69 days to go

As someone who spends a decent percentage of their time reporting on the world of finance, i should be able to add up. I've been on courses. I read The Economist. I have a calculator function on my computer.

It won't some as too much of a shock to those who have actually met me to learn that I am about 10 days out on my countdown. Sticky diary pages? Maybe.

More time for lunges.

What we have learned:
Nothing we didn't know, deep down

Boot update:
They stop me being able to use my toes for counting

58 days to go

I like to ride my bicycle, I like to ride my bike.

Well, I don’t, not since I had it stolen from Brighton station. And by ‘stolen’ I suspect I mean ‘removed by station staff after I decided to informally store it there'. Well you can walk everywhere in Brighton, so after I moved from London and my daily death run through the City during the morning rush hour, I had no immediate need for it.

Since we went to Wales and our attempt to use our bodies as human sponges to keep rain from the delicate slopes of Snowdon, we’ve had more mountain chums on Facebook. And more mountain chums means more exposure to what everyone else is doing training-wise.

Since the pre-mountain hot tub I have been doing more swimming, but that makes my hairdresser angry, angry, angry, despite the lovely swimming hat. And I don’t know what Zumba is, so I won’t be doing that (I also find it impossible to commit to classes at the gym. Particularly classes in front of a mirrored wall - never happened in French GCSE).

Cycling seems to be a theme though and, what with all the staycationing and people finding ways to enjoy the rich and varied countryside of the UK now they can’t got to Disney World, there are cheap bicycles available aplenty.

I’ve been in two minds about getting a bicycle - one mind which was sure it would be good for the endurance training, the other which was concerned about getting smeared across the nearest central reservation.

The answer to this is a cycle helmet, I realise this. The dilemma is similar to the reasons why so many people have dreadlocks for so long - you know where it’s going to end up and that look only worked for Sinead O’Connor.

The clincher was that, when I look on my CV, it doesn’t say ‘Page 3 model’ or even ‘optometry model’. I need the contents of my skull to work and thus feed Satan’s Animal and pay the hairdresser. I tried to avoid the worst aerodynamic multi-vent options and get a skateboard helmet, but it’s really two sides of the same hair consequence.

As a distraction, I got the most festive bike there is - and a week before Pride in Brighton. I may be able to make the money back by renting it out as a float.

What we have learned:
The temptation to become a bike path fascist is strong

Boot update:
The one place on earth they don’t work. That or the cycling terrain in the kitchen is not optimal.

68 days to go

Just call me Typhoid Mary. Well, Hepatitis A, Diptheria, Tetanus, Polio, Yellow Fever, Typhoid Mary. As time ticks closer to the hour that we will be boarding our flight (in our boots, from Heathrow, could there be greater shame. Or more possibility for people to see it and spread the world globally), our minds turn temporarily away from doing lunges and rubbing on poultices and towards paperwork.

We won’t be allowed near the mountain without two things: a Tanzania visa and a Yellow Fever certificate and in the spirit of organisation (and putting off analysing a really huge pile of Excel tables) I frolicked down to the post office with my passport and £38, then frolicked up to the doctor.

It turns out that the NHS can see you same day, same hour even, if the purpose is to ram you full of disease. I suppose it’s a pleasant change from constantly trying to prevent it. Either way they were speedy and efficient in a manner that would stun The Daily Mail, leaving me with more toxins in my arm than (insert name of pop star here - lose 10 points for ‘Pete Doherty’).



What we have learned:
Top secret NHS tip - go to the Caribbean, there are no kids there...


Boot update:
Boots? Boots? There is no room for boots in the land of paperwork

77 days to go pt.1

From this...

77 days to go pt.2

To this...

The UK can often be a game of two halves. Not, happily, like the World Cup and its game of three halves, but a definite split nonetheless. North vs. South. Town vs Country. Guardian readers vs Everyone Else. We are not as United as we seem.

So, on one of the hottest days of the year for the south east, it should have come as no shock to learn that, while all our little friends were sitting in Victorian copper baths full of Pimms, flinging pork parts onto the barbie, Wendy and I would be up Snowdon, visibility hindered by lashings and lashings of rain flooding into our faces and mist that often stopped us from seeing the rest of our group. Not because we were rubbish at walking or staying on paths, y’understand.

Our ‘attempt on the summit” (see? we’re proper mountaineers) was called off with around an hour left to go, just as we were simultaneously thinking “this is a tonne of fun/potential Health & Safety debacle”, but it did give us the chance to get onto the second most important part of trekking - eating a lot of biscuits.

The weekend wasn’t just about testing out the wetter end of our performance outerwear (very good, since you ask. Only casualty was my wallet and its vast loyalty-free collection of loyalty cards. I’m a long way away from a free coffee at Recipease, once again), but also the first time we got to meet the organisers, other people we were going to Africa with and a giant pile of kit.

The people from our group who were there this weekend seem like just the kind of people we could go mad and get covered in our own vomit with (you learn a lot about yourself when you’re sharing a dorm full of bunk beds) and we learned a similar amount about what powders to put in our water and that there are worse jobs than chicken plucking - you could be the porter who carries the toilet.





What we have learned:
It is all about thick plastic bags for all your items. Possibly also colour-coded.

The Diamox vs. Viagra debate rages on

‘Summit’ is a verb as well as a noun

Boot update:
I proper love them, I do. More that I would have thought possible for shoes. Obviously I won’t be wearing them when next in New York. Or any area with a population of more that six.

95 days to go

Climbing up mountains is life-changing in so many ways. The contemplation of man vs. The elements. The journey of self-knowledge. The relentless battle in the wardrobe of substance over style.

And yesterday I came across a new one - no more giving blood for me this year. Apparently when I come back from the mountain my blood will be sloshing with malaria pills, sleeping sickness and pox from eating monkey brains like in Indiana Jones.

They don't want me there for six months afterwards it seems, lest they be tempted to consume me into a giant biohazard bag.

Begs the question: "where am I going to get my free Wagon Wheels now?"

What we have learned:
I'll have to get through almost 10 months without being congratulated on my veins

Boot update:
The NHS does not believe in their protective qualities as much as it could

99 days to go

One thing that I learned in Austria is that a mountain is a lot more hospitable if you cater it. It’s even more hospitable if you stick a cable car on it too, but while I can hope that I might remember to take some Maltesers up the mountain, I have come to terms with the idea that all that performance footwear might come in handy for something more than swinging around in a metal box making Moonraker jokes.

But it’s been a long week, full of days riddled with people talking about revpar in the budget hotel industry and lectures on social media where our un-awesome selves were repeatedly assured that we were, in fact, fully awesome.

So I wasn’t ready for a return to the wild lands of, well, the South Downs and it was Wendy’s turn to pick a route, so Urban Hiking was born. So great was Wendy’s skill that she was able to take us past an estate by the name of Wendling. A personalised training regime indeed.

Rather like Austria, Urban Hiking was riddled with excellent catering, leaning towards the cake in Highgate and Primrose Hill, although leading to fears that fatter, rather than fitter, was a likely conclusion.

It certainly was efficient though. In a mere two hours we saw hills, forests, cricket pitches, running tracks, people in Hunter wellies on tarmac’d paths, more than you’d see in an afternoon or more on an average hike. But then an average hike usually ends with an anonymous slink back home in Richard Hammond’s trousers, rather than a mainline train full of shoppers wondering why none of their trousers zipped off at the knee.

What we have learned:
There will be no cupcakes in Africa.


Boot update:
We avoided bothering Bill Nighy on our Primrose Hill latte stop, on the grounds that he might not share our enthusiasm for our matching boots.