Have you ever seen something so beautiful that it makes you emotional, so much so you can feel your eyes well up in appreciation of the sight that you are lucky enough to be witnessing?

Seeing my Son for the first time, half way around the famous Nurbergring on my GSXR750 motorbike. I remember these moments; they are the life’s great gifts that God to remind you that outside of the rat race life can be amazing.

These moments unfortunately, tend to be fleeting in nature. Just as quickly as the endorphins are released into the brain giving you that sense of oneness and happiness, they pass. The moment is gone, relegated from the present to the past, and “I am” to an “I did” now only a memory in the hippocampus part of the brain.

I mention this because, yesterday, I was fortunate enough to have one of these moments. It wasn’t a fleeting moment as well.

It lasted at least 30 minutes, from the outset it was good, then it got better and better then as all these moments do, it ended.

As with all of these experiences, I am left with a hunger to have this experience again.

Unlike both the birth of my son or a ride around the Nurburgring, I don’t have to wait that long to do this again, as the source of such pleasure is Tealise Gym in Mina Salam Hotel.

On recollection, ive been in Gym’s on 4 continents, ive been in slum gyms with No AC, where nobody speaks English and you have a 70% chance of catching polio when you pick up weight. Ive been in 5 Star boutique gyms, where the receptionist remembers your name, and comments how you’ve lost 1% body fat in the last two weeks.

Never, and I mean Never have I been in a gym as good and as comprehensive as Talise.

Not only have they got the very best equipment to track your every twitch and pull, a 25 meter indoor lane pool, 11 pools outside, a huge studio, TRX, free weights, Steam room, 7+ climbing wall, a café that distributes water and fruit ever 11 minutes, not only have they got all this but they have also have an altitude fitness room.

With some sort of scientific magic they change the nitrogen levels in the room to completely replicate the conditions of being on the mountain.

For our climb on Kilimanjaro having access to this room is a dream! I had pictured a small steam room type facility which we would sit in and get used to being in high altitude, boy was I wrong!!

Sergey, the fantastic manager at the gym, explained that before you go in the  chamber, every bit of you tested, fat content, bone density, heart rate, everything, a complete breakdown of your human being. Then comes the 12 days back to back training at high altitude. The room has everything, weights, rowing and running machines everything you need to train in a room that replicates being 3000 meters above sea level.

Training in such a room has the ability not only to get your body used to stress with less oxygen, but in the case of one of their trainers, it dropped the resting heart rate by 20BPM……20!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Im trying to arrange a baseline test at the gym for all of us, so we will have a real life example of how this works for the four of us, I cannot wait!

Flipping tires in the snow is effective, I’ve done it, rocky did it, but I tell you this, if you have the money and motivation, there is nothing on God’s green earth that comes close to Talise!!!

!!  

Training Entry Numero 1

We are about four weeks into our training program and shall get a bit more detailed from here in.

Up until now we've managed our fitness in two ways, we are each responsible for our mid week training, and are responsible for maintaining our levels of stamina and strength. At weekends we push ourselves much harder and as a group

For three weeks on the bounce we have done beach sessions that start with long runs, followed by sprint, core and strengthening exercises.
Last Friday was a 10k run followed by all 82 floors of the tower I live in. Now as the weekends get closer, the session will get longer and harder. This Friday we are off to climb the 3rd highest mountain (hill) in the UAE, Jebel Hafeet

We've been ok with training, I'm sure all of us guilty to have not taken it as seriously as we can. But today things got more serious. For one, we realised we only have a month of fund raising left, which means the challenge is really creeping up - the second is that we were informed that we would be featured in the August copy of Mens Fitness, they'll be doing a feature on our training and climb - this is NOT good for middle aged over weight men. Time to pull the finger out!

So less Caramel latte's at the office, and more miles under the feet from now on.

That said, Ive not been too bad. Last night saw me climb my tower again, this time with a 15k rucksack.
Tomorrow morning I will be up at 6am to do some potentially fatal cross fit training

Watch this space!! The four of us have promised ourselves to now document all of our training, and journeys right up to the big day

More to follow soon

The Introduction

Hi, thanks for looking at our Blog

This is the record of four average guys, 3 Britsh, 1 Lebenese, who will in July be raising money for charity by climbing Kilimanjaro
We all work for Thomson Reuters in its Dubai office. 3 of us are of questionable fitness and will be training very very hard to get to the summit

We have created this blog and are recording our journey for three reasons:
1. We will be harassing a lot of people along the way to sponsor us a lot of money. At least this way they get their monies worth and can track our progress
2. By recording our training, adventures and levels of fitness along the way it can hopefully act as a reference point for every other weekend warrior who fancies climbing Kilimanjaro
3. Raise awareness for a very worthwile charity

So to the most important point, why we are climbing. Between us we have set the goal to raise 80'000 Dirhams for the Hanne Howard Charity.

During a six-month sabbatical in 2005-06, Hanne Howard and her husband Ted Horton were introduced to the Lenana Slum through a chance encounter with a grandmother whose daughter was dying of AIDS.

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Hanne and Ted helped to make her final days somewhat bearable with painkillers and other medications. Before she died, they promised to take care of her eleven month old daughter, Sarova, who was also HIV positive and suffered from TB and extreme malnutrition.
Hanne and Ted gave Sarova a fleeting chance at survival through proper medical care and nutrition. But in September 2006, Sarova died of AIDS. Her grandmother succumbed to exhaustion and malnutrition four months later leaving behind six grandchildren and two young teenagers of her own.

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The exposure to this devastation prompted Hanne and Ted to become more seriously involved in the Lenana community. Together with Marianne Florijn, Hanne’s good friend, they funded a basic program consisting of food, shelter, education and medical assistance for a handful of needy slum children.
After one year, as the needs increased, they realized that a more substantial and integrated approach was necessary in order to make a truly meaningful difference. This marked the birth of a more comprehensive and dedicated program involving proper nutrition, education, recreation and health care for the most vulnerable children in Lenana. This initial grassroots effort grew to become a registered charity in Canada in the summer of 2007.

The money we raise go directly to this charity, and directly benefits poor, homeless and orphaned children get a chance in life. PLEASE go to the GIVING page to donate - THANKYOU

The following link directs to the challenge page and lists the details of the climb and all those involved, including us.