Last weekend saw me tackle Beyond Mount Everest in aid of St. Benedict's Hospice. The concept of the event was a straightforward one. To climb 40,000ft on a VersaClimber at David Fairlamb Fitness’ VersaHub and hopefully raise at least £400 for the hospice. It was all to help celebrate St. Benedict's Hospice 40th birthday.
Despite being in unknown territory, I predicted that it would take between 10 and 13 hours to complete the climb. Proceedings got underway at 0840 on Saturday morning.
I was really pleased to see the money coming in to the hospice via JustGiving.com and that served to give me an early boost.
The first 10,000ft took 2 hours and 20 minutes to complete. At this point, I was well ahead of the anticipated 10 to 13 hour completion time. So far so good. Things got very tough soon enough though.
The climb up to 20,000ft was incredibly draining from a mental point of view. While I managed to maintain the same pace, the depth of my steps reduced considerably. This meant that second set of 10,000ft took over an hour longer to climb (3 hours 25 minutes) than the first 10,000ft. That was quite a drop off in performance but I was aware that I’d set the bar high very early on.
I was so relieved to eventually reach the half way point. Just like the many 30+ or 40+ mile runs I’ve ever done, when I get over the 20 mile point, I was aware that things tend to get easier.
The next section to 30,000ft was even slower still and took 4 hours to complete. It would have been even longer but I made sure that my pace didn’t get any slower and depth of step get any shallower. Reaching the height of the Mount Everest summit gave me a boost as did the continuing donations coming in to St. Benedict's Hospice. It all seemed very slow going though despite all of the effort.
With 10,000ft left to climb I decided to take drastic action. That’s right, disco classics reverberated throughout the VersaHub (it has a world class speaker system by the way). I’m not saying that the volume of the music was loud but it’s a good job it was late on Saturday on Tyne Tunnel Trading Estate.
Once again, just like my big runs, I was able to focus on pace in those later stages and take a few risks. The tempo of the disco music was perfect and I was almost back to the pace and depth of those early stages.
I had a bit of a wobble at 36,000ft when YMCA played. In hindsight, it’s not a good idea to try and do the actions while climbing on a VersaClimber. I almost fell off!
I’m pleased to report that I reached the finish line at 40,000ft after a further 3 hours of climbing and 12 hours 45 minutes in total. That last set of 10,000ft was the second quickest of the four. Again, that late surge was not unlike many days that I’ve spent running in the USA, Australia and Europe.
To end the day on a great note, the fundraising target of £400 was smashed and finished on £480. So all in all, it was a very good days work with over 10,000 calories burned and 73,664 steps taken (the equivalent of 33.1 miles).
The confidence that I got from the climb was most unexpected. “There’s definitely life in the old dog yet” I thought.
I had a debrief with David Fairlamb the following day and we talked about the lessons learned and the many parallels to my big runs. Speaking of which, A huge thank you goes to David for allowing me to use the VersaHub at his gym. It’s the only place where I could have got through the event. The lighting and, moreover, the sound system is out of this world. It’s a very special place to train.
The final donation page can be viewed here. Happy 40th Birthday St. Benedict's Hospice.
