Africa, what a place!

I took a week off regular training to do some amazing altitude work in the heart of Africa. It was amazing experience. Travelling by plane and a scrap of a taxi we arrived in Moshi, Tanzania the base from which we would climb Africa's icon, Kilimanjaro!

I found the whole experience very similar to that of a race, the only change was that the goal now was only to finish. Waking up in the morning and seeing the mountain clear for the first time was exactly the same feeling as arriving at the sprint course at the star of the regatta. I have seen thousands of pictures of Kilimanjaro but none actually give you any indication of its size, it is

MASSIVE! and probably the most beautiful bit of creation I have seen. I knew climbing it was going to be a real challenge for me, from all the statistics I saw before departing it was clear that young fit males suffer the most from altitude sickness. I did my best in preparation, taking full advantage of the AltiTrainer at sports science, but all this seemed in vain when I hit the slopes.

By an altitude of 4600m I was really feeling it! I had the worst migraine ever but fortunately I had another 3 days at a similar height in order to acclimatise. This helped a lot...

The night (00:10) we set out to summit I was feeling great, I was just cruising up the frozen slope but once I reached a height of 5000m I started feeling it again. By the time I reached Stella point @ 5745m I didn't feel as though I was going to make the last 400 meters of walking (50min at that altitude). But I did and I even managed to hold back the uncontrollable vomiting for long enough to show my teeth to the camera to prove I got there.

Back in training now with Shaun and mentally feeling as strong as an Ox, hoping the mindset carries through for the next two seasons!