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