Returning from Kili the legs were feeling a little tight and with only 5 days of rest I knew everything I did in the next week would massively either help or hinder our chances of getting round! I therefore went spinning on Monday to keep the legs ticking over and played footy on Wednesday to run about a bit. Nothing too heavy though and with a week off work too I spent most of the week enjoying the summer and not doing too much of anything except making sure I was fully prepared and registered for the Parish!! I booked in for a sports massage on Friday which I found helped loosen the legs off, followed by a session in the Mount Murray hydropool and soaking the legs in their freezing cold plunge pool! Bring on the walk!
Got a fairly decent sleep on Friday night and woke early on walk day, after all the training we’ve put in now really is the time to deliver! I’ve known the Parish Walk is a big event on the Manx calendar, but not really appreciated the amount of people involved until we got down to the NSC for the start! My support car was loaded up with all sorts of goodies, including about 3 changes of clothes, 4 different pairs of trainers, first aid kit, chicken pasta, rice pudding, numerous energy bars & shakes, bananas, sandwiches and crates of water to name but a few things! Hopefully I won’t be needing much of it until at least Peel (32.5 miles) but fail to prepare etc! Slapped a couple of Compeeds on my feet for the start and where I predict blisters, put on my magic ‘double skin’ socks and I was off!
The first few miles of the walk the adrenalin takes over and to be honest I wasn’t feeling much in the legs. There were a fair few people about, along with Bratty & I, we had Corkey, Pasty and Steve Jackson who we’d trained with, along with Tom Sinden. The only slight issue I had was that I could already tell that my heels might be a problem, I had put the Compeeds on the wrong place! Still, with loads of people entered it was a great atmosphere and I was chatting away to fellow walkers, including Anna Q who is going up Kilimanjaro next week….great minds think alike! I made the first 19 miles down to Rushen fairly comfortably, walking with Pasty and a hockey player called Lorna. To be honest I was absolutely loving it, there was loads of people about, the amount of people who come out and support is incredible and the whole atmosphere of the day is fantastic…now for the Sloc! Headed up the Sloc (the steepest part of the walk) all the way to Peel and surprisingly didn’t find it too bad. It has featured heavily in our training and I found that having trained it so many times I knew what to expect and was still feeling fairly happy how everything was going, though it was hard to decline a beer at the top!
Heading into Peel was another fantastic experience, the amount of people everywhere cheering you across the line is ace…unfortunately as only about a third of the walkers carry on after Peel it gets a bit lonelier and a few less water stations etc! It was a real shame too that our training buddy and one fourth of the ‘Kili Climb and Parish Walk team’ Pasty pulled out at Peel due to severe blisters. Along with Tom pulling out at Rushen with back problems, it again came as a reminder that we can’t be too careful, anything can effect you on the day and a bit of luck is needed to get round the 85 miles. Still, we ploughed on, donned our high visibility jackets and headed towards Kirk Michael (39 miles).
I was struggling coming into Kirk Michael, the heat was stifling and it was getting tough, a little too early for my liking. Little did I know at this stage that it is such a mass of up and downs, when you’re down and struggling everything seems awful but then you pick up a head of steam and you feel so much more confident. Coming into Kirk Michael was my first down but I was just pleased to get there and head towards Ballaugh, just under half way round the course! Corky pulled out at Ballaugh and it again hit home what a massive challenge this walk was going to be, Steve had problems with blisters by now but after having them pop he plugged on and we were heading towards Jurby.
We had trained around Jurby and this again helped as the roads are seemingly endless! Not to be fooled by the roads this time, I knew that the stretch between Jurby and Bride (52.5 miles) was a tough stretch and I had prepared mentally that this was going to be tough. The road simply kept going and going and Bride seemed to simply never arrive, worrying about the time it was taking to get there (plus I thought Bride was only 51 miles) I was getting a bit concerned we weren’t going fast enough and I just badly wanted to get there. I think we were both struggling to Bride, which is the most northerly point, at least then you are heading in the right direction back towards Douglas. This was where the support cars really started kicking in, and we were grabbing lots of water and bananas to keep our energy up. Finally, after what seemed like forever we got to Bride, and I think at this point Mark was feeling a bit low. We stopped at Bride for 10 mins or so while Mark’s support patched up his feet and we re-hydrated and headed off. I think Bride was a turning point (literally…boom boom) because getting there was such a relief that I was in a good mood, and probably on an up while Mark was on a down. This is where having someone to walk with makes all the difference, you often find that while he was struggling I was getting a second wind, and vice versa, so we could almost drag each other along! The break helped and walking out of Bride as the sun disappeared I was feeling as confident as I could.
The other great thing that happened between Bride and Andreas was that we were caught by Steve, as we had left him popping a blister a while back. I think this lifted us too and I got to Andreas (55.5 miles) feeling ok. Only slight problem was that my shoes were feeling tight as my feet had swollen at least a shoe size so I swapped to a different bigger pair…not much better! The next section was Andreas down to Lezayre (61.5 miles) before a tough loop round Maughold that we knew was gonna be tough! Up to Lezayre was pretty tough as darkness fell but at least it was half interesting coming into Ramsey and again the support was out of the pubs and on the streets which was a great lift. I have to thank and apologise in equal measure to the kind lady who allowed us to use her house toilets in the absence of portaloos in Ramsey! Getting to Lezayre felt great but again I was a little worried about the pace and by the time we got there, despite being ahead of schedule I felt we needed to quicken slightly. Another massive advantage of walking with a partner was that we would regularly switch who was leading the pace. This helped because it just allows you to not concentrate on how fast you are going for approx half the route! I would simply follow Mark for a few miles and then I would keep the pace for a bit.
Leaving Lezayre we again left Steve sorting a blister, it sounds brutal to but you simply have to keep a consistent pace to give yourself the best chance you can. If I stopped for a toilet break or even to tie a shoelace and my fellow walkers waited then we would all lose time. If you keep plugging on then they speed up a little to catch you up (which is incredible how long it can take to catch just 30 seconds down the road) and no-one loses any vital minutes. The route from Lezayre down to Maughold (67 miles) went very fast in my opinion, which I was not expecting because I expected it to be the toughest section! Again, an example of how my expectations have a massive bearing on how difficult I find it.
This is where it went from a tough walk to incredibly draining, our support cars were going a mile at a time so that we knew how long there was to go, and the next section was definitely the toughest. You are so close to home (relatively at least) that you start thinking of the finish but equally there is 11 miles before the next checkpoint and this is the point at which the cut-off also became an issue. The support and donations I received from everybody has been overwhelming, but I just want to thank Pasty, Corke, Voirrey Samson, Lois, my sisters Fi and Beth, my cousin Mary Jane and ‘coach’ Jack for their kind words of support at this point, just knowing you were following us online made such a huge difference you wouldn’t even know and it really spurred us on at the most difficult point. I’m sure Marky B won’t mind me saying we both got a bit emotional reading Pasty’s text out of Maughold, just incredible support.
The next 10 miles there is not really much to say except it was pretty awful, by this time my feet has pretty much fallen apart, my blisters had got blisters and I was walking on them. I didn’t dare to even check my feet for fear of never getting my shoes back on so I ‘manned up’ and walked through the pain. Mark’s mum and sister Nikki was his support and Nikki became our guardian angel, every single mile she was asking if we wanted anything and it was a massive help, the hot chocolate was much appreciated! My mum and dad were also absolutely brilliant, with dad giving me the exact number of miles back so I could get my head round how far it was and they were just simply the best support I could have had. After 3 and a half hours of gruelling walking through the night, we arrived at Lonan church (78.5 miles) and the relief was extraordinary….there is no way I’m quitting now!
The 4.5 miles into Onchan (83 miles) I remember little about, the sun was coming up and there was fog everywhere so there wasn’t much to see, but I remember thinking we are going to do this and the pain my feet were causing me eased slightly. Purely running on adrenalin by this point, there was no way we were stopping as the finish approached and I tucked into what must have been my 10th banana to give me the energy for the home strait. Knowing the course now and how close we were we checked into Onchan church and headed down the prom for the finish. The support was great as we crossed the line and everybody was understandably emotional….we did it!!!! I was feeling pretty emotional but to be honest I was just too tired to feel anything, I was like a zombie and it couldn’t sink in we’d just walked 85 miles in a day, I was shattered but unashamedly amazingly proud of what we had achieved.
Time for a new challenge…..to be continued!
Dave.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Kili!
Headed off to Kili on the afternoon boat on Thursday full of nervous excitement, the challenge really does start here! After a long day’s travelling got down to Heathrow for the first stumbling block….the hotel we were staying in had cancelled the room in error! After a fairly heated exchange with the hotel we had to go straight back to the airport and slept on the less than comfortable floor…not a good start! Luckily (!) our flight was at 6:30am and we had to check in 3 hours before the flight even though check-in didn’t open til 5:00am….headaches already.
Flights over including a brief stop in Amsterdam weren’t too bad at all and we got to Kilimanjaro and transferred to the lodge near Arusha on Friday night. Absolutely shattered we hit the hay immediately and on our free day on the Saturday we went out to explore the local town. Unfortunately the receptionist’s English wasn’t great and she told us left instead of right so we never found the place!!!! We spent an hour and a half walking round dusty roads getting extremely funny looks from tiny shops looking for a thriving metropolis before heading back to the lodge and meeting up with the rest of the group when they arrived at 4ish. On first impressions, the group seemed like a good bunch of guys with 6 English guys, 3 English women, a couple of Cypriots and a Latvian called Eddie! After the initial briefing and questions and then dinner spent the night watching Rob Green throw the ball in his own net for England vs USA! An early start would be needed next morning to head an hour over to the Machame gate at Kili and start our climb so we hit the hay early, excitement taking place of my initial nerves after the flights!
First day on the mountain was a fairly easy climb after registering at the gate (which is already at 1,800 metres up!). We climbed steadily but not too steeply for about 6 hours to the first camp at 3,000 metres, which was a bit of a shock when we realised that we were already twice the height of Ben Nevis and only half way up the mountain! We also had our first glimpse of the summit, which seems an incredibly long way off! You could already feel the difference in pressure, with 30% less oxygen in the air I had a bit of a thick head but nothing too troubling. First night was mainly getting used to camp life, washing our feet in a bowl and slightly more unusually having a fantastic 3 course meal that the chefs made. One thing we have to get used to is the guilt of having the porters carrying everything and setting up camp etc….I’m not used to being waited on! They leave later than you in the morning in order to break camp, carry your equipment past you on the track and then have to get to the next camp earlier than you to set it up! They take fitness to a ridculously new level and between 14 of us we had 34 ‘crew’ ranging from chefs, porters, summit porters and guides.
The second day was a shorter but steeper climb up to 3,850 metres, and involved a bit more scrambling across rocks. We were up by half 6 to grab some breakfast so that we could be trekking by 7am. In total we were only walking for about 5 hours but it was far more enjoyable than the previous day, taking us above the clouds to some unbelievable views of cloud cover. We settled in at our very exposed camp (Shira camp) and braced ourselves for a windy night! We had a fair bit of time to kill at this camp and due to the extra height we’d gone up to everyone was nursing headaches as a result of the pressure change. We decided to make the best of it though and after a brief visit to a nearby cave we spent the afternoon before tea playing cricket on possible the most uneven wicket ever played on! Was a good laugh and got us to know more of the group better, with Giles, Chris, Sam and Zoe taking part to represent England against us manxies (the flag of which was soon hoisted next to our tent)! We grabbed another brilliant dinner and hit the hay, I was still nursing a bit of a headache and I think it was getting me down a bit, acclimatisation was not coming easy and I had a long night ahead!
Another early start on the next day, and after a very disjointed sleep simply due to the volume of the wind I was feeling a bit like the living dead, I think Mark was also having trouble sleeping and we certainly weren’t fresh to start the day! I choked down some of the porridge to keep up my stamina (which tastes awful) and the plan for the day was to ascend to 4,600m and have lunch there, before heading back down to 3,950m to camp in Barronco valley. The ascent up to 4,600m was fairly gentle but I was definitely feeling it and my head was throbbing on the way up, I even started to feel a bit nauseous, another classic sign of altitude sickness. One of our group, Mike threw up on this ascent and although not uncommon, it came as a reminder to do all the right things to mitigate the effect of the altitude (e.g. drink at least 3 litres of water, eat to keep up your energy etc). By the time I got to the top the symptoms tended to disappear though and I was feeling ok, though a little sunburnt!!!! It was a bit demoralising to then descend 650m but it all helps the acclimatisation so we headed down and camped at the Barronco camp at 3,950m and I was feeling a little back to my old self though pretty shattered after 7 and a half hours hiking! We grabbed some tea and headed to bed at the standard 8pm….as it gets dark early there isn’t anything to do in the evenings! After the bad night’s sleep the night before, Chris lent us some earplugs so I thought I’d give them a go…..they were incredible, I slept like a baby which was great because little did I know that it would be the last sleep I’d have for a while...
We had to move the next day by 6:30 so had an early breakfast before facing the ‘breakfast wall’, the pretty steep cliff face we were going to traverse! Thankfully the sleep gave me some energy and I thoroughly enjoyed tacking the wall! Zoe from our group actually worked for the trip organisers (The Adventure Company) and was writing a Health & Safety summary of the trip….let’s just say I’m not sure the wall passed with flying colours! We scrambled up the wall (watching porters tearing past carrying huge loads) and after a little more up and downhill we came to a camp where we grabbed some lunch. Looking at the summit it did look much closer and we’ve had to do the toughest walk all the way around the mountain so I was hoping the final ascent wouldn’t be too bad! We then ascended fairly steadily but tediously for hours and hours across sparse dusty rock fields and the camp seemed to just take forever to arrive. Finally after about 7 hours we arrived at our final camp, 4,600m high and just the assault on the summit to come! As it is pretty difficult to sleep at this altitude, we rested and checked our kit to make sure we were all prepared for the final ascent. A brief panic with finding my headtorch was in order but it was eventually located in the lining of my bag! At dinner that night there was a definite tension in the air, we were heading up at 11:30pm for 8 hours of uphill before the top. Thankfully I had acclimatised a little better and wasn’t feeling the effects, but it was in general a nervy time waiting for the off!
Popped a couple of painkillers at the start as advised, which was a bit of a shame as I’d wanted to do a ‘pill-free’ climb, but the guides know best so we followed them to the letter and headed off up the mountain. After a couple of hours of steep climbing it was getting tough and I think this was the first point that I genuinely thought there was a chance I wouldn’t make it. I plugged the ipod in and listened to some terrible music as the only playlist I had was the horrendously cheesy Blackpool hockey tour music! To keep my ipod warm I had it buried under about 4 of the 6 layers I was wearing so there was no chance of skipping tracks….nightmare! The temperature was dropping faster and the ascent turned into a monotonous trudge, with people being pulled out of the group who were really struggling and going up separately with porters. It was relentless and the only thing that was keeping me going was simply focussing on the feet of whoever was in front of me. I found that rather than worrying about how long we had left, how high we were, how I was becoming more and more spaced out and how much energy I didn’t have it helped to have one point of focus, simply focus on the feet! Abstract thoughts are something you don’t have time for, focus on the feet and they will get you to the top! Almost the hardest thing was actually the rest stops as it gave you a moment to realise that your brain isn’t functioning great!
After 5 hours of solid ascending, my ipod ran out of battery, ironically on ‘Eye of the Tiger’ which I thought would psyche me up! The ‘zoning out’ then became a touch more tricky but as we were getting closer it was just a thought of ‘ok this is bad, but this will only be 3 hours of my life and I will have the rest of my time to remember this’. I have to say as well that I was thinking about the support we’ve received since we decided to do these challenges, and every pound that has been donated to the charities is because we said we’d do this. The feeling at the top will supersede any pain I’m feeling now and this is what the events have boiled down to, so there’s no chance I’m quitting! I’ve found that if you decide you are going to achieve something then the pain of actually doing it becomes an annoying inevitability rather than a reason you won’t be able to do it! You just have to convince yourself you will do it.
Approximately two hours from the top was probably the hardest bit, I started hallucinating that I could see a little black dog next to me, which in actuality was the shadow of my trekking pole. However this fooled me three times and each time I jumped a mile away from the dog and then got cross with myself for that bloody pole fooling me again, I knew it wasn’t a dog…until it was again! It’s so frustrating but with only 30% of the oxygen you’re used to your brain really is tricking you all over the place! I even saw Marky B go up in smoke at one point when he pulled a scarf out of his bag...weird stuff! Focus on the feet! One hour to go and the sun started to come up, a big relief, we got to the top of the ridge and all the guides start congratulating you, slapping you on the back and there is a great feeling! They then turn round and say it’s just another hour to the summit….why?!?! By now my brain wasn’t engaged and I was genuinely worried about frostbite on my fingers! The gloves I had brought weren’t up for the job and at -14C I was permanently shaking and hitting my hands to get the blood flowing! Still we could see the end was nigh and ploughed on, buoyed by the fact that there was no way we were stopping now we eventually arrived at the top!
Everybody was pretty euphoric at the top, and it was simply an incredible feeling! The rest of the group were at the top together and the feeling of achieving what we set out to do so long ago was tremendous, all that training had paid off, we were there!! My brain wasn’t quite with it and I realised I am a bit of a control freak because as great as the feeling was I just wanted to get back down! The only way I can really try to describe how I felt is that I was watching myself as a third person, it seemed almost dreamlike and I didn’t like the feeling at all. We took a few obligatory pictures that I treasure so much now, because it reminds me of what I went through to get there. At 5,893 metres high, the world seems a very different place and after half an hour or so at the top we headed back down as quickly as we could!
We headed down from the summit and the oxygen in the air was already more noticeable straight off the top. After a little while descending we came across huge fields of skree (loose rocks) that people were almost skiing down on their shoes. This was one of the most unpleasant parts of the trip, with the sun now out and still wearing six layers on top and dressed for sub zero temperatures, there was 5 hours of dusty loose slippy rocks with everyone falling over and generally hating it! I know this is coming across like a massive whinge but we hadn’t slept all night, were baking hot and had to basically slide on our feet for 5 hours…..moods were not exactly sky high and I still feel sorry for our guide Filbert who had to put up with Giles and myself going very slowly moaning and complaining bitterly most of the way down! Hot and bothered we finally got back to the camp to find we had a couple of hours rest followed by a 4 hour walk down to the altitude where we could safely sleep (3,100m)!
I don’t remember much of the walk down due to still being completely spaced out and stumbling about but we got to camp at approximately 4pm, where we crawled into our tents and I slept straight through dinner until 6:30am the next morning! It was a blissful oxygen-filled sleep and after all the difficulty of sleeping in a tent this time it felt like a four poster bed! Waking up early we headed off after tipping our porters and guides, donating a lot of kit and saying goodbye, we trekked another 5 hours back down to the gate where we were greeted triumphantly by souvenir sellers all over the show! A successful period of bartering started which I absolutely loved and I even managed to trade my hat for one of the sellers straw hats with no money changing hands...jackpot!
We drove back to the lodge absolutely exhausted but elated, there is still a feeling from my point of view that we’ve only done 50% of what we’ve set out to do but I also feel that we’ve done the most ‘non-manageable’ part of our challenges. Although I think the parish will be every bit as tough if not tougher, the variable of altitude sickness meant that Kilimanjaro could have been impossible but we’ve conquered it meeting some amazing people on the way! A bed was my reward when I got back to the lodge and I made the most of it, followed by a top dinner, a miserable England draw and a very random night out with the guides, Will, Sam and Zoe from the group! First beer for over two months felt like a celebration too!
Five days rest until the Parish...
Dave.
Flights over including a brief stop in Amsterdam weren’t too bad at all and we got to Kilimanjaro and transferred to the lodge near Arusha on Friday night. Absolutely shattered we hit the hay immediately and on our free day on the Saturday we went out to explore the local town. Unfortunately the receptionist’s English wasn’t great and she told us left instead of right so we never found the place!!!! We spent an hour and a half walking round dusty roads getting extremely funny looks from tiny shops looking for a thriving metropolis before heading back to the lodge and meeting up with the rest of the group when they arrived at 4ish. On first impressions, the group seemed like a good bunch of guys with 6 English guys, 3 English women, a couple of Cypriots and a Latvian called Eddie! After the initial briefing and questions and then dinner spent the night watching Rob Green throw the ball in his own net for England vs USA! An early start would be needed next morning to head an hour over to the Machame gate at Kili and start our climb so we hit the hay early, excitement taking place of my initial nerves after the flights!
First day on the mountain was a fairly easy climb after registering at the gate (which is already at 1,800 metres up!). We climbed steadily but not too steeply for about 6 hours to the first camp at 3,000 metres, which was a bit of a shock when we realised that we were already twice the height of Ben Nevis and only half way up the mountain! We also had our first glimpse of the summit, which seems an incredibly long way off! You could already feel the difference in pressure, with 30% less oxygen in the air I had a bit of a thick head but nothing too troubling. First night was mainly getting used to camp life, washing our feet in a bowl and slightly more unusually having a fantastic 3 course meal that the chefs made. One thing we have to get used to is the guilt of having the porters carrying everything and setting up camp etc….I’m not used to being waited on! They leave later than you in the morning in order to break camp, carry your equipment past you on the track and then have to get to the next camp earlier than you to set it up! They take fitness to a ridculously new level and between 14 of us we had 34 ‘crew’ ranging from chefs, porters, summit porters and guides.
The second day was a shorter but steeper climb up to 3,850 metres, and involved a bit more scrambling across rocks. We were up by half 6 to grab some breakfast so that we could be trekking by 7am. In total we were only walking for about 5 hours but it was far more enjoyable than the previous day, taking us above the clouds to some unbelievable views of cloud cover. We settled in at our very exposed camp (Shira camp) and braced ourselves for a windy night! We had a fair bit of time to kill at this camp and due to the extra height we’d gone up to everyone was nursing headaches as a result of the pressure change. We decided to make the best of it though and after a brief visit to a nearby cave we spent the afternoon before tea playing cricket on possible the most uneven wicket ever played on! Was a good laugh and got us to know more of the group better, with Giles, Chris, Sam and Zoe taking part to represent England against us manxies (the flag of which was soon hoisted next to our tent)! We grabbed another brilliant dinner and hit the hay, I was still nursing a bit of a headache and I think it was getting me down a bit, acclimatisation was not coming easy and I had a long night ahead!
Another early start on the next day, and after a very disjointed sleep simply due to the volume of the wind I was feeling a bit like the living dead, I think Mark was also having trouble sleeping and we certainly weren’t fresh to start the day! I choked down some of the porridge to keep up my stamina (which tastes awful) and the plan for the day was to ascend to 4,600m and have lunch there, before heading back down to 3,950m to camp in Barronco valley. The ascent up to 4,600m was fairly gentle but I was definitely feeling it and my head was throbbing on the way up, I even started to feel a bit nauseous, another classic sign of altitude sickness. One of our group, Mike threw up on this ascent and although not uncommon, it came as a reminder to do all the right things to mitigate the effect of the altitude (e.g. drink at least 3 litres of water, eat to keep up your energy etc). By the time I got to the top the symptoms tended to disappear though and I was feeling ok, though a little sunburnt!!!! It was a bit demoralising to then descend 650m but it all helps the acclimatisation so we headed down and camped at the Barronco camp at 3,950m and I was feeling a little back to my old self though pretty shattered after 7 and a half hours hiking! We grabbed some tea and headed to bed at the standard 8pm….as it gets dark early there isn’t anything to do in the evenings! After the bad night’s sleep the night before, Chris lent us some earplugs so I thought I’d give them a go…..they were incredible, I slept like a baby which was great because little did I know that it would be the last sleep I’d have for a while...
We had to move the next day by 6:30 so had an early breakfast before facing the ‘breakfast wall’, the pretty steep cliff face we were going to traverse! Thankfully the sleep gave me some energy and I thoroughly enjoyed tacking the wall! Zoe from our group actually worked for the trip organisers (The Adventure Company) and was writing a Health & Safety summary of the trip….let’s just say I’m not sure the wall passed with flying colours! We scrambled up the wall (watching porters tearing past carrying huge loads) and after a little more up and downhill we came to a camp where we grabbed some lunch. Looking at the summit it did look much closer and we’ve had to do the toughest walk all the way around the mountain so I was hoping the final ascent wouldn’t be too bad! We then ascended fairly steadily but tediously for hours and hours across sparse dusty rock fields and the camp seemed to just take forever to arrive. Finally after about 7 hours we arrived at our final camp, 4,600m high and just the assault on the summit to come! As it is pretty difficult to sleep at this altitude, we rested and checked our kit to make sure we were all prepared for the final ascent. A brief panic with finding my headtorch was in order but it was eventually located in the lining of my bag! At dinner that night there was a definite tension in the air, we were heading up at 11:30pm for 8 hours of uphill before the top. Thankfully I had acclimatised a little better and wasn’t feeling the effects, but it was in general a nervy time waiting for the off!
Popped a couple of painkillers at the start as advised, which was a bit of a shame as I’d wanted to do a ‘pill-free’ climb, but the guides know best so we followed them to the letter and headed off up the mountain. After a couple of hours of steep climbing it was getting tough and I think this was the first point that I genuinely thought there was a chance I wouldn’t make it. I plugged the ipod in and listened to some terrible music as the only playlist I had was the horrendously cheesy Blackpool hockey tour music! To keep my ipod warm I had it buried under about 4 of the 6 layers I was wearing so there was no chance of skipping tracks….nightmare! The temperature was dropping faster and the ascent turned into a monotonous trudge, with people being pulled out of the group who were really struggling and going up separately with porters. It was relentless and the only thing that was keeping me going was simply focussing on the feet of whoever was in front of me. I found that rather than worrying about how long we had left, how high we were, how I was becoming more and more spaced out and how much energy I didn’t have it helped to have one point of focus, simply focus on the feet! Abstract thoughts are something you don’t have time for, focus on the feet and they will get you to the top! Almost the hardest thing was actually the rest stops as it gave you a moment to realise that your brain isn’t functioning great!
After 5 hours of solid ascending, my ipod ran out of battery, ironically on ‘Eye of the Tiger’ which I thought would psyche me up! The ‘zoning out’ then became a touch more tricky but as we were getting closer it was just a thought of ‘ok this is bad, but this will only be 3 hours of my life and I will have the rest of my time to remember this’. I have to say as well that I was thinking about the support we’ve received since we decided to do these challenges, and every pound that has been donated to the charities is because we said we’d do this. The feeling at the top will supersede any pain I’m feeling now and this is what the events have boiled down to, so there’s no chance I’m quitting! I’ve found that if you decide you are going to achieve something then the pain of actually doing it becomes an annoying inevitability rather than a reason you won’t be able to do it! You just have to convince yourself you will do it.
Approximately two hours from the top was probably the hardest bit, I started hallucinating that I could see a little black dog next to me, which in actuality was the shadow of my trekking pole. However this fooled me three times and each time I jumped a mile away from the dog and then got cross with myself for that bloody pole fooling me again, I knew it wasn’t a dog…until it was again! It’s so frustrating but with only 30% of the oxygen you’re used to your brain really is tricking you all over the place! I even saw Marky B go up in smoke at one point when he pulled a scarf out of his bag...weird stuff! Focus on the feet! One hour to go and the sun started to come up, a big relief, we got to the top of the ridge and all the guides start congratulating you, slapping you on the back and there is a great feeling! They then turn round and say it’s just another hour to the summit….why?!?! By now my brain wasn’t engaged and I was genuinely worried about frostbite on my fingers! The gloves I had brought weren’t up for the job and at -14C I was permanently shaking and hitting my hands to get the blood flowing! Still we could see the end was nigh and ploughed on, buoyed by the fact that there was no way we were stopping now we eventually arrived at the top!
Everybody was pretty euphoric at the top, and it was simply an incredible feeling! The rest of the group were at the top together and the feeling of achieving what we set out to do so long ago was tremendous, all that training had paid off, we were there!! My brain wasn’t quite with it and I realised I am a bit of a control freak because as great as the feeling was I just wanted to get back down! The only way I can really try to describe how I felt is that I was watching myself as a third person, it seemed almost dreamlike and I didn’t like the feeling at all. We took a few obligatory pictures that I treasure so much now, because it reminds me of what I went through to get there. At 5,893 metres high, the world seems a very different place and after half an hour or so at the top we headed back down as quickly as we could!
We headed down from the summit and the oxygen in the air was already more noticeable straight off the top. After a little while descending we came across huge fields of skree (loose rocks) that people were almost skiing down on their shoes. This was one of the most unpleasant parts of the trip, with the sun now out and still wearing six layers on top and dressed for sub zero temperatures, there was 5 hours of dusty loose slippy rocks with everyone falling over and generally hating it! I know this is coming across like a massive whinge but we hadn’t slept all night, were baking hot and had to basically slide on our feet for 5 hours…..moods were not exactly sky high and I still feel sorry for our guide Filbert who had to put up with Giles and myself going very slowly moaning and complaining bitterly most of the way down! Hot and bothered we finally got back to the camp to find we had a couple of hours rest followed by a 4 hour walk down to the altitude where we could safely sleep (3,100m)!
I don’t remember much of the walk down due to still being completely spaced out and stumbling about but we got to camp at approximately 4pm, where we crawled into our tents and I slept straight through dinner until 6:30am the next morning! It was a blissful oxygen-filled sleep and after all the difficulty of sleeping in a tent this time it felt like a four poster bed! Waking up early we headed off after tipping our porters and guides, donating a lot of kit and saying goodbye, we trekked another 5 hours back down to the gate where we were greeted triumphantly by souvenir sellers all over the show! A successful period of bartering started which I absolutely loved and I even managed to trade my hat for one of the sellers straw hats with no money changing hands...jackpot!
We drove back to the lodge absolutely exhausted but elated, there is still a feeling from my point of view that we’ve only done 50% of what we’ve set out to do but I also feel that we’ve done the most ‘non-manageable’ part of our challenges. Although I think the parish will be every bit as tough if not tougher, the variable of altitude sickness meant that Kilimanjaro could have been impossible but we’ve conquered it meeting some amazing people on the way! A bed was my reward when I got back to the lodge and I made the most of it, followed by a top dinner, a miserable England draw and a very random night out with the guides, Will, Sam and Zoe from the group! First beer for over two months felt like a celebration too!
Five days rest until the Parish...
Dave.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Up, up, up, up, up and away!
What a week!!!! Last full week before heading to Tanzania and it's fair to say it wasn't without a number of crises!
Started the week as per usual with a spinning and weights session, before heading out on Tuesday night to do the walk from Quartebridge to Mt Murray but unfortunately for us the TT was on and the roads were closed. We therefore did the shorter walk around Marine Drive, but still keeping the legs going.
On Wednesday the final football before the trip was on and it was a decent session. With no hockey now on Thursday, and with the squash double booked, it meant a night off! Took a break as we are winding down and watched Ross Noble at the Villa which was a hilarious night! Friday night met Marky B for lunch and managed to buy quite a bit of kit for Kilimanjaro, including gaiters, 3 season sleeping bags and walking poles! Looking fairly adventurous now! Also managed to get a picture in the paper which is hopefully going to get a little more publicity and raise a bit more money!
Finished the week with the standard gym session and sauna/ice bath combo before a sober appearance at the beer tent! Completely shattered at the end of the week and was looking forward to a weekend of not much to do except wind down! Saturday headed down south as Karen Hardman had agreed to kindly run some dance classes to raise funds, the first of which was on Port Erin beach. Although we didn't get into the dancing, it looked like great fun and I might even throw some shapes out at the next one! Saturday night had a standard barbie at my mate Jack's place, who has been mega useful in giving us nutritional, physical and mental advice for the walk. He's finished it twice and coaches football so is a great source of info!
Sunday we did a standard walk but nothing too heavy, started in Castletown and went round to Port Erin before back round to Castletown. Was a decent way to finish the week and I was feeling good on Sunday night, just needed to sort out the fine details of the trip, and came back home to grab my passport to put with the tickets.....ooh dear!
This week so far has consisted of searching both my flat and my office for my passport and my family searching their house.....no luck! Between spinning, the gym and work I have turned my flat over to no avail! I therefore today decided I would have to fork out for a new 'same day' service passport, which hits both my preparation and even more fundamentally my wallet!!!! The motto 'fail to prepare, prepare to fail' is etched on my mind and I have had to accept an epic failure! It turns out I am so keen to sort out my physical preparation I've never had a head for the administrative side!
Still, after taking today off work, I've managed to sort out my new passport and check through all my equipment to make sure I have everything. I need to grab a waterproof jacket and some gloves but everything else is sorted thank god!
So tomorrow is the day we set off down to London, for the very very early flight over to Amsterdam and then flying into Kilimanjaro on Friday. Apprehensive about the flights and the main worry of altitude stopping me from getting to the top I just need to put my all into it and fingers crossed it will all go well. I feel I'm prepared as I'll ever be, I even got glacier glasses through the post! I will update this blog (if anybody is reading) on my return and have bucketloads of pictures to show everyone!
My frankly pathetic Kilimanjaro beard is as beardy as it is going to get, so it's time to man up! Wish us luck!!!!
Dave.
Started the week as per usual with a spinning and weights session, before heading out on Tuesday night to do the walk from Quartebridge to Mt Murray but unfortunately for us the TT was on and the roads were closed. We therefore did the shorter walk around Marine Drive, but still keeping the legs going.
On Wednesday the final football before the trip was on and it was a decent session. With no hockey now on Thursday, and with the squash double booked, it meant a night off! Took a break as we are winding down and watched Ross Noble at the Villa which was a hilarious night! Friday night met Marky B for lunch and managed to buy quite a bit of kit for Kilimanjaro, including gaiters, 3 season sleeping bags and walking poles! Looking fairly adventurous now! Also managed to get a picture in the paper which is hopefully going to get a little more publicity and raise a bit more money!
Finished the week with the standard gym session and sauna/ice bath combo before a sober appearance at the beer tent! Completely shattered at the end of the week and was looking forward to a weekend of not much to do except wind down! Saturday headed down south as Karen Hardman had agreed to kindly run some dance classes to raise funds, the first of which was on Port Erin beach. Although we didn't get into the dancing, it looked like great fun and I might even throw some shapes out at the next one! Saturday night had a standard barbie at my mate Jack's place, who has been mega useful in giving us nutritional, physical and mental advice for the walk. He's finished it twice and coaches football so is a great source of info!
Sunday we did a standard walk but nothing too heavy, started in Castletown and went round to Port Erin before back round to Castletown. Was a decent way to finish the week and I was feeling good on Sunday night, just needed to sort out the fine details of the trip, and came back home to grab my passport to put with the tickets.....ooh dear!
This week so far has consisted of searching both my flat and my office for my passport and my family searching their house.....no luck! Between spinning, the gym and work I have turned my flat over to no avail! I therefore today decided I would have to fork out for a new 'same day' service passport, which hits both my preparation and even more fundamentally my wallet!!!! The motto 'fail to prepare, prepare to fail' is etched on my mind and I have had to accept an epic failure! It turns out I am so keen to sort out my physical preparation I've never had a head for the administrative side!
Still, after taking today off work, I've managed to sort out my new passport and check through all my equipment to make sure I have everything. I need to grab a waterproof jacket and some gloves but everything else is sorted thank god!
So tomorrow is the day we set off down to London, for the very very early flight over to Amsterdam and then flying into Kilimanjaro on Friday. Apprehensive about the flights and the main worry of altitude stopping me from getting to the top I just need to put my all into it and fingers crossed it will all go well. I feel I'm prepared as I'll ever be, I even got glacier glasses through the post! I will update this blog (if anybody is reading) on my return and have bucketloads of pictures to show everyone!
My frankly pathetic Kilimanjaro beard is as beardy as it is going to get, so it's time to man up! Wish us luck!!!!
Dave.
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