Snowdon

Last week-end I was lucky enough to join 3 other members of the Everest trek team on a training week-end climbing Mount Snowdon. One of the best bits was that to get even more psyched up for our amazing experience we stayed at the Pen-Y-Gwryd Hotel, a traditional mountaineer's hotel at the foot of Mount Snowdon, where Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay trained for the first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953.

Me, Erika, Sue and Nora

The plan was to climb Snowdon on the Saturday but this had to be abandoned as the rain just bucketed down all day and it was quite windy too. We went for a walk in the lovely village of Beddgelert instead and stopped off for an obligatory ice cream at an award-winning ice cream parlour, as you can see. Ok, so it wasn't ice cream weather but it would have been rude not to!


The next day when we were all supposed to be travelling home was glorious weather of course!  So we got up early and did as much of the climb as we could manage in the time we had. We think we managed about two-thirds. The week-end was great fun and it was really good to get to know some of the other women with whom I'll be sharing this incredible Everest adventure.


It was a good test of the trek clothing I've recently bought which withstood the elements pretty well and were comfy. Also, my knees were much better than when I did the climb last year so all that work in the Crossfit gym, the yoga, the pilates, etc. has been worthwhile. Here are some more photos of us amidst the awe-inspiring glory of Snowdon.

 

The clouds have cleared and you can just about see the top of Snowdon (the middle peak)

 

Yoga in the garden

Last night's yoga class was one of the best ever. It was warm and sunny enough to go outside so we took our mats, etc. out into Anne-Marie's lovely garden - see http://www.yorkshirewellbeing.co.uk/

Doing yoga on freshly-mown grass amidst the scent of flowers and the sound of birds and church bells (it must have been a practice night!) was simply blissful.

Here is my class doing various poses -

Mountain

 

Equestrian

 Warrior

 

Hands to Heart pose

Even warrior women over-balance sometimes!

Pampering pulls in the pounds!

D'you like my catchy headline? I'd better not give up my day job eh?

I'm still walking on cloud nine after my Perfect Week-End Treat fundraising event on Saturday! It was brilliant! Loads of lovely women came and spent loads of money and the amount raised so far is £1,038! There's still one donation to come in so I'll post the final amount when it arrives.

I had hoped to get near this kind of figure but you just never know what will happen on the day. 

I'm so grateful to everyone who came and supported the event. And to all the people who worked so hard to make it possible - the therapists, the stall holders, the staff at the Ascot House Hotel and the group of volunteers who helped me. A BIG, BIG THANK YOU TO YOU ALL!

Steve McEnaney - http://www.stevemcenaney.co.uk/ - took some amazing photos throughout the day and I will post some on my blog very soon.

And more publicity!

Everything's in place for my Perfect Week-End Treat pampering and indulgence afternoon on Saturday, 13th August and I'm getting very excited!

I've had some great publicity thanks to Ali Schofield, the editor at Plush Magazine, whose article in the August edition I mentioned in my previous post. I also want to thank Robin Scott, a reporter at the Harrogate Advertiser, who wrote about the event in Friday's paper (5th August).

Fingers crossed that lots of people have read the articles, put the date in their diaries and are coming to get seriously pampered!

Publicity in Plush Magazine

My Perfect Week-End Treat pampering and indulgence afternoon on Saturday, 13th August has been featured in the August edition of Plush Magazine!

This is a free magazine covering quite a large area - Harrogate, Wetherby, Knaresborough and Ripon - so I'm hoping the article will be read by a large number of women in need of a treat.

It's in the Social Diary section on page 7 of the magazine. And there's also a photo of Sue Harper Todd (Everest trek leader) and me in our Women for Women International T-shirts, which my husband Glyn took in our garden. Having previously not known which end of the camera was which, he's now contemplating a change of career.

You can read the article on the magazine's website -
http://www.plushmagazine.co.uk/reviews.php?sid=2401

And here's the photo of us, which was probably about the 10th attempt so our smiles were wearing a bit thin! Thanks Glyn!

Presentation to Harrogate Rotary Club

Sue Harper Todd - the Everest trek leader - and I have been working together on a Power Point Presentation that we could give to groups and organisations about the trek and the work of Women for Women International.

Our aim is to inspire people to donate, come to my fundraising events or organise an event of their own to help me reach my £10,000 fundraising target.

We did our first talk a couple of nights ago to the Rotary Club of Harrogate and I'm pleased to say it was well-received. Many of the members had brought their wives and they were all very welcoming and encouraging. We were given a lovely dinner before we had to sing for our supper! The technology tried to show us who was boss as we were setting up, with the lap-top deciding it didn't want to co-operate, but with some soothing words from a helpful Rotarian (thank you Roger!) it decided to join the party eventually!

 

Sue with David Hayes, President of Harrogate Rotary Club

Sue showed some incredible slides of her climb to the summit of everest in 2004, followed by an awe-inspiring video of the spectacularly beautiful and extremely difficult and dangerous final stage of the climb. This kind of footage is very rare as the exhaustion climbers feel at this point, not to mention the danger, does not leave much energy left for filming! Sue spoke about how she'd decided she wanted to use this experience to work with a charity and how she'd been impressed by the work of Women for Women International, its aims and the way it is organised.

Me - in full presentation flow

This led nicely into my part of the presentation. I talked about how I came to sign up for the trek and explained the ways in which Women for Women International helps women in war-torn countries. Then I tried to impress them with my training regime and my biceps! Finally I spoke about the various ways they could support me and invited them to come to my fundraising events.

Sue and I hope to do more talks like this. If anyone is interested please do get in touch.

BUPA Great North 10K - a new PB!

Well I did it!

Last Sunday - 17th July - was the BUPA Great North 10K race in Gateshead and I had set myself the target of beating my PB of 54.32 minutes.

My new PB is 53.17 minutes - Yeah!

I'm pleased with this but not THAT pleased. I started too fast as I did the first couple of kilometres in 10 minutes. And I got over-confident and thought maybe I could get close to a 50 minute 10K. The course was really quite hilly, especially at the end, and I just ran out of puff. The weather forecast had been horrendous - strong winds and heavy rain - but actually the wind was fairly light and by the time the race got underway the rain had turned to just a fine drizzle, so I really can't blame the weather.

My target for the Great North Run half marathon in September is to try to get under 2 hours. My current PB for this race is 2.07.35, so I may be aiming too high. But if I can keep free from injury and keep improving my strength and fitness, I might just do it.