Knees & Hills

What do you get if you add a knee injury, the flu and the Christmas holidays? Answer. Bugger all training.


This wouldn't be quite so worrying if it were mid September. But we are now in the first week of 2012 and in a little over 3 weeks from now I will be setting off to trek to Everest base camp in Nepal with Scope.


When I climbed Kilimanjaro, I was barely off my usual stomping ground of the Malvern Hills. This time, they have been staring pityingly at me as I spied them from the small bedroom. 'When will we see you again?' they pined.


Well, I can now confirm that the leaking tap that was my nose for 2 weeks has well and truly dried up, the flu has been rid of and I am feeling about 95% again. My remaining concern is / was for my knee. Let me take you back a few years...


In 2008 I trained for the climb of my life, Kilimanjaro. After a good training period, I felt a twinge in the knee. To cut a long story short, the doctor called it wrong initially; 'ligament problem, take it easy and it'll clear itself up'. I did as prescribed and, despite the occasional twinge, I managed to get to Kilimajaro's summit (5,985m), wearing a very fetching knee support and returned to the UK triumphant....but then the knee began to get worse, to the point where I couldn't cycle without pain. Back to the doctor.


'Ah, so it's not ligament then....hmm, possibly cartilage, I'll send you for an MRI scan'. Which I had, and a small tear in my right knee cartilage was found, operated on and after a 6 week period of painful physio, all was ticketyboo.


Fast forward 3 years and I am in Paris with my wife Rini. December, 2011. We have arrived after many years of trying to get to Paris and my wife is over the moon to be in the city of her dreams. And keen, as many tourists are, to see the wonders of Parisian architecture. In particular one large iron structure. Le Tour Eiffel.


We visited the Eiffel tower twice. Once in the evening to see it all splendid and lit up, flashing lights illuminating an overcast Paris night sky. Once in the late morning, in brilliant winter sunshine. On each occasion our cameras were worked hard, pictures taken from and at every conceivable angle. Many of these pictures involved me kneeling down to capture Rini posing in front of the Eiffel Tower. With each kneeling, the getting up afterwards became more and more uncomfortable, then painful. All I could think of was, 'Not now, please knee, why now? Why not a year ago...I am trekking to 5,545m in Nepal next month, you b**tard!'


And with that my knee tightened further.


I believe that my problem this time was Iliotibial Band Syndrome (ITBS), or runners knee. Not that I had been doing  a lot of running. But, I was determined that this setback was not going to prevent me from getting on that plane to Nepal. With thanks to Youtube (!) I watched a sports physio video of self massage for ITBS. Nothing like a bit of self rubbing to loosen your muscles. It seem to do the trick


Enough of the knee. It isn't 100%, but it manageable with plenty of Ibuprofen gel, a vigorous massage, and a  determination not to let it spoil my 13 days of strenuous trekking in the world's highest mountain range. Hey, I managed to get up and down Kili on one good leg, surely Everest will be easy as pie.


I have resumed training and for the record, the knee stood up (pun intended) very well to an intense weekend of activity. An hour on the bike followed the next day by a sprint on the Malverns in full gear. Back pack and everything. I don't quite know what the good people of Worcestershire made of me as I sped past uphill and downhill, decked out in full hiking apparel, walking poles click-clacking over the rocks and paths. I wasn't stopping or slowing down for anyone. In fact, I made record time and walked from the Malvern Hills Hotel to the Wyche Cutting over 5 hills, some with long, steep inclines in 37 minutes. I returned the same route in 38.5 minutes. Not a bad work out and well timed as the inappropriately clad Sunday afternoon strollers were caught out in a heavy downpour, just as I reached the car and set off for a welcome cup of tea. 


Why is it that we British are seemingly arrogant enough to believe that whatever the weather forecast, we can defeat nature dressed only in a pair of jeans, an Argos Cagoule (£9.99, buy one get one free, choice of 5 colours, waterproof qualities of a teabag) and a pair of Hush Puppies. I passed an army of knitted cardigans doing the soft shoe shuffle up the apparently benign Malverns, not a hat or pair of gloves in sight and caught their look of shock and then panic as they topped out a hill and were smacked full in the face by a howling, bone-chilling gale screaming in from somewhere off the Welsh coast. Don't underestimate the Malverns. OK, they may not be particularly high (around 400m) and the Swiss may call them Fruhstuck Bergen, but they are rarely calm. The wind is persistent and strong. For the under-dressed, it is an unpleasant surprise.


Enough of my literal and literary rambling. Three weeks today I will be off to Nepal. The Malverns will replaced by the splendour of the Khumbu region....names as familiar as the towns of the UK, will be visited for the first time. Places only before visited in the books that the region has inspired in great proliferation. Lukla, Namche Bazaar, Pheriche, Phakding, Tengboche. 


Wish me luck and that of my fellow trekkers. I have raised over £5,000 for Scope to participate in this amazing challenge. My trek-mates will each have raised a minimum of £3,600 and hopefully more towards continuing to help those people living with Cerebral Palsy, to lead a better, more independent and more equal life. Many of those people will not ever have the chance to look out from 5,500m at Everest. We are doing this challenge for them.


Me and my knee and my new friends, Mr Ibu and Mr Profen, are ready.