The sun was certainly shining on Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire on Saturday as Saskia and I went down to take part in our first ever triathalon. Saskia had been doing a little training for it, but true to form, I'd done next to none: only about 5 miles on a bike the day before around London. The triathalon composed of a 750m swim (just less than 1/2 a mile), a 20km (12.3 mile) bike ride, and then a 5.4km (3.4mile) run. I'm not a particularly strong swimmer (at least in open water), I haven't riden a bike for years, and I can't stand running - so it was all going to be a little emotional. When we'd signed up about 6 months ago, it seemed like a frightfully good idea at the time and we'd rather forgotten about the whole thing. Treading water at the startline waiting for the horn, I was certainly not feeling quite so keen and was rather dreading the pain of the next few hours! The swim was exhausting (swimming in a wetsuit for 750m was knackering - at least in a pool, there is an end to push off every 25m!), and eventually, having swallowed most of the murky lake water I somehow made it to shore to be pulled out of the water by the lifeguards. Then there was a 400m uphill run back to the transition area where I pulled off my wetsuit and put on my trainers. Onto the bike I went (with a gel seat for my rather precious behind!), and so began 3 laps of the Blenheim grounds, which was a lot more hilly than I was expecting. Although I had borrowed a very smart racing bike from a friend, the front gears very a little tempremental, so more often than not I was in the wrong gear! By the end of the third lap, having overtaken a few other cyclists, my legs turned to jelly as I got off the bike and struggled to remember how to run! Halfway through the run, I started feeling a blister between my toes where my wet socks (having not dried my feet after the swim) had prevented my feet from naturally drying. This of course got worse and worse, but I carried on regardless as I was adament that I would run constantly all the way (although it was more like a slow jog) and not walk at all. Coming down the final straight, the crowd's cheers spurred me on, and I managed to go up a gear and overtake a few more people in the final 200m. Crossing that finish line was a wonderful feeling - although I could hardly lift my foot up to take of the timing chip around my ankle!
Total time: 1 hr 41 mins
Cost - 2 blisters, 1 chafed nipple and a John Wayne walk...
Nipped up to Snowdonia on Monday for 24 hours - haven't been for ages and missed the hills! Was hoping that all of the bank holiday adventurers would have cleared of the horseshoe by 5pm on Monday, but alas, it was still packed with weekend warriors! Crib Goch was clear however, and so I nipped up over that round to the top. Beautiful dry summer evening, cool wind in my hair (although no warm smell of colitas!), and gravitation of 99% of the crowds to the Pyg and Miner's tracks made for a lovely scramble. Car to car in 2 hours 20 mins, which I was pleased with, especially as I haven't been out in the hills for over a month!
I overheard one couple, who had taken the train to the summit, proclaiming their amazement at another couple having walked up - 'What an achievement to have climbed up Snowdon. You must be so proud!' All said with utter sincerity. It was a wonderful reminder of the fact that you don't have to have climbed Everest or some other monsterous mountain to have accomplished an impressive feat. The magnitude of our endeavours is purerly dependant on our own experience. The value of achievement lies in the achieving.
Slept in the car overnight and then got an early start over Tryfan, the Glyders and Y Garn. Wet, cloudy and miserable... Was going to continue over the rest of the 3000ers, but the claggage got the better of me and I sacked it in. Fair weather climber... never!
All in all, a lovely time in the hills, and probably made all the better that it was a last minute plan. Sitting at home on Sunday evening, bored out of my mind and just threw some kit in the back of the car and left the next morning. More adventures need to be spur of the moment, and have less emphasis and importance placed on them by the rigors of fore-planning. Doing my first Triathalon on Sunday at Blenheim Palace. Zero preparation. Picking up a bike on Friday (having not ridden one for years). The brand new wet suit had it's first dunk in the pool on Sunday afternoon. Brand new pair of trainers. No training, no prep... probably no chance, but I'll give it my all!
Just read on Everestnews.com that Jordan Romero, a 13 year old American has just summited the North side of Everest. An absolutely incredible achievement for him and his team. Everest is also (I believe) the last of his 7 Summits, which means that he's broken the existing 7 Summits record by about 5 years! Not a bad effort. He's still on his descent, so hopefully he and his team all get back down the mountain safely.
Also, great to see that some of the Adventure Peaks team have summited, and my thoughts are also with all of them still on their way up, or on their way down.
When I summited, I was about the 2500th person to make it to the top - 2500 people in 52 years. They expect the 5000th person to have summited in the next day or so. Amazing to see that in the past 5 years the number has doubled!
Had a rather busy day last week. First of all I did a photo shoot for an upcoming issue of Esquire Magazine in partnership with Vertu Phones. This was then followed by a mad dash to BBC Television Centre to appear live on Newsround on CBBC (BBC1) and then straight upstairs to Radio 5 Live to do another live interview. The Newsround and 5 Live appearances were both to comment on the rather incredible story of a 13 year old American kid who is attempting to climb Everest this year.
I'm in slightly two minds about his attempt: On one side I think that he is an obvious inspiration to young (and not so young) people all over the world, and you can't fault his incredible aspirations. However, 13 is very young, and not with standing his achievements thus far, 7000m+ takes a tremendous toll on the human body, and when the body is not completely developed, I can't help thinking that it can't be the best idea. Having said that, I'm sure that whilst he's climbing with his parents he be in safe hands, and that they all have a very safe journey, regardless of how high they get.
I had a fantastic few days of climbing up in Scotland with my great mate Wilki last week. I'd traveled up on the sleeper (emotional!) from London, and the original plan was to do some routes on the Northwest Buttress of Ben Nevis, but whilst we stood in the glorious sunshine in Fort William, and checked the weather report, it was all looking a little warm (to do mixed routes). Despite being fully kitted up with ice tools and crampons, we luckily also had rock boots and chalkbags so we decided to make the best of the good weather and get out on the rock!
After a good afternoon's climbing in Applecross, we headed further up the North West coast to Stoer to climb an incredible sea stack just off the coast. At 200 feet high, the Old Man of Stoer is one of the most awe-inspiring natural features on our coastline. Getting to the start of the climb required a rather bracing swim across to the stack (naked - with all of our kit in dry bags!). We did two climbs - a 4 pitch VS and a 3 pitch E1. Both took us right to the top and then necessitated a ballsy abseil back down.
Whether you are a climber of just a keen walker, I thoroughly recommend getting out to the Old Man of Stoer if you are ever up in that part of the world. Many thanks to Silke and Trevor, who managed to take some incredible shots of us from the mainland and forward them on! If you want to see something impressive, check out Trevor's blog of climbing all of the Munro's in one epic adventure:
http://www.nonstopmunromadness.blogspot.com/
Managed to get out to Verbier over Easter for some fun in the snow (and sun!). Luckily we had pretty good conditions - a few dumps of snow during the week and lovely sunny days. Of course the sunny days meant that the conditions got a bit slushy lower down in the afternoon, but that was just an excuse to get back down into the town to sample Verbier's fantastic apres-ski!
Here's a video of me failing miserably to do a backflip on the airbag in the park! For anyone who likes the idea of pulling off some gnarly tricks, but is worried about hitting the deck, the airbag is the thing to practice on - plenty of thrills and painless spills!
Weeeee...... Splat!
