

For me it took no time at all to build my stamina.I spouse because my hours I started my days matched the hours when I was at home.I've always been the most productive starting my day between 2:00 and 4:00 am.So I always got my sleep.But if you drive days then sometimes off for hrs and have to drive at night I imagine its hard building up a stamina for otr.Would be for me anyway.I always hauled dry freight so I never had those midnight appt times like reefer does.

 

I never got used to it. I'm more of a delivery man than a trucker I guess. I thrive on 5 loads a night.

I work at night and usually will bust out 5 loads doing 15-16 hours. More than half of that is on duty time loading/unloading.

I had a run with the same company where I'd do one load a day. Start at 9 pm or so and do 15-16 hours. 560 miles.

I'd also add that I'm a day cab tanker driver. I don't have a cozy sleeper to crawl into when I'm tired. I can take a 30 min lunch and two paid 15's a shift. On the long run, I'd take them and sleep. I'd keep a pillow in the truck. My body would literally shut down and fall asleep within a minute or two.

Nights are fine with me, I just do not enjoy the long runs. If I was OTR it probably would be fine but doing that plus a commute to and from work with a baby at home is just too hard. Everyone is different.

 

It's been some time but I still remember going through school and then with a trainer for a month or so and then finally getting into my own truck. Started out with Lisa motor lines out of fort worth. They were bought by FFE shortly after. This was back in 2007. If you've made it through training with your sanity still in tack getting into your own truck will be a joy assuming you're the indiana jones type personality as I am. Eating/diet have much to do with your stamina more then you probably realize and if you don't know now you will when you're smacking yourself upside the head trying to keep yourself awake after gorging yourself on a big ol burrito from taco bell or something. keep the meals small, eat a little and take a little back to the truck to eat in an hour or so once your body's ready for some more, not too much not too little (much better to error on too little). buy some fruit, a bag of apples/bananas/oranges/carrots/almonds/peanuts etc. This stuff won't satisfy you for very long but it will not take away from your energy levels whats so ever. coffee/stimulants are only to be used in dire situations when you need it not something you want to be just drinking to drink it.. it will become a bad habit and then your body will develope a tolerance to it and it will then be worthless to you as something to help with your energy levels. consider stuff like that as tools not pacifiers.. for me stamina wasn't an issue because I was so jacked up on the excitement of being on the open road going to new places every day, new scenario every morning, driving this gigantic beast of a machine etc. people for the most part don't realize all the cool places all over our country and you'll get to see much of it. and i also had something to prove for the longest and so I would run hard and i mean hard, i think back and think what a retard i was. i was pretty much being used and abused and it was completely unnecessary. super trucker been there done that got a t-shirt so now i don't have anything to prove i guess lol.. anyways i've rambled on long enough... i hope it's been helpful.