I’ve had injuries before. I’ve sprained my ankle, broken my big toe, damaged the ligaments around my shoulder after falling on it, had shin splints, more blisters than I’ve had hot dinners, been bruised on almost every inch of my body, I’ve got scars on me that I have no recollection of getting, I’ve even ripped my face open [slight exaggeration] when I fell off my bike (I wasn’t wearing a helmet) and my face landed on a wall. And all that after one night out in Dundee!

Okay, just kidding. But I’ve had all those injuries over time and none of them has come close to my knee injury I mentioned the other month. To recap, I woke up one morning with a bit of stiffness in the back of my knee that I put down to walking to the train in the morning (it’s harder work than you think). That night I played football on it and that made it hurt some more. I played again the next night and that really made it hurt - I twisted around and heard / felt some rather nasty cracking noises coming from my knee. My game was over and so began my current injury lay-off.

At first I had to sit around with an ice pack on my knee (I have used that thing for so many hours it’s like a security blanket now). Then I’d hobble around, limping from place to place with a grimace never far from my face. Eventually it started to improve and loosen off until I thought I could start exercising it again. I took it easy on the weights deciding to gradually build up the strength again until I felt ready to do some running. Idiot. That just made it worse and put me back a few weeks. So I carried on taking it easy and it’s been very gradually improving. Almost imperceptibly. It’s been over two months since I had the injury and I’ve not felt any closer to being able to run with it (or even do 20 rep squat sets with a proper weight) so I thought it was high time I saw a physio to see if I’ll ever play football again. That was on Monday.

So according to the physio I managed to stretch one of my cruciate ligaments as well as one of the collateral ligaments. Nice. As they have such a low blood supply, ligaments take an age to heal which explains the long layoff. What I didn’t realise is that your brain decides to protect the injured area even after it heals and modifies how you move the joint. He demonstrated this by telling me to relax my leg and he pushed the knee so as to bend my leg in the wrong direction. Despite trying to relax the knee it keep tensing up of its own accord - i.e. my brain was taking over to protect the knee. Weird. So I’ve got to re-learn how to use my knee properly and get my brain to break the new habit. If I don’t do it then I’m just asking for a repeat injury.

None of this is helped by the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having. I can’t go out and enjoy it on the bike, or out running or playing football. All the things I love doing! So if you were wondering why I’ve been posting so infrequently lately - it’s because I’ve not been doing anything interesting enough to write about. And before you ask - no - I don’t think writing about my knee is interesting but I felt I owed you an explanation.

I’d been doing so well. I’d bought a Smith machine (which is a piece of kit you’ll find down at your local gym that allows you to lift weights without the risk of dropping them and killing yourself) and had managed to stay injury free for quite some time. I was strong, fast, playing football pretty well and my running was coming along nicely too. Something had to give. And of all the things that could have caused it, walking to the train station must be about the most unlikely of all.

I woke up with a bit of stiffness at the back of my knee above my calf muscle. I just assumed it would pass and carried on. I played football one night and the knee hurt a bit more afterwards but as I had a game the next day I promised myself I’d give it a rest afterwards. Big mistake. I was having a good game and then I twisted as I was changing direction quickly and then felt some rather nasty cracking sensations in my knee and was hit by rather a lot of pain. I had been wearing a knee support and even with that on I couldn’t run any more (so I just played in goal and passed the ball around). I limped home and put some ice on it to try and stop any swelling and hoped it wasn’t too bad.

Luckily it only looks like my collateral ligaments so I’ll live to fight another day. In the meantime I’ve had to do something I find rather difficult - sitting around with my feet up doing nothing. It’s going to be a few weeks before I can start running / biking / footballing / walking without a limp again and a lot of that good work I’ve been doing lately will have to be done all over again. Still, on the bright side I probably need the rest, and I usually get an injury like this every 18-24 months so I know what to expect.

On the negative side, I’m supposed to be going to Center Parcs again with my girlfriend and her family over Easter weekend. Unfortunately the only mode of transport over there is on foot or by push-bike, neither of which are really options at the moment. And I’ll be damned if I’m getting a wheelchair! Anyway, I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed that my legendary (or is that mythical?) powers of recovery do their usual magic. But I am getting older so I’m not going to be able to rely on them forever!

Oh, the job’s going really well so far, and the iPod’s fantastic (with so much music to choose from it’s often tough just deciding what to listen to while I’m going to work).  I’d definitely recommend that anybody out of work gets a job, it’s well worth it.  I’d definitely recommend that anybody thinking of getting an iPod goes out and gets it - they won’t regret it!

Must go, I’ve got some ibuprofen cream to apply to my knee. Lovely…

Way back in February I mentioned the joys of night mountain biking. This is where during the winter months you put on some warm clothes, get some lights and go off-roading at night. As a keen mountain biker I find winter rather depressing as it gets dark by about 4pm during the week and that pretty much negates any mid-week biking and by the weekend it’s normally snowing or something. However, a friend came up with the idea of night biking and a lot of fun it was too.

The only drawbacks as I mentioned in February are gates, cows, flat light (no depth perception - you couldn’t tell if the rocks ahead were large or small) and the extreme cold where all your gears stop shifting and your chain blocks up with ice. Well, I’ve found a cure to three out of four of those problems. I’ve bought some seriously bright lights, Fireball lights to be precise. They won the editor’s choice in a recent issue of “What Mountain Bike” magazine scoring 9/10 and while they’re rather expensive, I decided it was worth the cost to do some biking over the coming months.

So last night I went out with a couple of friends to test them against the pitch blackness of a Yorkshire November. I had a 20W flood and 20W spot which seemed roughly equivalent to a car headlight. I used the flood for most of the time and blasted the spot on as well for the downhills. They were superb! You could spot gates, cows, sheep, puddles or anything else from a fair distance and in fact your field of view isn’t much different from daylight biking (in that I could see as far ahead as I’d look during the day). I could also see depth and be able to pick a line through rocky sections, know when a ditch really was a ditch and avoid shocks from before like when that small bump actually turned out to be a pointy boulder. The lights were so bright that if the three of us were within a few metres of each other there was enough light to go around. When I fell off on the final descent the lights were so bright that I could actually see where to put my hand down and avoid landing on some painfully sharp rocks! Luckily it wasn’t cold enough to freeze my chain so I didn’t need to test drawback number four.

What I will say for those of you out there thinking of getting some spotlights and going night biking is to forget flood lights. I’m going to use two 20W spots from now on (and maybe a 35W one for a laugh now and then) and point one just in front of me and the other further ahead. When on the climbs I’ll use the near light and put the far one on for the fast stuff. The spots cover a huge area and you can even get away with one for downhills if you want to conserve power, but two is like Daylight II if you need it. I’ll bring my camera next time and get some photos - I didn’t realise there would be enough light for night photography but there is, amazingly. Oh, and the other thing I’ll say to anyone considering night biking is Do It! It’s a lot of fun and makes great use of the long nights - plus it’s far more fun than trying to find something decent to watch on the TV.

When I hear or see the numbers 911 I don’t think of the American emergency services telephone number. And I don’t think of the terrorist attacks on American in 2001. No, instead I think of the Porsche 911. For as long as I can remember I’ve always loved them. They’re one of these things that you either look at and this “wow, I’d love one of them!” or alternatively “ooh, what an ugly car”. Curiously most males will tend to give the former response and most females the latter.

The thing with a 911 is this. It’s a supercar, it can do insane speeds, accelerate like a bat out of hell and corner like it’s on rails but you can use it as an every day car and go shopping at the supermarket quite happily. Try that in a Ferrari and you’ll be a nervous wreck by then end with a sore leg from pressing it’s heavy clutch in. I’ve always wanted a 911 and I swear that one day I’ll get one (first of all I need to build up some kind of no-claims bonus on my car insurance first). I’d have one of the older air-cooled models and as they’re water-cooled nowadays so the prices should keep dropping until I can afford one.

But I’m not alone. It turns out that the sales manager here feels exactly the same way I do about 911’s so a couple of months ago he set about actually buying one. After much searching he found an immaculate 10 year old 911 Carrera 4, albeit left-hand drive. He got it just before he went on holiday and said he’d take me out for a spin when he got back. I must point out here that despite my love for 911’s, I’d never actually been in one and would relish the experience.

Two weeks later and my chance came with a trip into town to buy some lunch. My first impressions sitting in it were that it’s not as luxurious as my current car but everything was functional and looked pretty solid - however what I was interested in was the engine. As soon as he fired that up I started grinning. The low, guttural sound it made was very appealing and as he revved it to pull away it sounded even better. The ride was pretty firm but not painfully so and once it was warmed up I got to experience what I’d always dreamed about.

Now, I’ve been in a TVR before so I know all about loud engines. But the sound an air-cooled 911 makes above 5000 rpm is absolutely awesome. It’s like you’d imagine a Ferrari to sound like when you’re a kid looking at them in a magazine. I couldn’t begin to describe what it sounds like any more than I could explain to you why I love my girlfriend. But I can describe the acceleration (although I’ll have to use a lot of superlatives). You know when a plane launches itself down the runway prior to take-off? It pins you to the seat. But nothing like a 911, which feels like somebody has taken a runaway express train and rammed it into your back. I know that fighter pilots get tunnel vision when they take off - and I know that because that’s exactly what happens when you’re in the passenger seat of a 911 overtaking a long row of traffic.

Of course we soon came up on a corner. We’re travelling at some cosmic speed at this point and it’s not that I think we’re not going to make the corner, I know we’re not going to make it. We’re going to just plough on in a straight line right off the road and into a field. My brain and body are ready for the impact but strangely we go around the corner as if it were a straight line. No fuss. Not even near to spinning. Amazing.

To say that I still want one of these cars would be to understate things somewhat. It’s breathtaking - literally. When I’d been for a spin in a TVR I swore I’d never buy one - it felt as though the grim reaper was riding in the boot ready to tap me on the shoulder and take me away, but I reckon I could handle a 911. I wouldn’t drive it flat out because I’d be dead inside of 5 minutes, but the thing with a car like that is you don’t have to drive it at 150mph. The sound of the engine alone is magnificent, even at 60mph.

Ah. Some day… Still, you couldn’t fit my mountain bike in the boot - there’s an engine in the way. Nothing’s perfect.

I had a very relaxing weekend at a family holiday resort in a chalet with my girlfriend, her parents, her brother and partner and their two children aged 5 years and 11 months. I know it sounds like the exact opposite of a relaxing weekend what with potential problems like early starts courtesy of the kids, the judgment of the potential in-laws, being on my best behaviour and wearing my Uncle John hat, plus the sheer pain of being an adrenaline junkie imprisoned in a family resort for a long weekend. However, I had a great time.

We went to Center Parcs near Penrith (Oasis Whinfell Forest to be precise) and in fact I’d been there before with the whole lot of them (minus the 11 month old baby who was just a twinkle in his daddy’s eye at that point) a couple of years before (over the Easter bank holiday if memory serves me). The idea of the place is that families turn up with the kids, everybody hires bikes and rides all over the place and partake in many of the activities on offer such as tennis, badminton, climbing, archery, football, snooker and many other sports while staying in the seclusion of individual apartments situated in a pine forest (the red squirrels are complementary).

I had a fun time including playing some rather competitive badminton and table tennis (with varying degrees of success on my part). But the highlight for me was getting a Swedish massage. I’ve always been from the macho, grin-and-bear it school of thought who’d never do any of that namby-pamby facial, relaxation, aromatherapy stuff. However, I’ve softened that line recently and thanks to all the exercise I do I’m constantly suffering from aches, pains and general muscle fatigue. So before I arrived I’d decided that I was going to get an all-over massage and see what it was like.

I spent a while flicking through the book on arrival to choose a treatment and to say there was a lot of choice would be an understatement. I could have had candles burned in my ears, all kinds of ointments and cleansers used on my body, needles inserted in me, pressure points manipulated on my feet and a whole long list of other things I can’t remember off hand. So I chose a full Swedish massage as it sounded just what I needed (I was aching pretty much all over) and booked it for the Monday morning.

I was expecting it to be a painful experience for some reason (when I think of Swedish things I think of people running out of saunas and into ice-covered lakes - which sounds painful). However, instead it was great. I could feel the fatigue and aching leaving my thighs, calf muscles, shoulders, neck and back so by the time the guy was finished (not that I minded it being a bloke - I was going for the massage, not a thrill) I felt like I was floating on air. I still feel that way today. I’d forgotten what it was like to be totally relaxed without any muscle pains. When I drove home I could barely be bothered to hold the steering wheel!

While I’m not going to get a facial any time soon, I’ll definitely have a massage again - or persuade my girlfriend to go on a course! So if you’ll excuse me I’m just going to go and put my feet up and relax for a short time.

We won!

Of course I’m referring to the 6-a-side league team I’ve been playing for over the last few weeks. The team has been on a bit of a losing streak lately and really needed a win. It’s not that they’ve (or we’ve) played badly, it’s just that more often than not the other teams have edged it at the finish. With the captain home sick we had to make up the numbers again and it worked out pretty well.

We were playing the third top team in the league but as we were warming up I wasn’t intimidated. For starters none of them could match my ball juggling skills! Another star striker Kristian was drafted in and as we were knocking the ball around and having shots I felt pretty good about our chances (despite the fact that I’ve consistently felt that way since I started playing with them). Anyway, as soon as the whistle went and we kicked off we were all over them. We scored first and just weren’t giving them a chance to play at all. Our passing was crisp and safe (i.e. no Hollywood passes). I didn’t think too much about where I was playing, I just looked to get the ball and if we didn’t have the ball I’d just look for any gaps in our defence and try to fill them.

We finished the first half level at 3-3 and we shouldn’t have let them score at all, but we were going to make amends for that. But come the second half we really put the hammer down. We tackled well, passed well, had plenty of chances and really rattled the other team who resorted to shouting at each other for slacking around. We won in the end quite comfortably and it never felt throughout the whole match that we’d lose and I’m sure the rest of the team felt the same.

It was Kristian’s turn to score the hat-trick, although with his shooting precision he should really have scored a double-hat-trick (except he chose to humiliate their defenders with some silky drag-backs instead). I got a few assists (i.e. the pass that puts the guy through to score) and managed to score a totally outrageous goal that I can only describe as lucky (beating three men and then lashing in from distance into the bottom corner - nobody was more surprised than me when it went in).

Anyway, we didn’t win because of a star striker. Or solid defending. Or quality play-making from the middle of the park. Or hard tackling in the midfield. Or good closing down of their players. We won because of all of the above and more. It was a team effort. Everybody played well, we communicated well, defended as a team, attacked as a team, didn’t panic or do anything stupid. We passed around when we needed to, challenged hard when we had to and tried to score when we should have. It was great and felt a million times better than having a good game personally but losing. We just need to make sure we win next week and get a bit of a streak going.

One piece of typically amusing irony came in the first half where Chris skied the ball out of the pitch with his first shot on goal and I jokingly said “you want to keep your head down Chris” (you tend to sky the shot when you are leaning back, keeping your head down makes you lean forwards). True to form a couple of minutes later I had a similar shot on the other side and yep, you guessed it, I skied it out of the pitch and straight into the upper stratosphere. Sod’s law that.

Roy Of The Rovers is a comic strip that has been on the go since the 1950s and chronicles the trials and tribulations of the fictional Melchester Rovers football club and their star striker Roy Race. They’ve done it all. Won the FA Cup, the European Cup, had match fixing allegations levelled at them, experienced death, earthquakes, oh the stories go on. His brash manner, golden locks and dazzling football skills made him famous until the magazine it was published in, the Match of the Day Magazine was cancelled in 2001. Thus ending his near 50 year career - well, imaginary career.

I never really read it much when I was a kid but when I think about it all I remember is him coming on and scoring the winning goal in the dying seconds to win the FA Cup - which is pretty much every boy’s dream when kicking a ball around a park. Not me though, I was rubbish at football. I used to play in goal (as I’ve mentioned before) and had no confidence, frequently being at the receiving end of a heavy defeat in matches. But as I got older I grew in confidence and while I never had dreams of being a pro, I do enjoy playing and scoring. Plus, I can do keepie-ups like a pro even if I can’t play like one!

I play 5-a-side football about 3 times a week for fun and when I was asked if I could play for a league 6-a-side team who were short of players I jumped at the chance. I’d not played “competitively” since I was that skinny keeper all those years ago so I was quite looking forward to exorcising those demons. The team I was to be playing for were second-bottom of the league and we were playing the top team. It was going to be tough work.

I was instructed to play as the centre-forward and just “shoot whenever you get the chance, they won’t let you have much time on the ball” and not to stay back and defend - they needed an attacking outlet and that was me. Oh, and they’d kill me if I tried any showboating! Before the game I was pretty relaxed, not tense, just ready to go at it. I’m fit, strong and pretty fast so I had nothing to fear. I just didn’t want to let the team down.

So the ref blows the whistle and almost immediately I’ve got the ball and I’m running down the left wing and take a shot that’s a bit off target. A minute later I get completely thrown into the wall in a rather harsh challenge that the referee doesn’t spot, despite the fact that the other team thought it was a foul and the guy who did it even apologised. But I don’t get angry, I just pick myself up and play on. Another couple of minutes later and I pick up the ball on the half-way line, run a couple of paces forward and lash the ball at the far top-corner of the goal and score! 25 yards out and there was nothing the keeper could do. I was shocked.

Their defenders were having a hard time staying on me as I love drawing people to me and doing darting diagonal runs to make space for myself. We were all over them but they managed to get a goal back and at half-time we were at 1-1. The second half comes along and they manage to score quickly and go ahead. Then the ball is fired up the left wing at me, so I run it into the corner. By this time I’ve realised that the opposition are really hard tacklers so I expect the defender to run right at me. He does, so I spin anti-clockwise with the ball at my feet and lash it, right-footed into the near top corner. Fantastic!

They score again thanks to a lucky deflection and then I find myself running into the corner again. A call from Chris and I back-heel it diagonally into his path so he can hit it with his right foot (I know he’s right-footed you see). He blasts it and scores! We could just about win this match yet. Once again, the ball comes to me and after a quick one-two I nip between two defenders and fire the ball through the legs of the keeper for my hat-trick. I’ll celebrate later.

Unfortunately they managed to come back to win 7-4. We seemed to lose our shape at the back and they were able to attack several times (even getting another lucky deflection). I wanted to run back and defend but was mindful that I’d been told to stay up front (I did defend a couple of times though). I’ll give them their due, they played really well as a team and were highly motivated to win. Impressive.

But I just couldn’t believe that I came on and had such a good game. I’m not a bad player, but I wouldn’t say I was particularly hot - I just like performing tricks to entertain the crowd. Although I didn’t do anything like that in this match. However, if I were Roy Race I’d have made sure our team won in the dying seconds so in that respect I was disappointed. The bottom line with team sports is that no matter how well you play, if the team loses you’re pissed off. I’d rather have scored zero if we’d won, to be honest. But I’ll take the hat-trick, and if I ever play that well again (which I seriously doubt) I’ll go for more.

There is a caveat though. I phoned my brother (who scored his share of hat-tricks in his youth) and told him all about it. He asked what the age group was, thinking it was 30-somethings. I pointed out that they were teenagers and early 20’s. He then pointed out that I was probably the oldest person there and after thinking about it for a few seconds I replied “you know, you’re probably right”. Sort of brings you back down to earth a bit. I’m 29 next week…

Well, it turns out that the Highland Games consists of sporting activities such as cycling, running, caber tossing, hammer throwing, marching band marching and eating lots of unhealthy food. I had a really good time. Maybe it was the sunshine, or being in Scotland, or the sound of lots of Scottish accents or perhaps it was the constant bagpipe music in the background. Whatever it was, I’m glad I went.

We turned up at midday and I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. There were bouncy castles, lots of carnival games that you can never win (such as throwing the hoop over the prize and kicking a football through a football-sized hole), kilt-wearing pipe bands practicing all over the place and there was a grass 400m running track in the middle with an area in the centre for hammer throwing and caber-tossing (more about that later).

First up was some sprint cycle racing. I’ve always been scared by the idea of fixed-hub bikes (the ones with no brakes and you can’t stop pedalling on them - no free-wheeling) so I admire those who can do it. But those who do it on grass are even more crazy! The racing was all handicapped so that the really fast guys started at the back and the slow people just about started on the finish line. My brother kept on hoping for a crash to spark things up but it wasn’t to be.

A little later on we got to see some caber tossing. They really do use huge telegraph poles and managed to break one of them before the end of the competition. I had no idea who won but there were a couple of guys who made it look easy and a couple more who made it look about as hard as I’d probably find it (i.e. balancing the thing upwards before you even think about throwing it requires a high degree of skill). We then proceeded to watch some Scottish wrestling (left). Two men in kilts hug each other and then try to throw each other onto the ground as hard as possible. Anybody from the crowd could challenge the guys if they wanted but I thought I’d pass I’d most probably have broken a nail or an arm.

After losing some money trying to kick a football at some targets we stood watching the athletes warming up for the 200m sprint. As a runner myself I can always tell the difference between someone who does weights in the gym to look good versus someone who actually is really fast. Anyway, this bearded guy appears and straight away I said to my brother “my money’s on him, look at his thighs!”. The guy was in awesome shape and as I remarked “he reminds me of that Scottish sprinter, what was his name, Dougie?”, “Walker” my brother corrected.

Anyway, he lined up about 40m behind the front runner and was clearly the most handicapped (i.e. fastest) runner there. As the gun went I knew he was quality - he was so fast! The commentator then said over the tannoy “and watch out starting at the back is the former European 200m champion Dougie Walker, he’s the class act”. And he was. I couldn’t believe how fast he was travelling as he went down the home straight, easily overtaking everybody else. I’ve never seen an athlete like that up close before and I didn’t realise just how fast humans can run - it was amazing.

For those of you who don’t know, Dougie Walker was on fire in 1998 and was really looking like our Olympic hopeful for Sydney but tested positive for nandrolone and got a two year ban. He protested his innocence and I have no doubt in my mind that he was innocent (even the ATP managed to accidentally dope seven players ). Anyway, he wasn’t allowed to race at Sydney and has recently had surgery on both ankles. I was quite sad that such a star has had such a rough ride but it was great to see him back in excellent shape. He’s been racing quite a bit too and hopefully we’ll see him on the world stage again soon. Anyway, seeing him was the highlight of the day for me and I’d have shaken his hand if he’d not been behind the fence.

All in all it was a great day out with a nice atmosphere. And the weather held which is always a plus-point. As I drove away from the games I was struck by something else. The roads are so quiet compared to Yorkshire. They’re twisty and great fun in a fast car and yet I only came up on about 4 cars all the way back - you get so used to being stuck in traffic that it’s a joy to be on the open roads in beautiful scenery. I really got the chance to throw my BMW coupe around the corners - superb, worth every penny. I love Scotland!

Today is the 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest (in case you didn’t know). You don’t have to be a mountaineer to gaze in wonder at photos of the highest mountain on earth, picturing what it would be like if you could drag yourself up it’s treacherous slopes. I used to think I’d like to have a go at it one day but for several reasons that I’ll get into, I doubt I will. However, for a mere $65,000 you can get yourself on an expedition and be in with a real chance of making it to the summit. I have a great deal of respect for anybody who manages to push themselves to get to the top, or even has a crack at it and fails (as most people do). But it’s nothing compared to the respect I have for the team who managed to put Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay onto the roof of the world.

With modern equipment, a competent guide, fixed ropes for most of the route to the summit, good weather and a body that can handle being at high altitude (doesn’t matter how fit and strong you are, some people’s bodies just can’t adapt to the altitude), then you’re in with a good chance of climbing Everest. I’ve seen professional climbers say that “with the right weather you can get almost anybody to the top of Everest” and they’re right, technically it’s nowhere near as hard as, say K2 or Gasherbrum 4. It’s an amazing achievement to succeed if all the above factors are in your favour, but it’s not what I’d call mountaineering.

Wind back to 1953. The equipment was extremely primitive by today’s standards: the oxygen equipment was bulky, heavy and not a patch on modern kit, Gore-Tex was decades away, camping equipment hadn’t benefited from light-weight advanced materials, the crampons weren’t secured to their flimsy boots very well and didn’t even have front pointing spikes on them. In fact, whereas you can front-point your way up ice today with crampons and ice tools, in those days they had to cut steps the whole way up with their ice axes - sheer hell. Understanding of the physiological effects of altitude was in its infancy and - most important of all - it had never been done before. This last point matters on many levels.

In 1953 nobody had been to 29,000 feet on a mountain and many believed that you would die trying. While a Swiss team the year before had made it to the south summit, no human had gone along the knife-edge ridge to the summit proper. They were stepping into the unknown, not really knowing
what to expect, the barrier to success being as much psychological as physical. They had everything to lose and everything to gain. That’s why I get shivers down my spine just thinking about it. I try to imagine what it must have felt like with all the doubts and dangers, both known and suspected. Doing something for the first time - forging into the unknown - seems like the ultimate adventure if you ask me. Knowing what to expect at every turn just seems to take the edge off.

Nope, being guided all the way to the top wouldn’t do it for me. It just wouldn’t be right. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t give it a go if the opportunity fell into my lap. But whenever I start thinking that way I just think back to seeing Chris Bonington give a presentation a few years ago on an expedition he’d just done. There was one slide he showed where he was leading along a knife-edge
ice-covered ridge with a sheer 3000m drop below “just to see if there was a way through”. There was just him and his climbing partner belaying, and that was it. That was all the support he had. He couldn’t call search and rescue and expect them to come and save him if it all went pear shaped, he had to rely purely on his and his partner’s skills and experience gained over years of climbing at the top level.

Call me old fashioned if you like, but I think you  should earn the right to climb mountains like the Himalayas with winters in the Alps or similar locations. Being a rich, successful trader with $65,000 to spare doesn’t qualify in my mind. And neither do I. So on this 50th anniversary of the first ascent of Everest, I’ll not be thinking about the mountain, I’ll be thinking about the men who beat all the odds and achieved the impossible. And lived to tell the tale.

A couple of friends and I decided to go mountain biking yesterday. There’s nothing unusual in that. But the day didn’t turn out quite like we planned. We should have paid attention to the warning signs.

The first was that the guide book for the route we were doing described the route as “very hard”, 5 hours in duration and 3000ft of altitude gain. In past experience, routes that supposedly take that long normally take about 3 hours for fit young bikers like ourselves and 3000ft of gain didn’t seem too bad over a 20 mile route (which didn’t seem very far anyway). So we ignored those warning and carried on.

The weather wasn’t exactly perfect. It was quite windy and it looked as though it might rain a bit. However, we’d not been biking for a while and weren’t going to let a bit of traditional Yorkshire weather put us off. We drove to our starting point (at a place called Starbotton) and set off. We took a few snacks for the trip and were glad to be out on the trail again. Basically, it all went down hill from there on (not literally, sadly).

We started with a rocky climb that we had to get off and push a good portion of (it was completely unrideable). The terrain changed to boggy moor and continued to climb for another few miles and it just kept on going up and up and up. A good portion of it was rideable but a fair portion of it was not, especially the extremely steep, boggy climb on to the top of the moor. After an hour or so of hard slog (did I mention that it had started raining heavily here?) we got onto the main moor only to find a very hard wind blowing into our faces. And that was it. We spent the rest of the day pedalling into a seriously strong head wind over some terrible, boggy terrain with little or no downhills to cheer us up.

I’ll cut to about 4 and a half hours into the supposedly 3 hour ride. Myself and one of the other guys were utterly wasted. We had no energy and could barely keep going. I was pushing my bike up the steepest road in Yorkshire (note: if there is a steeper one I’d like to see it) and I was fit to drop. When I eventually managed to drag myself to the top of the hill I was able to ride the next couple of miles to where our route left the road. It was murder. As soon as I met up with the other two (both of whom were clearly just as knackered as me) I collapsed on to the ground and lay there in a heap, exhausted. I had nothing left to give. I had hit the wall.

We had no more food (remember, this was supposed to be a 3 hour ride) and couldn’t just stay put as we had to get back to the car. We decided to carry on and that’s when it happened. A switch just flicked in my head and I could carry on, I was blocking out the pain and the urge to lie down and burst into tears (it had been there, believe me). My emotions were gone and all that was left was the will to carry on. I was lucky. I’ve been there before. Back when I used to run marathons I’d hit the wall and I’d forgotten just how bloody hard it was. It doesn’t matter if you can run a marathon in 2 hours 5 minutes or 5 hours 2 minutes, everybody hits it. The only way you can go on is with sheer will power.

One guy had also hit the wall (for the first time) and he wasn’t enjoying it, but the other one is from New Zealand and is therefore as hard as nails and seems impervious to pretty much everything that life can throw at him! So he shot off ahead and we pushed on as best we could. It was comforting to realise that he had the same symptoms as me: pins and needles in the fingers, unable to focus, coordination not as good as before and the overwhelming desire to lie down and go to sleep. Not terribly helpful when you’re on the back of a mountain bike. However, the rocky descent at the end was quite an experience. I didn’t have the energy to hit the brakes hard and I could only see a blur ahead. I probably went faster than I normally would (being a bit of a wuss).

One thing is that my sense of humour remained intact, although I’m not sure whether that made my companions want to kill me more or less than usual. So after nearly six hours of hard slog we finally managed to make it back to the car. And then the pub.

I certainly learned a few lessons from the whole experience, most of which I should have learned before but I guess I got complacent. Firstly, always assume the route is going to be much harder than you think it is and take twice as long. So bring loads of food along. Secondly, watch the weather a bit more closely. Thirdly, special forces soldiers (and infantry soldiers in general for that matter) have to operate in that state of total exhaustion all the time, that’s why being a software engineer is such a great job. Fourthly (and I knew this already, it probably helped to flick that switch in my head), the human body can take a hell of a lot more punishment than you would ever believe possible. When you think you can’t give any more you can, it just takes pure will power to keep it going. And finally, I’m not that little blonde haired boy who used to cry when the wind blew in his hair anymore. I haven’t been for a long time!