Bum and Tum

Well I've seen everything now.......chamois cream for your biker’s bottom...It smells quite nice actually ...I'll let you know after Saturday if it works!

Only three days to go now and after several weeks of despondency I am feeling really up for it. I've had quite a few training rides including Aberdeen to Aboyne and back and Banchory to the top of Cairn O'Mount.

I had a couple of weeks where I didn't even get on the bike - it was evil!

One result of cycling is the eating that goes along with it - every ounce of pasta in my mouth ended up directly on my bum and tum, or so I thought.

Back to the lovely Struan at the gym for a bit of personal training did the trick. Struan is lovely but a hard task master - some sort of punishment for persuading him to Ride the North with me - he got me back on track. I have had to remind myself that the cycling is really all about Kilimanjaro so it doesn't matter if I get off and push sometimes!!

I guess the £1000 incentive to my sponsorship fund also did the trick. Thank you Bill it was just what I needed to motivate myself again.

Biker's Bottom

Training continues but I have reverted to cycling till my knee gets a bit better. This is still good because in June I am taking part in UCAN Ride the North - a 3 day bike ride around the North East.

My initial outing was a few weeks ago and covered 26 miles. Mike Dunn whom I met in the cycle shop mentored me - cycling on the road in traffic is pretty scary but I did all right - I wasn't as much of a Jessie as Mike expected!

Last weekend I had my cleats fitted to my pretty new cycling shoes (which match my bike and helmet of course!). That was a minor trauma in its self because one was upside down and therefore wouldn't work properly. That took 20mins to work out Duh!

The cleats attach the base of your shoes to the pedals and are meant to be a more effective use of your pedal power, however you have to remember to unhook your feet as you come up to a stop, and that takes practice!

With my accident track record I decided that the least humiliating way of doing this would be in private - so I headed of to Duthie Park alone and to be honest got the hang of it quite quickly. No falling over. Yipee!

I then decided to kill two birds with one proverbial and tackle a hill as well as practice stopping and starting at real stops, like zebra crossings and traffic lights. If you are in Duthie Park where do you go? Well obviously the dual carriageway outside Kincorth fitted the bill perfectly. OMG (I know I've said that before) do you know what a long hill that is?!! Suffice to say I need much more practice.

My bottom is very sore even though I have a gel cover for my saddle and padded shorts! I could do with some inspiration and an incentive to keep me training even harder so I am going put out a few e mails to try and get some sponsorship!

A goat, a munro, and a blizzard of snow...

On seeing my article in the P&J an old college friend contacted me - laughed loudly and informed me I was too old to climb Kilimanjaro!  However, since I was determined, he agreed to train with me!!

So, early on Sunday morning we headed to Lochnagar........OMG!  I considered myself to be reasonably fit! However, I actually thought that my heart and lungs were going to explode at some points. 

It didn't help that I I was trying to keep up with the human version of the Ever Ready bunny in the form of my friend Gina. 

Gina, I am sure, is a reincarnated mountain goat - there is nothing of her so she is fast and light on her feet and in no time she had disappeared over the horizon.

There were two groups of young blokes on the hill too, and I pretty much managed to keep apace with them so I didn't feel too bad.  Donald was a star on the way up, very encouraging. He also had lifesaving organic chocolate which he insisted I ate and which I will never leave the house without again.

Gina reappeared having been a bit lost and the three of us headed for the summit…in a blizzard!! I have never seen weather turn so quickly and, much to Gina’s disgust, Donald wouldn't turn back.

When we finally got there we were delighted. Donald had achieved his goal, he had dragged me up my first Munro. As Gina took photographic evidence of our accomplishment, the weather cleared…and then the real summit showed in the distance. It hadn't been visible in the "white out"! Aargh! Off we went for another 10 - 15 minutes and celebrated again. My companions couldn't believe that I actually managed to run up part of that last bit - but I so wanted it to be over I could have managed it on one leg!!

Who would ever have thought that coming down could be just as hard as going up? It started off as great fun as there was so much snow we could have snowboarded. Well, Gina could have. Donald was a bit concerned that we were lost and I kept disappearing thigh height in snow holes! About a quarter of the way down I twisted my knee and couldn't bear any weight - two and a half hours later we reached the car. I honestly thought that I was going to have my first helicopter ride without a survival suit.  I was in agony Gina and Donald helped as much as they could but mostly I had to rely on walking poles to support my weight.

Although I ended up in A&E (again), it’s now Wednesday and I can more or less walk (more like less, than more actually). Soft tissue damage apparently, which had better be gone by Saturday as there is some other hill waiting to be conquered by me - I only hope I can find a small one!!

Training commences...

I started my training on Hogmanay, when I tackled Clachnaben.  Apparently it's a tenth of the height of Kilimanjaro, so that just about covers day one of the great African challenge...!

There were no sherpas and fortunately the bladder was under control - that's something I'll think about later....There were pockets of deep snow in places and my climbing attempt was more in the style of Bambi on ice rather than a seasoned mountaineer. But hey, we all need to start somewhere…

My walking partner was Colin and his three collies. Colin is coming to Tanzania with me, but fortunately not the dogs. Colin was a bit sweaty at the end of it but looked like he could do it all again. I felt like I'd worked and was quite pleased with myself - until the next day when I woke up and felt like a Sherman tank had run over my legs.

However with eight more months of training I’m sure it will get easier and my climbing ability will make the likes of Sir Ranulph Fiennes proud. Well, one can only hope.