Coming apart at the seems

Most of last week’s training was fantastic, I really really enjoyed it.

The guys and I even got some serious man down time, and went and played in Talise’s main gym

Nic soon discovered a heavy bag, and we got to take our cabin fever out on the bag doing three minute rounds. Followed by some hilarious grappling.

That however, seems like a distant memory, after a brilliant training session in Ski Dubai, everyone of us has been hit by a mystery bug.

My body is seriously under attack and losing. I only came into work, because trying to sleep hurts.

Nic, Abz and Ameer have all got it. So with 4 days to go, everyone is on the lowest point they can be.

The only positive is that we were talking about tapering down the training, having not trained for two days this isn’t what I had intended, but the rest will do my legs well.

Writophobia.. The real challenge of Kili!

So this will be my second blog post, and if anyone saw my first one you'll notice it was a cheat as it consisted of just pictures and no words apart from the captions (I tried the "pic is worth a thousand words" excuse but I didn't really get away with that).

The truth is I have been procrastinating to write anything in this blog as in my mind the concept of creative writing seems to be more of a challenge than the Kili climb itself! After much chasing from the team mates and also a couple of threats (namely from Nic) I finally found the courage to give it a real attempt.

Preparing for this trip has made me.. well.. grow up! When we first started off a couple of months back, I literally thought Nasir's message suggesting a training session at 7am on a Friday was a joke. I replied with "lol" but noone acknowledged, and that's when I began to realise it wasn't a joke. Giving into the peer pressure I agreed to it but still wasn't 100% convinced that everyone would be committed to that. I mean really? 7am? Weekend? So as usual I went out that Thursday night with the "let's see how it goes" attitude. Coming back home from that late night, I had convinced myself that others would drop out for sure, so I didn't turn up!

I woke up with messages from the team that they had a great session. They stayed true to their word and cracked on! I felt disappointed in myself. I let them down and let myself down. From then on things were different. If I say yes to a training session, I will do it no matter what it takes, and being awake at 5am on a Friday has become a norm. A late night out would never be an excuse even if it meant I didn't sleep at all, and I have drastically reduced late nights out on weekends because I don't need them. I feel great about it!

I'm still not perfect. Yes I will turn up to the session but I will probably be 20 mins late :) We are 5 days away and everyone is packed and ready to go, yet I didn't buy my kit until today.. and I still don't have a camelback! I am so unorganised that I lost my prescription for the malaria tablets.. I don't even have my passport because I didn't hand it in for the Kenyan visa until last Wednesday.. this is #lastminute.com, #storyofmylife.

But I promise you, I will have all my kit items down to the spare shoe laces, I will have everything packed into my bags and ready, I will have my passport, I will have my tablets, I will respond to Tazmin's email about my choice of lunch, and I will climb Kilimanjaro.. and most of all, I will finally post this blog!!

5 days to go

Our "tapering down" down phase got a little more tapered than expected yesterday.
We all went out and did the snow hike in the morning, then by midday started to feel crap. three of the four of us are now laid up in bed with a fluish sickness
Just what the doctor didnt order!!

Oh well, at least we taking in some rest!!`

Paper over the cracks

This is one of those rare occasions where writing a blog is pretty hard, if I write about the injuries and issues it only makes them seem more real. So for now, I am pushing them to a very dark place in the back of my brain, they will only be let out when Inshallah I make it back down the mountain. Needless to say, training everyday is taking its toll and I cant help but feel my past sins are coming back to haunt me in the form that all the old MMA and BJJ injuries seem to have amassed together and look to be out flanking me.

On the positive side, for inspiration I am watching lots and lots of Bear Grylls,  currently going through the Foreign Legion series.  “don’t think, do” is their mantra, and yesterday through training it worked brilliantly, managed to push through a very hard gym session.

On the bloody brilliantly positive side, we are training in the Altitude Chamber at Talise, the science I am able to put into my training is fantastic. Because of the high tech equipment I can get readings of my blood oxygen level and every machine I go on pairs with my the Heart Rate monitor, so I get constant readings of my heart rate.
Yesterday I broke the session into three parts. The room was at 2800 meters above sea level, I spent 30 minutes on the bike, keeping my heart between 130-140. After the bike, I did the Crossfit Omar Circuit at full speed. Lastly full incline on the running machine, with variable speed, but keeping the HR above 150 for 30 minutes.

We have another 10 days of this, and I am loving being able to have access to the gym.
If anything can help me paper over the cracks, its having access to the best facilities in Dubai, and being able to Ivan Drago my training J  

The countdown has begun

This is it, the start of the adventure is only just around the corner. We are now under two weeks and last night began our oxygen chamber sessions, 12 of them that will lead us right up until the day before the climb.

It was a pretty big weekend all round, some good training, good preparation and a fantastic sense of excitement for the impending trip

Ameer, Nas and I trained together Friday morning, an 11k walk in the sand and then two sets of stairs, about 4.5 hours all in all. It was nice to feel that all of us found it quite easy and could have gone on far longer - but we all had plans.

The following day Nas and I were up at 5am to go cycling. There is a desert cycling track that leads out to a hotel 30k's away. We cycled there, sat for a breakfast coffee and banana and then cycled back........faster!

A few hours rest by the pool and then our first session in the chamber.

We started on a nice easy height last night, with the room set to 2500m, we will then increase this height every day until we leave. We are all very excited to already have trained at 3500m before we even get to Africa

Some pre trip admin got done this morning, our yellow fever vaccinations are now complete. All of course performed with the expected Dubai military precision. Arrived at the clinic at 7.30 sharp (opening time) and left at 10.30. The responsible staff didn't even arrive until 8.35! I literally have no idea how such hopeless organisation is still allowed to exist of such an aspirational city

Panic on the dance floor

I spent a considerable bulk of my last submission discussing my inherent shortcomings as opposed to my team mates. It is beyond contestation that I have always been at a physical disadvantage climbing the mountain being as unfit as I am. However it has now transpired that my disadvantages are IQ related as much as they physical.

This past Wednesday I indulged in what is essentially a night of mayhem fueled by 3 dollar bottles of booze. It did not end well. At some point during the night I slipped down a well cleaned marble stair case (damn Dubai) and sprained my big toe. It’s a whirlwind of pain. I am enraged that something so small could destroy months of work so quickly.

I was wearily okay with it at first until a phone call with Nic put things in perspective. I essentially have two weeks for my toe to heal or else I could miss out on this trip. I could definitely have done without this dosage of drama.

I am currently ticking the RICE (rest, ice, compress, elevate) steps. I will practically lock myself up this weekend in hopes that this proves to be a simple sprain that will heal come Sunday. I am slightly more optimistic now that I am able to step on it. Hopefully this will only be a floating cloud. One thing is for sure now, I’m going into bubble boy mode until this trip comes along.

Tick tock

The months have drawn into weeks now and it will soon be days. When I used to talk about climbing Kili, I was comforted by the fact that I was able to say, its in a few months, I have loads of time to train! Now I can quite literally count the days.

I am delighted to say that we have raised our money, in most part thanks to Nic, his ability in organising fund raising events, getting large organisations to sponsor us has been exceptional.

I think me, harry and Ameer owe in a very big thanks.

On the training side, training has come along incredibly well, everyone is pushing themselves well beyond their limits.
Ameer is pretty much unrecognisable from the overconfident underprepared “yea man” character he was. We actually call him “New Ameer”, because his turn around has been that drastic. He has even called me a few times to lecture me about not training enough.

Harry ,  has no right to be pushing himself this far, the slight fat soft dough boy, has been turned into a machine.  When we were training up Jebal hafeet mountain, he simply left the group when we stopped for a rest, and pushed all the way through.

I still have 2 major fears that are constantly going around in my head. Altitude is still the biggest. Reading the blogs, Ive seen how it has turned grown men into a crying mess. One blog that sticks to my mind, was where a guy actually leaves his wife because she cant make it.

He then spent the next 7 hours crying his way up the mountain....Altitude is no joke, around 5 people a year die on Kili because of it, and there is no doubt, each of us are going to suffer.

Out of every 10 people trying our route up kili, statistically 6 wont make it. I hope that in our group none of us are that 6, but the challenge is such that we have even planned as a group for the very real prospect one of our bodies gives up.
The harsh reality is the rules on the mountain, is if you get too sick from the altitude you have to turn around and go down as the group continues without you.

My next worry is injuries, years of combat sports have meant both my knees have dislocated at some point, and with the extra load ive been pushing through them during training has meant that they constantly hurt.  This is where having great team mates really helps, no matter how much my knee hurts, I think about Nic, who once described the pain in his back as “the devil grabbing your spine and twisting it” When he does 4 hours of stair walks with  body that damaged, I cant really moan about a dull pain in my knee.

Each and every one of us has used this to push ourselves mentally and physically beyond our comfort zones.

There is a proverb about Kili that the same person never walks up and down the mountain, because you are always a different person after completing the challenge, seeing what training has done to me and the team I can really believe it.