Getting Heavy

Another weekend, another amazing walk in one of the great outdoor areas surrounding Sydney. We were back in the Blue Mountains this week as I finally had an entire weekend off work, yeewwww! (It's been a while)

We thought we'd do the Wentworth Falls Loop this week for two reasons. The first being that we are lucky enough to have a couple of friends who live in Wentworth Falls who very generously put us up for the night from time to time, often spoil us with dinner and generally put up with our shit! Cheers boys, you're legends. Second reason is we decided to up the weight in our packs a bit this week and didn't want to over do it with a really long walk.

At 10kms the Wentworth Falls Loop still isn't a bad walk lengthwise and there's definitely lots of steep climbs and descents. It's also just a really beautiful part of the Blue Mountains so is always a pleasure to get out and enjoy the spectacular views.

Mai was carrying just over 10kgs and I was carrying a little over 20kgs. Oh man were we feeling it!? Ha, a bit more weight makes such a big difference, but think it's really great training in preparation for Mont Blanc. I mean carrying extra weight at no altitude must go towards simulating how much harder everything is once you're up at 4800m. We brought our walking poles along but didn't need to use them which was good because I think our legs needed the workout the most and we're both pretty comfortable hiking with poles so it will be nice to have them at hand on the mountain in case we need them.

Once again feeling the benefits of just having a good excuse to get outdoors and get some really good excercise done. We went to look at a house on Saturday that was really expensive and just incredibly average, was honestly a bit down about the fact that we can't afford a house in this crazy city we live in (not many people our age can!). However getting out in the wild gets your mind in a happier place, you start to realise life's not about things and what you've got, it's about experiences and what you do. If we weren't training for Mont Blanc I guarantee we wouldn't have got out on the trails this weekend and would probably have just been sat at home doing nothing.

Just Keep Going

Once again the week's been busy with work, life seems to be a constant battle between doing what we really want to do and making sure by doing that we're not still going to be working until we're in our 90's to get by! It's all good though, pressure's starting to ease for me at work as of tomorrow (hopefully) which may just leave me to focus a tiny bit more on our goal of getting in shape to climb Mont Blanc.

It's hard to know if what you're doing is enough, I mean we would certainly like to be doing a little bit more than we currently are but have both had a lot on our plates lately. We didn't go to the altitude chamber this week on Tuesday, still feeling a bit wrecked from our run around Narrabeen lake, but did on Thursday which was actually our wedding anniversary. There's no better way to celebrate 5 years of marriage than struggling to breathe while sweating buckets on a treadmill in a very small room with the air pressure equivalent to 4000m altitude I find! Don't worry we did go out for dinner on Friday as well.

So at least we did do something during the week this week, but with only four and a half weeks to go until we fly to Europe I think we could do with stepping it up a little.

We did still do our weekend training session this week too. We were originally planning on another walk in the Blue Mountains but thought we'd go a bit closer to home instead. Have had a window open on my iPad for ages now of the Mount Kuring Gai to Cowan walk (via Berowra Waters) so thought we'd give it a go.

The walk starts and finishes at train stations which is pretty handy when doing a one way walk. Mai's watch had it as about 18kms (although website said 17.2kms), either way we completed it in around 5 hours. There was quite a lot of up and down which was good, not quite as steep as a lot of trails in the Blue Mountains but still some good hills that got the legs pumping. Was nice to see a wild area so close to Sydney that we'd never really been to before.

If nothing else training for Mont Blanc has been a great excuse to go and do a lot of really great day walks in and around Sydney that we might never have done otherwise! Mai was struggling a bit today but did really well to push through and get it done, particularly as the last 2kms we were practically sprinting to make sure we didn't miss our train. I think mental conditioning is just as important as physical for us at the moment and being able to keep going when things are getting tough is exactly the kind of mindset we are going to need when we're on the mountain in July.

Long Weekend Run

Been a bit slack this week training wise, really seeing as it's Monday we didn't actually train at all this week just gone. However as  it's a long weekend and today is a public holiday I reckon we can just get away with saying today's run was our training for the week.

Will save the excuses for not hitting the altitude chamber this week (busy, work, tired etc etc) and just say maybe we'll call it an easy week to rest a little.

Of course we did get off our arses today to train with x2 laps of Narrabeen lake. It seems to be becoming a recurring theme of me heading into a training session thinking it's going to be a breeze and coming out struggling! I knew that x2 laps of Narrabeen lake is a bit more distance than we usually run but as it's so flat just thought it wouldn't be too bad.

Well after the first lap I was still feeling comfortable and Mai was feeling a bit tired, then the second lap was a bit tougher for me and a bit better for Mai. Regardless, we pushed ourselves and are now reaping the rewards lying on the sofa hurting!! Haha, okay so wasn't that bad but wasn't that easy either though and think it's probably the furthest either Mai or I have ran in one go.

Mai's watch said we'd done 16.72kms in 1:47, not exactly a blistering pace, but I'm not much of a runner and Mai hasn't been doing many runs lately so we'll take it. We were also a lot more concerned with pacing ourselves and making sure we got it done than burning out trying to set a good time.

The weather came to the party and was a beautiful day, this also brought out the hoards of families so the trail was very busy. Not a surprise really as it's such a nice circuit. Busy as it was, it's still very handy for us when we can't be bothered driving to the Blue Mountains to train as it's a pretty cruisy 15mins drive from home. Not a bad session, pretty sure my legs will be feeling it tomorrow!

Coastal Walks

Much as we'd love to head up to the Blue Mountains every week to train it's a bit tough as it's a decent 1&3/4 hr drive each way minimum and currently I'm working 6 days a week, so we've decided to try and do one week on one week off in the mountains for the time being, maybe this will change if I become a little less busy at work.

Anyway variety is the spice of life so this week we thought we'd head down to the Royal National Park to hike from Garie to Otford and back. Must admit I kind of underestimated this walk, having spent a fair bit of time in the RNP surfing I thought I was practically a park ranger and it would just be a cruisy little stroll.

Well, turned out it was actually a fair bit harder than I thought! Maybe there's something about going into something too confident that can give you a shock 😂. It was 18kms and we walked it in 4.5hrs (including a stop off at the nice but very touristy figure of 8 rock pool). Felt like we made fairly good time and set a good pace. Brought my old mate ,6kgs kettle bell, along for a laugh and my legs were certainly feeling it toward the end.

Mai seemed pretty (annoyingly) comfortable through most of it but was a bit tired towards the end (insert evil laugh). She may also have had to take over the wheel on the drive home so the expedition leader could gain some shut eye, tiring work all that planning ....... yes.

Was a good days training in a beautiful place that's really pretty close to home. Couple of photos below. Quite an interesting point is all the buildings you see are only accessible by foot, have no electricity and the closest car park a good 30mins walk away. They're "beach shacks" that hark back to the days of simpler times where planning permission etc. is concerned.

They belong to people (although the land doesn't) and I'd heard they were to be taken back and demolished by the National Parks but after having a quick browse on Google have learned that they recently acquired heritage listing and will remain. Pretty happy about that as they're really a part of the park, a few really interesting scattered communities and a good reminder of simpler times.