Tag Archives: Aconcagua

Setback!

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Having been a bit on the quiet side for a month or more on my blog now, here’s an update as to why:

On the 16th September I competed in a half-marathon, the Great North Run. It’s the world’s largest half marathon, and I was running for a number of reasons, not least of which was the need to keep up fitness levels for my forthcoming trip to the Southern Hemisphere’s largest mountain, Aconcagua, in December.

I had ramped up my training to where I completed over 100 miles in the three weeks prior to the run itself. Excessive maybe (or it is for me), but I took the advice from various running forums and websites which said that that was the sort of distance I should be covering that close to the run. Sadly with one week to go, I developed a fairly intense pain below my left ankle. I self diagnosed this, after much frantic googling, to be tendonitis, and a subsequent visit to the doctors suggested the same. Armed therefore with a bunch of painkillers and some anti-inflammatory drugs, I decided still to do the run, and told my self that I could/would quit if the pain got worse during the event.

Myself, Dan and my good friend Mel, immediately prior to the Great North Run.

Not long after the start of the run however, something strange happened. My left foot, where the pain had been coming from, was basically sore, a dullish pain without being too bad. I thought to myself that I could live with this if this was the worst that it was going to get. My right foot however, after about three miles, began to scream at me. It was agony, and I could hardly place my foot on the ground at all. Now limping on both feet, I thought to myself how ridiculous, that it looked like I was getting tendonitis in my right foot as well.

By mile six, the pain was horrible, and I should have stopped, but just didn’t want to. Plenty of people had sponsored me to do this event, and I was running for Bowel Cancer, which means so much to me. I just didn’t want to let anyone down, didn’t want to quit, it just seemed like the easy way out. I told myself to grin and bear it. The second half of the run is all a bit of a blur, but to cut a long story short, I made it to the finishing line, and in a time of two hours and two minutes. The last mile felt like someone was hitting me on the bottom of my heels with a chisel, and I half limped and half walked in.

To cut then an even longer story short, I discovered afterwards, following first X-rays and then an MRI scan, that I had what in the medical field is termed bilateral calcaneus fractures. To the layman (which includes me) that means “two broken heels”. To boot I have a torn tendon just below my right ankle, and the right foot is considerably more sore than the left, as perhaps is illustrated more clearly by the pictures below, which are from the MRI scan:

MRI scan of my left foot

In the centre of the above picture you can see a dark serrated line jutting down from the middle of my heel bone. That is a fracture. Bummer, as they say.

MRI scan of my right foot.

Towards the right of the above picture you will see that the heel bone has basically split – the back part is apparently separated from the remainder. That might explain why it hurt so much! As if to add insult to injury, I also have post-traumatic arthritis in my left heel, and the torn tendon in my right.

So anyway, the upshot of all this is that I was unable to even put any pressure on either foot for about three weeks. It was just too painful, and I got around in a wheelchair, even in the house. The bigger upshot is that I have since been told that I need to wait a further six weeks before I can load bear at all, and then three months before I do any repetitive strain type activities on either foot. If I told you that I was gutted by all this then it would be a ridiculous understatement.

So the biggest setback of the above, apart from the immobility and the waiting around for what seems like a lifetime to be able to walk around unaided again, is that my trip to Aconcagua is off. There was no way I could have gone, as the trip starts in less than six weeks from now. There’s also no cycling, no nothing in fact, until probably January until I can dare doing something strenuous again, and that’s if I get the all clear on my next hospital visit, when they MRI scan me again in November.

Aconcagua will therefore have to wait. It’s not going anywhere of course, but the frustration is then that I have to wait another year for it to happen. The ‘window’ to climb is only open in December and January, which won’t now happen this season obviously.

It’s all too easy to feel a bit down when you are essentially housebound, cannot walk unaided, and have had to cancel the thing that has driven you all year, i.e. the biggest mountain, at 7,000m, that I will probably ever get to attempt. My overriding emotion through it all so far though, is that in overall terms I am lucky. I have my health in overall terms, and there are millions upon millions of people out there a lot worse off than I am.

I have been helped by quite a few people in my recovery period so far, and my thanks to all of them, but very special mentions to Anna and in particular to Mel for all that you have done. I’m extremely grateful, I really am.

It’s difficult to use time productively when you can’t really go very far or indeed stand and bear your own weight, but I am doing what I can, and trying to not let daytime television get the better of me. I have bought myself a home gym, and am trying to use it as diligently as I can to at least stop too much muscle wastage on the rest of my body, not that I was overblessed with muscles in the first place. I think I’ve come to the conclusion overall though that running is just not my sport!

Medical Screening on Aconcagua

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I haven’t updated my blog for some time now about Aconcagua itself, so it’s about time that I did. Firstly, in case anyone is wondering whether I am still doing it, I can report that I most certainly am. I had a feeling a short while ago that I might not be though, and will explain more below.

West face of Aconcagua
Firstly though I can say that Aconcagua will happen this December. I am probably in terms of overall training more or less where I need to be. There are issues though. I have for example, done a lot less gym work this year than last, so my core strength and upper body strength are way behind where they need to be. This is a problem, because on Aconcagua the climb is not supported past the half way mark, and I therefore will have to carry around 20kg (or more, but basically everything that I need for the trip). Looking then at the picture above of the west face of the mountain fills me with a bit of dread, as it does not exactly look like a walk in the park (who am I kidding, it looks ridiculously hard). On the other hand, my legs are in pretty good shape, at least as far as performace on the flat is concerned, and that is essentially due to running.

Now running is not something that I thought I would ever be talking about on my blog. The simple reason for that is that (until this year) I have never run at all, and never in fact been able to. There were three reasons for this. Firstly, I could never, as far back as I can remember, run distances at all. Even as a kid at school, I was the one who hid behind a building somewhere when they did the cross country. I was just hopeless. Secondly I had asthma for most of my adult life, and when I tried to run I smply got out of breath and had to stop. Thirdly, I just never really tried. I had a sedentary lifestyle, and smoked too, and that’ll put the lid on most activities you ever try. Stopping smoking (about four years ago now) was the best thing I ever did for me. It simply changed my life for the better.

I now in fact find myself in serious training for the Great North Run, a half marathon (the world’s biggest I believe, with 56,000 participants), which takes place later this month. I’ll blog more about that in a later post, but am glad to report that I am now up to running about 50km a week (or should I more aptly say I ran, or jogged, a total of 50km last week for the first time).

Anyway, the reason for me talking about even the possibility of not going to Aconcagua, and indeed the title of this post, is blood pressure, and specifically, high blood pressure. I should explain quickly that I don’t suffer from it, or haven’t in the past, but was recently slightly alarmed by a letter that I received from Jagged Globe, with whom I am making the Aconcagua trip. The letter was titled “Medical Screening on Aconcagua, and went on to say that the Argentinian Park authorities have recently introduced a ‘superficial’ screening programme based upon blood pressure measurements at two of the camps on the mountain. It further explained that if you ‘fail’ the test on the mountain, then you will be refused permission to proceed.

This was a shock it has to be said. It seems it was to Jagged Globe too. The reason the test has been introduced is that the park authorities have ‘decided’ that high blood pressure is a precursor to potential altitude sickness. There seems to be some medical debate on this matter, and indeed a divergence of opinion altogether as to whether hypertension can be linked to altitude sickness at all. Jagged Globe even sent a medical paper along to support what they describe as an over zealous policy. However, regardless of whether they agree with it or not, they rightly point out that it would be rather a good idea to get your blood pressure checked out beforehand. Obviously if you have high blood pressure at sea level and not under the strain of either exercise or high altitude, then you are likely to have the trip end in severe disappointment without even a chance of attempting a summit of the mountain. More is explained in the link to the medical journal below:

http://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032%2810%2900295-4/fulltext
I therefore searched online to find someone who could do a full medical exam for me. Going to your GP is hardly going to give you piece of mind either way as far as I am concerned, and Bupa came up trumps. They offer a full fitness assessment, where they test blood pressure, VO2 max, and all manner of other oxygen intake/uptake levels under duress. The tests were pretty rigorous, and involved being on an exercise bike with various tubes in my mouth and electric diodes around my body for an ECG test at the same time.

I’m very happy to say that I passed the tests with flying colours, that my blood pressure was ‘normal’, and that my VO2 max (predicted, not a full test as it turns out) was 46.9. Furthermore, the ECG revealed ‘no irregularities’, even under duress at an anaerobic state. I was pleased with the results, and therefore it means that there are no reasons now why I shouldn’t go to Aconcagua, not that I was looking for one in the first place of course.

So meanwhile my training needs to step up a gear or three. I fly to Argentina in less than 13 weeks from now. It’s going to be the biggest, and hardest by far, adventure of my life. I need to get very seriously into the right zone……

Aconcagua!

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The blog is back! I have just had a day of pontificating, deliberating, and just wishing that I had my next challenge mapped out. For some time now I have been contemplating where I would go next, and it was always really going to be Denali or Aconcagua. Why those? Well, they are both members of The Seven Summits, both are higher than I have ever climbed before, and both are achievable, if requiring of a lot of very hard work if I want them enough. And the long and short of it is, I do want them, and want them both.

Then today I was just contemplating what I should do next, and I came across a great picture of Aconcagua on the net. I thus posted a link to it (from Wikipedia I think), onto my Facebook page, which said something like “Aconcagua, it just has to be done”. Within a few minutes a post came in as a reply from one of my oldest friends Steven Cooper, which said simply “always wanted to do that, time and money never added up – do it man!”. So what could I do, apart from go to find a booking site, and get on with it! I am impulsive after all you know! And to Steven, I thank you, you pushed me into realising that I so wanted to do it, and so that is exactly what I am going to (try to) do.

So to cut a long story short, after a few trawls I was booked!

So briefly here are some facts:

Aconcagua is the tallest mountain in the Southern and Western Hemispheres, the second tallest of the Seven Summits, and at a whisker under 7,000m and 23,000 feet, the tallest mountain outside of Asia. It is in the Andes, in the Mendoza province of Argentina, and close to the border with Chile. I will regardless of outcome be attaining so many firsts on this trip, and I can’t wait already. It is going to be a very exciting year, and the prospect of getting to (a gnat’s breath under) 7,000m is dreamy stuff indeed.

I go in December.

Bring it on!

New Jersey, New York!

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I think this post may take some time. I have so much to write about, so will have to just condense it as much as I can I. Reason is I just spent the last weekend in New York, staying actually just over the Hudson in Jersey City, and had the most fabulous weekend imaginable.

Now on the face of it, this may appear to not have much to do with Kilimanjaro, but actually it wouldn’t have happened without it, and moreover the weekend I think has opened up the possibility of an adventure every bit as great as Kilimanjaro itself. That may be blasphemy of course, even though I wrote it, but all will soon be revealed…..

So the weekend (or actually five days in total, taking full advantage and more of the Bank Holiday weekend) was spent with Heather, who those of you who have followed this blog from way back will know I met for the first time doing Kilimanjaro. Having kept in touch via email, Heather invited me to come and see New York, and I couldn’t refuse, so that was that!

I very nearly thought the trip wasn’t going to get off the ground at all, as between BA strikes and volcanic ash clouds I was concerned that the anti-travel gods were conspiring against me, but all was good in the end. I feared on the journey over to Newark from Heathrow however that all was going too smoothly, when the plane got diverted due to storms to Boston. Just my luck! Thankfully this was a brief-ish delay and I was only around four hours late overall.

It was fantastic to see Heather. I think we are pretty like-minded in terms of outlook and sense of humour, and the whole time there was just a blast. I had been to New York City several times before, but not for a few years now. We sort of did the touristy thing, and rode the big red bus and the Empire State Building etc., also taking in a game at Yankee Stadium where the Yankees annihilated the Cleveland Indians 11-2. Oh and we also went to see Mamma Mia on Broadway, which was just off the scale in enjoyment terms for me.

So here are some pictures from my trip:

First was taken on a ferry over from Jersey City to Manhattan.

Heading over the Hudson River to Lower Manhattan

Second is on the Hudson again, looking towards Uptown from the boat – this is very close to where the airliner crashed there last year:

Uptown and the Empire State Building from the river

Third up is quite a poignant sight – this is the new World Trade Centre being built on what has been known as Ground Zero for the last few years. The new building will be 1,776 feet high and is due for completion in 2013.

Construction in progress of the new World Trade Centre.

The next was taken at the entrance to Times Square from the ‘big red bus’ – ahead in the distance is the ball drop which happens on New Year’s Eve each year.

Times Square - too bad if you don't like crowds....

So the tour was great. We saw The Flatiron Building, The New York Stock Exchange, Central Park, 5th Avenue, The Brooklyn Bridge, The United Nations Building, the Chrysler Building, The Statue of Liberty, and Broadway, to name but a few places. It was a great tour, even if the tour guide was probably not the most entertaining or educational I have ever come across, and I am being very very kind to him here, believe me. Oh and I really loved seeing Grand Central Station too, it was the first time there for me. Mamma Mia was brilliant, the first time I had seen it – I love the movie too (should I admit to that?).

Here is a view back over to Jersey City from the Manhattan side:

'The JC' as it is known locally, from the other side of the Hudson

On the Sunday we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge, which was great, and the views were stunning.

Downtown from the Brooklyn Bridge

Then it was on to Yankee Stadium for the game:

Don't think they've seen too many Sunderland shirts in 'The Yankee Tavern' before...

And here is Yankee Stadium from the outside:

The new stadium was completed just last year at a cost of a mere $1.5bn....

And here it is from the inside too:

Not too shabby a place really..

After the game we went up the Empire State Building, where thankfully, despite being threatened with 1 1/2 hour lines, there was actually no queue at all. It was a bit hazy at the top, but the views were fantastic nonetheless:

Uptown and the East River from the Observation deck

And here is looking towards Downtown:

Lower Manhattan, 'the JC' and the Hudson River in the distance, the 'Flatiron' building visible in the centre foreground.

OK, so enough of the touristy photos, you get the drift. Finally a piccie of two other friends I met at the weekend, first up is Louie:

Louie liked my flip-flops so much he started wearing them.

Next up is Rumple. Now Rumple was described to me as being ‘very muscular’. He may alternatively be ‘big-boned’ – what do you think?

I was not surprised my bag was so heavy!

OK, so now on the the very exciting part. Whilst there I was talking to Heather about my bike ride, and saying that whilst I am looking forward (with albeit not a little trepidation so far I might add) to it, I would love to do another adventure, and a ‘proper one’. So to my delight and surprise she said she would gladly do another one with me, and that made me ridiculously happy. Upon exploring this further, it seems we both have hankerings for South America, and the Andes. We discussed things like Machu Pichu, but to me whilst it looks great, I have the impression that it is just a bit over-touristed for my liking.

And so we got onto talking about some serious stuff. I mentioned that a colleague of mine had done Aconcagua. This started some serious googling, as a result of which Heather said that if she ever learned to be able to pronounce it, then she would do it. So after me trying to get her to recite it for about the next three hours I think we got there, and so we may just have a plan! Seriously though, Aconcagua is a monster. It is the highest mountain in the world outside of the Himalayas, and at 22,841 feet, is about 3,500 feet higher than Kili. On top of that you have to carry your own kit, and it takes about 18 days, three of which are all above where we were on Kili, and you need ice-axes and crampons. I think we both looked at the descriptions and got fairly scared, which I suppose is good in that we are not just recklessly stupid 🙂 We also then considered Torres del Paine. Heather has wanted to do this for ages – it looks magnificent and is much shorter (about 7 days), much lower down, and more of (just a) trek. It looks beautiful. Or another possibility is Tupungato, which was done by a colleague of Heather’s and was recommended as a (presumably much safer) alternative to Aconcagua, although it is still a monster at 21,555 feet.

I have no idea where this will lead. I just know that I am excited beyond compare. I will not get too ahead of myself however, and know that there is much to do as far as planning and logistics if it is ever to get off the ground.

But you have to dream don’t you? When you have done Kilimanjaro it leaves you with such a sense of achievement, but also a sense of awe, of passion, of respect, for the mountains and for all of nature itself. I want now to follow on from that and to do more, to have more adventures. If this trip comes off to the Andes then it will be so much of a pinnacle for me that it might top even Kilimanjaro if that is at all possible. That is how much it means. Aconcagua would be the dream, and if it is possible for me, then I want to do it. If not then Tupungatu.

As they say, watch this space…………..