13120

The number of stairs I've climbed this week............so far

So far this week I've managed to find enough time to get up and down the tower twice, twice!!

And tomorrow, we (as Im dragging the others up there) are aiming for four times - that's going to hurt!!

Only myself to blame....

When I was younger our PE teacher Mr Duffy called a few of us to the front of assembly. As I walked up to the front, I contemplated what trouble I was in, trying to figure out what they could pin on me during this soon to be public trial.

AS I got to the front, where there were now 6 or 7  of us that were that were called, I looked at my co accused, confusion set in. I couldn’t recall a single crime or misdemeanour committed with all of these guys.

My fear of a public lynching dropped somewhat, as we were all handed a test. Mr Duffy, then said to us that the first person to complete the test would be given a prize.

I immediately turned the page and before listening to any instructions, I began using fingers and thumbs to do additions, quickly working my way through the 10 or so questions set before us.

To my dismay, my best friend at the time Kunle, who was far far better than I at Maths, had finished the test first, I wasn’t even second or third.

I bring up that day because a lesson I should have learned then, resurfaced today.

On the first day of every week (Sunday in the UAE) I like to just do a cardio or Crossfit session. Today I choose the Omar WOD. (workout of the day)

The fantastic thing about crossfit is you don’t need to spend lots of money train, you don’t even need to join a crossfit gym, they post a different WOD each day, and you go out and give it a go.

They also encourage the community to post times, so people have something to work towards.

This particular morning, I looked up the Omar, scrolled down slightly, saw a 6.03 time, and wondered down to the gym.

The Omar consists of the following:

95 pound barbell Thrusters, 10

15 Bar-facing burpees

95 pound barbell Thrusters, 20

25 Bar-facing burpees

95 pound barbell Thrusters, 30

35 Bar-facing burpees

6 Minutes into the exercise, it dawned on me that I was going to finish nowhere near the WOD time. I nearly dropped the weight on my head and instead of jumping over the bar to do the burpee is trotted like a broken horse.

The last 30 Thrusters were soul destroying, I had planned to try to get to 15 before taking a small rest, but after 10, it got too much so the whole thing took three attempts.

By the end, I had finished in 9:35 and was gutted, I really really pushed, and was nowhere near 6 minutes.

As I walked sadly home I went on to the Crossfit website (www.crossfit.com) to look at some other times to see how bloody bad I was, I then noticed something.

Yes the first post said 6:03, but that wasn’t the time he did it in, but the damn time of day he posted it.

This brings me back to that day in school, Mr Duffy hadn’t brought us up there to see who could finish the test the quickest. As Kunle awaited his Prize for finishing first, Mr Duffy asked him to read the front page.

On the front page of the test, it clearly said “Read all the questions before starting the test” He then asked Kunle to question 11, which simply read “ Do not answer any of the questions”

I should have learned that day to not half read something before jumping in with both feet, I didn’t. Today, I learned never do a bloody Crossfit WOD without reading through it properly and nearly killing myself in the process.

I kid you not, my chest is still burning. 

Fundraising update

The day draws closer!!

We now have only 6 weeks until the climb, so yesterday we had a huge fundraising day and tried out best to squeeze a little money from quite literally everyone we know, and plenty that we don't! 

Firstly we have a bake sale at work, providing sweety goodness for our colleagues. We started by politely smiling and offering our treats, after a few hours this turned into standing over peoples desk and strong arming them into parting with their cash. 1700 Dirhams later Abs and Nas left the office smiling!

Then straight onto the big event, our quiz night! A brilliant 65 friends, and colleagues came to support us on the night, from all corners of the planet and all level of quiz knowledge. A small fear was soon realised, I passed the microphone to Nas at witnessed the transformation from annoying to really loud and annoying, I created a monster. He definetly enjoyed having the power of being able to make people listen to him. Bravo to Abs, he wrote the questions to his first quiz and quickly came to a simple understanding, against his adamant belief not everyone is a fan of Nintendo, harry potter and comic books! The poor man was heart broken

(As were some of the quiz participants when another comic book hero hit the projector screen)

4000 questions later we had winners, the PWC girls doing a great job despite the small number of them. Then there was our raffle, we had thankfully been given some great prizes - THANKYOU Rotana , Hilton and Raddisson Blu and the crowd gleefully received them, many many smiley faces! One of the prizes was so good we held an auction and took a brilliant donation of 1800 dirhams from our friend Nina! Great end to the night, over 9000 dirhams raised. On a quick tally up we only have 6000 left to go!!

Thank to everyone that made the effort to come, and even more to the people that donation in their absence!

Dubai comes to our aid!

Dubai's a funny old place. It’s really only actually home to a small amount of people, everyone else is a guest of either short or long stay. We definitely fall into the former, and I certainly so with only two years under my belt. Being such a varied and transient society it’s hard to feel a connection to the city, the people, the culture, everything changing at such a fast pace.

But I made a real connection last week.

As a group we’ve been doing the usual fundraising activities, emailing friends/family to donate, doing raffle's, and soon a pub quiz. For the pub quiz I needed prizes so I set about trying to track some down via friends, with a small amount of joy (thanks Ali).

I then went on the offensive toward the big brands, mostly the hotels and the response was AMAZING. I sent a very simple and honest email to a handful of contacts and told it how it was:

We are off to climb a mountain for charity

It really help some kids who need the help

Please help us

I got the usual and expected palm off's from most, but I can’t tell you how happy I was to see some of the responses:

"This is a great cause which we would love to support and in case we can assist you with anything else, please let me know."

"Thank you for your below email and we are happy to support you for this great cause"

I didn’t anticipate such a personal, supportive and charitable replies to my request. It gave me a fresh boost of enthusiasm toward the inhabitants of this city!

Huge thanks to Rotana hotels & resorts your support has been unparalleled

Not forgetting the excellent credit due too Radisson Blu, ITP, Hilton and the Entertainer for your support it has been amazing

Thank you Dubai!!

(Pub quiz is Wed 7pm offshore sailing club, YOU MUST BE REGISTERED to get past the door so please email me first on nic.potter@thomsonreuters.com) 

Training update

So the training is coming along well..............................for me

Apparently Abs and Ameer are getting on well in their mid week sessions, Nas - given his updates seems to be pushing himself too, to enter a cross fit competition or something gym related

I on the other hand have been doing specific uphill training and aside from runs have done some serious uphill work in the last week.
During a 4 day trip to Petra managed some quality training, including a thigh deep, up stream hike for two hours, a 10 set 80 stair sprint circuit and an 8 hour hike with 2-3 of it Uphill.
Last night, our first night back, I was out on the stairs for 90mins and did 150 floors. Two laps of our tower, I'm going to start upping this to 3 and 4 laps as of next week

I'm starting to think that I'll have to write motivational messages on my back for the guys to read much much further down the mountain :)

Bouncing Back to form!

Like a self proclaiming prophecy, after my last blog, I took a few days off as the 6 days a week training for 2 weeks just took its tool.

The last three days back in training have been loads of fun! Feels great to get back into it.

Ive lost my training partner Ali to his girlfriend, so its just that little bit harder getting up at 6:00 to be in the gym when there is no one relying on you to train.

Started with the AR7 squat a back session, for those of you who have never done its horrible!

Basically leaves you with an end result of total of 110 Deadlifts, 110 Weighted Squats, 110 Jumping Squats in less than 40 mins.

I added on 10 x 10 second incline sprints on the running machine, then decided to run to my apartment, managed to run 10 flights of stairs and walked 2-this as it turned out, was a stupid idea as I couldn’t get from the stairwell to corridor because the fire door only works from the other side. The walk down 12 flights as I swore lots was very long.

The following day, was a AR7 chest session, which I always love.

I wanted to mix it up yesterday, so I did the Randy Couture Barbell workout.

Bent (Horizontal) Rows x 8

Uprows x 8

Military Press (NOT push press – keep knees stiff)  x 8

Good Mornings x 8

Split Squats/Rear Lunges x 8 (each leg)

Squat Push Press x 8

Straight-leg deadlift x 8

Then put the bar down and rest for 60 seconds and repeat 6 times.

I started with 10kgs each side of an Olympic bar, dropped to 5kgs straight after the first set!

Along with the Crossfit stuff, I absolutely LOVE this routine, you are in and out of the gym in no time, but it quite literally destroys you.

As I trained twice yesterday, I have given this mornings session a miss, but am going to head to the pool straight after work and see if can do a 1km swim.

I hate swimming, its the only exercise where my brain doesn’t switch off, all that goes through my head the entire time is stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!

Need to get a waterproof mp3 player, as the 40 min swim feels like purgatory! I am only doing it as its a low impact activity and works the whole body!

The highlight this week is that our story came out in UAE Outdoor Magazine, thanks to the fact that Nic can take a photo and I cant, Im in some pretty cool pics J

Its official

Lightest I've been for a considerable time.
A quick jump on the scales during the weekend away confirmed that I have lost exactly 1 stone since starting  training
Amazingly during 5 days away travelling across Jordan I also made time to train 4 days! and fit in two hikes! This MUST be getting serious

Too much of a good thing?

ROSALIND: Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?

Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.

Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?

If you’re wondering where the above comes from, its Shakespeare's As You Like It. Like many of Shakespeare’s great quotes, they have been adopted into mainstream language.

The gym is no doubt a good thing, I  love it, since starting training for Kili I’ve been training roughly 6 days a week, and I can really see the benefit ive had to punch new holes in my belt, ive lifted more and pushed harder.

The reason I quote Shakespeare here is because, ive derived so much benefit in the last few weeks,  but I couldn’t help feeling really really tired today. The AR7 chest routine is a monster.

100 push up, 100 squats

7 Dips, 7 diamond push ups – repeat down to 5 then do 3 sets

Incline bench and flys follow the same pattern – 7,7,6,6,5,5

Flat Bench  wide superset with close grip does the 7,7,6,6,5,5

Once your over that, then, standing military presses with but you do 7, hold the bar up for 5 seconds (active rest) then work down to 5.

Then I see what the WOD is from the cross fit website and do that.

This is no doubt a good thing, I love the feeling of smashing a session like this, but man it’s taking its toll on its me as well.

So Mr Shakes, I kind of agree with you! 

Small training update

Big week this week so far!
Gym session, 12 km run AND then 150 floor climb last night.
Which Abs BOSSED AGAIN.
Im beginning to think we have a hustler in the team

Do you want to fight crime?

I once read somewhere that all the crimes of the world are different forms of stealing (it probably was “The Kite Runner”…I genuinely hope my lack of originality does not turn you off so early on though).  Theft is obviously synonymous with stealing. Murder is stealing someone’s life. Rape is stealing someone’s self esteem. The list goes on. I cannot deny the truth of this. All crime is rooted in the same cause.

There is however, in my world at least, another way of looking at this that reveals an equally gruesome crime. All crime is actually derived from the same effect, missed opportunity. Stealing is someone’s missed opportunity to use the money to invest, to vacation…or more importantly to eat. Murder is someone’s missed opportunity to spend time with a loved one. Rape is someone’s missed opportunity at a healthier life.

It is also criminal that children the world over still miss an opportunity to achieve their full potential due to lack of access to resources as basic as education. There’s a reason there have been so few African Nobel Prize winners, and I promise you it has everything to do with there being so few African university students. There is also a reason African nations still lag behind on most development metrics, and I promise you it has everything to do with the type of aid they are getting. They are getting a lot of fish but no one is teaching them how to fish.

I know this because I am not too far removed from observing the effects a proper education could have on someone’s life and even that of his community. I wish I could say this story is about me, but that would take away from the mammoth effort my parents put to raise this middle class brat. This story is about another Abdallah Mukalled. An infinitely greater Abdallah Mukalled. It is about my grandfather. He left school at 6 and soldiered through a life of poverty. He grew up in 1950s Beirut where classism was still very much a reality. The clichés of a poor family are true. While everyone around him was raising a family of 8 children and sinking into the abyss of mediocrity, he was a visionary. He had two kids. He sacrificed sweat blood and tears to educate them. It is that simple. His kids would go to university no matter what. He died with very little to his name but by god has his name endured. The rest is obvious. My father seized the opportunity he was offered and produced a litter of upper middle class grade A douches. He went on to work in aid organizations and help people all around the world. The past 10 years, he has worked 30 minutes away from the village where my grandfather was born and has helped develop the area in a way that no politician or neo-feudal lord ever would.  Abdallah would tell my father every single day “my only heirloom to you is your education…so don’t mess it up”.

This brings us to the Kiliminjaro climb. No one on our team is far removed from a similar story. This one is mine. To sit here and say that the climb is just a natural progression from the above and that all along I was only climbing because I wanted to pay homage to the great man that is my grandfather would be, well, lying. Fact of the matter is it all started with an idea, than a challenging stare from Nic and Nas, then an incredulous look as I actually accepted. In fact, if I am to be awfully honest I knew absolutely nothing about the charity when I first signed up. Serendipity, though, is a beautiful thing. I have always had two dreams for my millionaire years. The first is buying an Aston Martin vanquish. The second is starting a Abdallah Mukalled Scholarship at my alma mater, the American University of Beirut (naturally this is in reference to my grandfather, because despite an inherent sense of entitlement I am not that much of a douche). The Aston Martin is still miles away, to say the least. We are talking distance to the moon miles here. But god, the force, the spaghetti monster, you name it has given me a twisted chance to achieve the second dream. My priorities shifted. Fund raising to start a university scholarship fund for the Hanne Howard fund makes me want to break out in song. I am thinking Journey-Don’t Stop Believing, but at this stage I am so psyched even Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah would do.

The kids at the Hanne Howard foundation deserve a university education and they deserve to achieve their full potential. They deserve to change their lives. For years people have been donating to build a well in a village and to feed an African child. Not to sound like a cliché here, but people would have been better served if they were educated on how to build wells or in order to feed themselves. It is criminal that there are generations of Kenyan Children who missed the opportunity to fulfill their potential. This is your chance change that. This is your chance to fight crime by helping them realize their full potential. You may never don a batman cape on the streets of your city, but this is your chance to be the true Dark Knight. Carpe Diem!

https://www.justgiving.com/climingkili/

Hafeet Journey in Pictures

Preparations, "chop chop"

 Let's do this!

Team Kili

Early days, still on top form

 

Some greenery....

...But mostly brown

Tricky at parts

Abs too far ahead of everyone

Mid-way

 Rest of it on the road, still a very long and steep walk

 Made it to the top!

Piece of cake :)

 The reward

Smarter than Tony Stark.........

Watching Iron man, one is always going to have suspend their belief in reality for the 90 minutes or so, that you’re  inside the movie theatre.  I love the idea of Tony Stark, Billionaire super intelligent playboy. The suit is pretty cool as well. Like batman, superman and every superhero movie before it, the audience is invited in to an extravaganza of explosions fight scenes and  cliff hangers.

In return for such an extravaganza, the audiences part, we are  asked to mostly leave the “that’s just impossible” comments at the door, and see where the movie takes us.

And the most part, when watching Iron man 3 that’s exactly what I did, then *watch out spoiler alert* came the bit when Tony called on a hidden army of suits to help fight the baddies at the end.

Now, I can live with flying parts, even the flying facemask that had no obvious mode of propulsion as it travelled 836 miles! What I can’t believe is the fact that Tony Stark, who has an IQ of 180 (according to Abduallah) went through everything he went through, including a Mc Giver, style shop in a DIY store, before actually calling in the Calvary, who  would have solved his problems 45 minutes earlier.

This brings me neatly onto training, I have always been able to train fairly well, I am by no means the fittest person I know, but I’m slightly better than average. I bring up this point because I’ve always been able to do this, whilst maintaining a unhealthy Shisha smoking habit. I’m not going to get drawn into a debate with myself about the pros/cons of smoking Shisha, but the fact is, as much as I fool myself, it must have some negative impact on my fitness, and going forward my health.

Therefore, I am going to do what Tony Stark didn’t do in Iron Man 3, I am going to call in the Calvary, at the beginning of this training programme rather than at the end.

As of today ( perhaps I will give myself a farewell one)  I am stopping Shisha, for those of you who know me well, this I have no doubt will come as a shock.

The great thing is, no one will ever be able to say I am as stupid as Tony Stark..... 

Quiz night finalised

Last night I popped down to DOSC- Dubai Offshore Sailing club, and booked the venue for the 22nd May.

We'll be hosting a pub quiz and raffle to raise funds for HHF and have a cracking night while we are at it! Thanks Jen for arranging this for me

I thought it would be a wise idea to run home afterwards, and up my game a bit in regards to training.
DOSC is 12.5km from my house, and it was HOT last night. Needless to say, this morning I feel pretty knackered. On my third cup of tea and its only 10am!

SAVE THE DATE - 22nd MAY - DOSC- PUB QUIZ
Flyer to be posted today
Bring a friend, bring 5!


I'm quickly noticing a grown trend with amount of people authoring on this site (ABS, NAS take the black and white capital letter HINT!!)

A Jebel Hafeet Training session

A successful weekends hiking, we have a new hike leader!

In the sweltering midday heat and barren rocky landscape Abdullah found new depths of focus and a whole new world of fitness. He is our new leader!

On Friday morning the gang drove to Jebel Hafeet in Al Ain to climb the UAE's third tallest hill

We started later than planned so our climb faced some harsh temperatures, roaring into the 30's by midday. Abs & Ameer initially petitioned for a day of sitting by the pool and chilling out., but that fell on deaf ears.

We didn't makes the plans and drive for hours to sit by a pool, we had a mountain (hill) to conquer. For embodying such an attitude I have been dubbed "strict parent", Nas being a little more relaxed but as equally determined has been (self)dubbed "cool parent". Together we are the responsible organised half of the group, Abs and Ameer are our children.

As there are no consecutive paths to the top aside from the road, our plan for the Friday morning was exceptionally laid out - go to the bottom of the hill, walk up and down bits until we are tired!!
The road is a bit too easy to climb and we wanted something that would last longer and put more stress on our legs - something I was hoping would force the realisation within the "kids" that their training should be taken more seriously and their boots needed wearing in. And what do you know - it worked.

So we started out at the bottom., parked the car and found our first path, a sheer entry into a gully. The trip down was fun, sliding on our bums down the shale surface before ascending an equally sheer path on the other side. This was repeated a couple of times before landing on a path to the natural springs, by this time we had worked up an excellent sweat and took a ten minute breather at the natural baths further round the mountain.

From there we headed straight back into the gulley's for what felt like an hour long shear ascent up a rocky path. This is where Abs found his own, tired from the first hour and the oppressive heat he took of not wanting the slow for fear of stopping, he set out a blistering pace up the track. When Nas went to catch him up, he had to run for ten minutes!

An hour or so later, out path came back to the road, and exhausted we opted to use that route to continue to the top. We were in the state Id hoped for, very tired! I was very enthuastic to find how the group interacted in such a state, how charecters changed, how people responded to the tiredness. I was very happy with the results.

The journey brought out determination, great sense of humours, comrardery and a focus toward our ultimate goal - summiting Kili

To get to the top took us a further long harsh hour, at 1pm in the afternoon the heat was now really taking effect, our conversations by this point centred purely on swimming pools and ice!

Amazingly about 15 mins from the top, a guy came up the hill in his car, honking us and holding a huge bag of ice out of the window! It was amazing, he cheered us up no end.

15 mins later, after much back slapping, high fiving and the like we retired to the pool to cool down and then sat down for a large healthy dinner at the top with the wives - who did have the luxury of sitting by the pool all day

A good day had and a great training session.

(so much so Nas and I stayed on a night and did the road walk again at 6am the morning after. Abs informs us that motivated from the climb he was also up early to run 7k the next morning!)

At the Finish, very very hot!!

On to the next session!!

Fundraising Update

A couple of weeks into making an effort and we are now up to the sum of 32000 Dirhams. Our target is 80000 so still a good way to go

Thanks for all the support so far, but still a good way to go! 

All bikers will remember the first time they get their knee down. Most of us spend years going around roundabouts at 6am slowly trying to tip the damn thing low enough to feel the rough of the road on our knee sliders.

When I think back to the day I did it, I’m not filled with a fond memory of that lovely summers day, instead my mind goes about 5 hours later, as I sat in an ambulance, left wrist broken, right arm dislocated looking back my bike in bits on the side of the road.

Its interesting how 24 hours can such joy and sadness. Yesterday was such a day, I started off in the morning doing a AR7 arm and back set:

7 pull ups, 7 BB Curls

6 Pull ups 6 BB Curls

5 pull ups 5 BB Curls  

Rest 60 seconds repeat 3 times.

7 rows 7 DB Curls

6 rows 6 Curls

5 rows 5 Curls

Again rest 60 seconds then Curls

I train with Ali Cuma from the office, who is your quintessential gym person, trains right, eats right. I am slowly introducing him to the cross fit concept and its a completely different from the norm of what he is used to. We did the Cross fit baseline test, he posted a very respectful time under 4:58 minutes. I post 3:56, which is faster than I have ever done, and given that Ali is very fit, I was incredibly happy with.

This brings me back to that Summer day 3 years ago, getting that time was like getting my knee down, little did I know an ambulance a few broken bones and a shot of Morphine was on its way.

I was joined later that evening in the gym, by Nic and Abduallah who wanted to see what their times were at the cross fit base line test. Abduallah set a time 5:38, and considering his general fitness is bloody amazing, I was so impressed with the 100% effort he gave it.

Nic... as you will see from the photo’s Nic is 100kgs +, yes he is generally fit, but his rugby and power lifting days sculptured him to be big, guys with that much muscle shouldn’t be able to move quickly!

3:52, three minutes and fifty two seconds no matter how much I write it, it hurts!!

I know im competitive, I stopped hiding it a very long time ago! He beasted the row, even this morning when I went back to set a quicker row time I couldn’t get within 10 seconds.

I remember being in hospital that day, pretty drugged up, and in quite a lot of pain, the nurse said to me, “ is it worth it, putting your life a risk for cheap frills?” In the mist of all the pain, I said yes!

Losing to Nic yesterday hurts, training this morning I squatted more, dead lifted more and rowed faster, it hurts, but its worth it!

Crossfit Baseline Results

'All rise king Abdullah of the rowing machine. Sterling effort today from all involved, actually managing to shock ourselves and demonstrate that we are actually getting fitter! All is not in Vain!



Abs HATES cheesy pictures



So Abs and I trotted over to Nas's gym this evening after he put the wee one to bed. Not much was mentioned, but I think we were both quite nervous, neither one of us is nearly as fit as Nas and didnt want to finish miles off his time. I was sick yesterday - so personally I was just hoping not to be sick again!

I obviously let Mr Mukkalled go first in the spirit of good sportsmanship............and so I knew what I was up against

The Crossfit baseline test is as follows:

500m Row

40 Air Squats

30 Sits Ups

20 Push Ups

10 Pull Ups

We didnt see what happened next coming, he went off at a blistering pace and kept it up, in the words of the man himself, his row was "EPIC".  All the way through to the pull ups he kept excellent pace. Finally finishing in 5 Mins and 38 Seconds. An outstanding effort for a man only a few weeks ago balked at the very idea at pushing himself beyond the borders of his comfort zone.

Nas did his this morning with one of the other guys at work at finished in a predictably good time 3.54. Being the fitness monkey that he is

So then It was my turn, still nervous I had a word with myself and cracked on to give it my best shot. I know that a long time ago, in what looked like a different body, I was a very good rower -weirdly, not having remotely the right body type. So I was determined to have a stab at a good time and use upper body strength to my advantage.

The row went well, and I think I finished in about 1.25ish, only problem with this great time is that my lungs were at this point now on fire.

From the AWFUL pictures Abs took, my form in the squats was shocking so Im docking myself a couple of points, leaning far too forward. Sits ups and push ups followed, as did some even more bloody awful pull ups.

All done in 3 mins 52. Nas congratulated me, but he eyes said other things, and they all started with swear words.

That said, Im not taking the quality of that time. I think if the form was better than time would have been much longer. So I can be sure that Nasir still remains the fitness bunny in the group.

On a little high from not being sick and getting a good time I went home and climbed 82 floors in the towers. My legs are now ruined and Im going to bed!!

Cross fit Baseline Test

In a bid to measure of current fitness, we will all be doing the Cross fit Baseline test tonight, as well as taking a few stats so that we can measure our progress.
More than a little worried about how week my result will be!