It has been a pretty intense couple of months on the training front in preparation for the climb. I have continued doing what I ordinarily do; weights, swimming, cycling and running but have supplemented this with some more specific training. I have been doing 3 pack trekking sessions a week. At least one of those has been walking a nearby hill near my home, Gower St, with my pack on dragging a tyre. Ordinarily I do 15/16 repetitions of the hill which takes me I hour 30 minutes. Must say you get some pretty strange looks from people driving past. All up I have been investing upward of 4 hours or so a day in training.
For the past 6 weeks, I have also been partaking in some specific altitude training. This has involved a session a day for up to 1 hour 30 minutes in an altitude chamber cycling on a wind trainer. Recently I have been cycling at 5,000 metres. It is very interesting to see the effect on the body. When I first started training in the chamber, my oxygen saturations were sitting pretty low even at moderate altitudes (4,000-4,500 metres). In the past weeks my blood saturation levels have been improving. For the last week or so I have been cycling at 5,000 metres at effort and my sats are in the mid 70% range.
For the past few weeks I have been sleeping in an altitude tent. Basically, a machine dilutes the oxygen concentration in the tent (which is sealed) to get the oxygen percentage down. Ordinarily there is 21% of oxygen in the atmosphere, but with the tent you can dial this down to 13-14%.
Only 12 more days until I depart. More to come soon.