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!!