The lead up to Kinabalu – Part 2

19 August – 19 September
The second part of challenge to build my fitness so that I can climb Mount Kinabalu went by in a blur! I’d heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit and 7 days to break the habit, and I have to say I’ve found that to be true.  For the first 50 days I was definitely in the “habit” zone.  

Week 5 – Four days of gym work, peaked at 28 floors on step machine over 10min + 5.4k over 1 hour, then a 2 day walk in Dharug NP – 300 ascent & descent plus 11k on Saturday and 17k on Sunday.

Caving or bushwalking?

Week 6 – Another three days doing weights, then caving at Wombeyan on Saturday (10,000 steps as per the Fitbit) & the Sunday (another 10,000 over five hours), then off to Yarrangobilly and surface on day two, another 10,000 steps (my rest day was 7 hours driving back home lol).

“Surface Trogging” involves wandering around the Australian bush (and blackberries) looking for cave. This one, is a “gated” cage but you can’t see the gate for the blackberries – we spent an hour clearing away the blackberries to get to the gate, only to find that the NPWS key didn’t fit the lock (lol) – unfinished business.

Week 7 – After a 1-day turnaround (rest) I was off again, on Friday – Horse Track (5.25 hours, 7k round trip and 490m ascent/descent) & Saturday – Haystack Ridge (8.45 hours, 6.8k round trip and a mere 200m ascent/descent).  Then, the rot set in, I think I was overtired, and I took Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off – I wrote it off to tiredness, but I think I’ve broken the habit, and I don’t have 21 days left before Malaysia to get the habit back (lol).

A challenging walk, but Oh the views!

Week 8 – With a good start to the week, Wentworth Falls & SRT training & Malita Walls, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were a write off!

Wentworth Falls was a good work out, walked approximately 5.3k (bounce trip + walk on undercliff track) and did approx. 370m descent/ascent, took us a little over 2 hours (with a long lunch break).  The ascent was punishing!

SRT training was great, but not the work out that I should be doing.

Malita Walls was a good trip, but again, not a huge workout … other than the 300m ascent up Furber Steps at the end of the day LOL.

So, that’s the end of my training (at least for climbing Kinabalu), do I feel ready?  Not really!  I leave on Friday and start the climb on Monday – watch this space!