Hahaha... naaaaaaah. Not me. Although, I recently bought a telly... after being without one for two years. Funny enough I haven't watched telly yet. Guess it's like any kind of mild addiction. You need a certain time off it to realize you don't really need it. So I stick to Netflix instead of random channel hopping.
So anyway... I've been asked by a few friends over the last weeks when I'm going on my next adventure and I have to say IT IS meh outside. Even if I fancied plodding through the boggy countryside all day, the day ends around 5pm at the moment and starts around 7am maybe. What am I supposed to do in a tent for 14 hours????
So I've stored away my walking boots and all the other gear and called it a day. Well, kind of. I wouldn't be me, if I was indeed lazing about. Far from it. Winter is the time when I build up my fitness for the next season. Have a look at my upcoming trips and you'll see it's not a walk in the park. Far from it. The next trip are two week-long winter mountaineering courses in Scotland in March.
Luckily, I've found a great gym just across the road. Small but with a very friendly atmosphere and some pretty cool people. Haven't touched a single machine (apart from cardio) in three months and instead been doing circuit training and boxing. This is the power workout I've been looking for! Forget them bloody machines, circuits or boxing are so much more effective. Plus, I'm working on muscles AND stamina. Both I need for my future adventures.
I'm elaborating on this new found gem of a workout here.
Starting from 1-2 visits per week I will aim for 3-5 for December and the following months. November has been very good so far and at least I'm no longer hurting for 4 days after each training session.
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| Slowly getting to 5 workouts per week |
When I'm not sweating at the gym, I'm browsing for gear I don't have the money for. *sigh*. At least I could afford the most important piece of kit recently, which is a pair of proper mountaineering boots with the best socks money can buy and some re-known insoles. Byebye £500. But it's worth it.
Those size 8 shitkickers fit my size 6.5 feet pretty darn good with the chosen socks and should be warm enough for the 6000m peaks I'm about to tackle.
Still on my shopping list: an alpine backpack with fastenings for ice axe etc, new harness, decent insulated mid-layer or two and eventually crampons and ice axe. All of this is needed for Scotland, for Ecuador I will need a few more things. So, I'm browsing the web every other day "window shopping", hoping I can afford all of this soon.
Bloody expensive hobby I've chosen there. But at least I get outside, hahaha.
Have a good winter everyone. I'll be back in March blogging from Ballachulish about some ice axe-tion (gosh, that was a bad one) and snowy munro tops.
Over and out.
