Deano's World

Everest: Lunch With A Legend

22/02/201929/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

To round out my own fundraising for Wooden Spoon and to make sure I hit my £10,000 target I decided to host a lunch in London at The Mercer on Threadneedle Street after holding a successful fundraiser there last year for Samurai RFC

I enlisted John Inverdale, a long time supporter of Wooden Spoon, as the host for the lunch and former England Captain, Wasp and Lion Lawrence Dallaglio as the guest. You don’t get much more of a rugby legend than Lawrence Dallaglio. The England, Wasps and Lions star had won just about every piece of silverware going and has gone on to have a successful media career after retiring.

It was also great to have the support of fellow challengers Paul Jordan, Matt Franklin, Miles Hayward and Jude “Jess Cheeseman” McKelvey who very kindly took places and tables at the event.

As ever Jason and the staff at the Mercer delivered a cracking lunch and Hugh and the team at Huge Events as ever made sure the event went off seamlessly. I am hugely indebted to them for making sure I could make good on my fundraising promises.

Thanks to Built Visible, ROC, Cisco, PAYE Stonework, Facelift, JDC Scaffolding, Warlingham RFC, THSP, Samurai RFC, Hugh Anthony and Elmstone for supporting the event. I am pretty sure you and your guests had a good time. Not bad for a lunch that started at 1200 in the Mercer and somehow finished, for the hardcore amongst you, at 0300 in the Forge nightclub.

I also got to meet Bryan Hodges who heads up Wooden Spoon in Surrey. What was great was that several of the people he met at my lunch, including several from Warlingham RFC, have agreed to help with the work done by the charity moving forward.

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Everest: Watt Bikes, Breathing Difficulties & Charity Rugby Balls

15/02/201929/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

Come and do a training session at the Altitude Centre they said. It’ll be fun they said.

As usual I forgot to look before I leapt.

So before the send off for the Everest Rugby Challengers at the Wooden Spoon Rugby Ball at the Hilton on Park Lane I joined the other challengers for a “quick” training session at The Altitude Centre.

Now I have never used a Watt Bike and if I am being honest I’d not actually heard of them before this session. It is fair to say that my little legs and them do not get on. Add to that this the training session is in a room where the Oxygen content is controlled to simulate being at 2700m/12,000ft and I am seriously struggling.

Matt Mitchell asked if anyone else had found themselves “breaking wind” more in the session because of the altitude and I replied that I hadn’t been able to fart because I was using that particular orifice for breathing through.

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Riding a Watt Bike at a simulated atmosphere of 2700m is horrid but trying to walk uphill in a mask which simulates an atmosphere of 5000m altitude with no acclimatisation is a whole new level of “outside my comfort zone”. It is fair to say that at that point my muscles, such as they are, were in spasm so badly I was shaking like a shitting dog. This challenge is now very real, I have work to do and I am well and truly on the raggedy edge. I am also loving every second of it which I put largely down to the group of people involved.

Suitably knackered we went off to the Hilton to meet our respective partners and families and to help Wooden Spoon raise as much money as possible at the charities annual ball. The event also served as a send off for the challenge and the support from those gathered at the event was amazing. For sure they all thought we were bonkers as well but then almost everyone I’ve spoken to regarding the challenge thinks that anyway.

The event was top notch and certainly puts my fundraisers into perspective. Sarah, Jules, Laurie and the rest of the team put on one hell of a show and it is truly incredible how many legends of the game they get to willingly support the cause.

There are legends and then there are legends and Willie John McBride is the latter, a true great and an icon of the game. The sort of man that inspires awe in everyone who has played the game and is respected by all he played with or against. He has 17 test caps for the British & Irish Lions. To be clear that is test caps and not just match appearances. Or to put it another way he has more test caps for the Lions than any other player in the history of the side and more than most players get for their nation. During the Wooden Spoon Ball that night in the auction when an auction prize dinner with Sir Bill Beaumont and Jason “Fun Bus” Leonard, themselves bonafide legends, at a Michelin star restaurant stalled at £2500. Willie John spoke to auctioneer Jon Gould and offered to pitch up as well to see if that would help raise more money for the charity. The dinner went for £5000 around 30 seconds later. I think it speaks volumes about the work of Wooden Spoon and the standing they have within the rugby community that they have someone like Willie John McBride involved with the charity

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I would just like to thank the team at The Altitude Centre for the time they gave us – very much appreciated and no doubt I’ll be back to try and squeeze a few more sessions in before I go.

Everest: A Nepali Dinner

06/02/201929/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

Part of my trip to play rugby on Everest is a commitment to raising £10,000 for the charity Wooden Spoon. Wooden Spoon, the children’s charity of rugby, specifically work with disabled and disadvantaged children in the UK giving them opportunities they otherwise wouldn’t get in life, opportunities that most of us take for granted every day.

For the cynics amongst you the £10,000 all goes to the charity, with the cost of the trip coming entirely from each of the challengers themselves. That is a large amount of money to raise by anyone’s standards and I suspect that a lot of potential challengers shied away from coming because they felt that sort of target was unattainable. Certainly I was conscious that I would need to pull in a few favours to hit the target so I decided to start somewhere familiar.

I have had my birthday celebrations at The Gurkha Kitchen in Oxted for almost twenty years and over that time have become good friends with the founder, owner and restaurateur extraordinaire, Purna Gurung. Purna very kindly agreed to let me use his restaurant for free and provide a meal for my guests at as close to cost as he could. The result was that I could run an event in my home town, similar to what I ran for Samurai RFC in London, and hopefully raise a decent chunk of money towards my target.

I had help of course. Ollie Philips hosted the evening superbly and via the help of Chris Robshaw and Joe Marler the main guest, Adam Jones, was a barn storming success. His handling of questions regarding pressing political issues of the day, the non-selection of Danny Cipriani and the merits of different hairdressers will live long in the memory.

The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze when one of the guests at the dinner, who I didn’t know, bid £300 for £150 worth of restaurant vouchers.

“You’re mad” I told him after his winning bid.

“It’s for a great cause” he replied and who am I to argue.

I hope everyone had a good time and I certainly enjoyed hosting an event, which is a significant part of #MyEverest journey, in somewhere akin to a second home. We raised circa £2000 towards my total but as a side benefit we raised awareness in my home town of what Wooden Spoon is all about. As I said, rather clumsily, on the night:

“The truth about the Everest Challenge is that it isn’t about me, it isn’t about Ollie and the other captains, it’s certainly not about setting Guinness World Records and it isn’t even about the trip itself. We certainly won’t be changing the World on the World’s tallest mountain but the money we each raise on the way might just change the World for one person. To me The Everest Challenge is about the money raised to change the lives of disabled and disadvantaged children in ways most people cannot even imagine. It is about giving these children the sort of opportunities that you and I take for granted and providing the people that care for them the sort of assistance or respite that helps share the burden they shoulder everyday without complaint .

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Everest: A Sort Of Homecoming

04/01/201929/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

With 100 days left before the expedition departs for Everest I am on my way to South Wales to get some more time on the hills. The routes I had planned included the 10 mile walk in the Brecon Beacons taking in Corn Du, Pen-y-Fan and Cribyn before moving east to the Black Mountains to a walk up around the Grwyne Fawr Reservoir and then up to Waun Fach and Pen-y-Gadair Fawr. The Black Mountains walk in particular was one of my favourites and despite my legs aching on the second day it felt like a sort of homecoming.

I had walked these routes many times between 1996 & 1999 as a member of the Southampton University Royal Naval Unit and usually completed them without breaking a sweat, or at least only sweating out the rum from the night before. I was much fitter then, weighing in at around 14 stone and my knees had a great deal less mileage on them. The reality is that, since then, multiple injuries from rugby, climbing, training and quad bike crashes have taken their toll and these same routes take a great deal more effort and commitment than back then.

Day one saw a steep ascent to the ridge at Graig Fan Ddu which certainly gave a short sharp reminder of why indulgence at Christmas is not the bright idea it seemed at the time. Once up on the ridge however the route moves gently along until you reach the top of Corn Du with spectacular views back down the valley. The “motorway” up the side of Pen-y-Fan is short and steep but once at the summit (886m) you are treated to, in my opinion at least, the best views in South Wales.

The path down from the summit is steep and seemingly relentless and the view from the bottom back up to Cribyn is certainly more than a little morale sapping. That being said the views from the top of Cribyn are pretty special and the summit doesn’t tend to get anything like as crowded as Pen-y-Fan meaning you can stop and enjoy the moment. From there it was a short stroll down the ridge before descending back down to the reservoir and the car park beyond.

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Day two was a shorter route, roughly six miles, and took us up the Waun Fach the highest peak in the Black Mountains at 810m. It was a beautiful day and despite the frost and ice along the ridges the views were once again incredible. We were fortunate in our choice of days as looking west to where we had been on day one the peaks around Pen-y-Fan were shrouded in low cloud and the visibility would have been very poor if we had been walking on them that day.

The ascent up Waun Fach was hard work before the much easier leg along the familiar and perpetually boggy ridge to the prominent cairn at Pen-y-Gadair Fawr. It was the descent through the forestry plantations to the car park that was hardest on the knees however and in hindsight a longer, gentler route down would have been a good idea.

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It was nice to reminisce over the few days, sharing a part of my past with my wife that she had previously not seen . It certainly felt good to get out walking after a busy and boozy Christmas and clear all the cobwebs from the lungs. It also served as a reminder that I am not fit enough and that if I don’t lose a lot more weight my body is probably not going to be able to cope with the stresses of walking at that altitude. My right knee is swollen and stiff and I suspect the previous ligament tears and cartilage damage are flaring up as my knees take a battering. The walking poles seem to help by reducing the load on my legs but I suspect the only way I can really keep them in shape long enough to play on Everest is to shed the pounds. I see a lot of big pink smarties in my future.

I am still waiting for my report from the altitude centre following the altitude testing I did just before Christmas and I am just hoping it doesn’t pick up any potential banana skins because, being frank, I don’t need anymore hurdles at this point as the reality of the challenge I have set myself starts to sink in.

I may not actually get fit enough to succeed which is difficult to grasp if I am honest. I am a lot more confident of my ability to raise the £10,000 sponsorship for the charity than I am of playing any meaningful part in the expedition and that is what is hard to admit to myself. I guess that in the greater scheme of things this is not the worst scenario as the real aim of this expedition is to help Wooden Spoon raise the funds they need to improve the lives of disabled and disadvantaged kids in the UK and Nepal through rugby. However, It would be rather nice to dial the clock back a bit though and have a decent run out, especially as it does happen to be at 6500m.

Everest: Mallory’s Footsteps

25/11/201829/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

It is 2259 and Buffy and I are checking in to the YHA at Pen-y-Pas after a horrendous journey up from London in rush hour traffic and torrential rain. I know that is always the curse of trying to escape the South East for a weekend in the hills but this trip was particularly horrid. As the YHA staff checked us in with minute to spare I nipped outside under the pretense of getting our bags from the car to sneak a look at the valley. The weather had actually cleared somewhat and the moon lit up the start of both the Pyg and Miners track. It seemed to be clearing but as I had never climbed Snowdon in anything better than low cloud and drizzle I decided to check before I jinxed it. Distracted I headed back in and arriving in the room I was too busy checking the weather forecast to stop Buffy snaffling the top bunk. On the plus side that left me closer to the bag containing the Percy Pigs.

As an aside I would highly recommend the YHA at Pen-y-Pas. The staff are friendly, the bar cosy and the rooms perfect for anyone walking in the hills. Plus they are considerably cheaper than anything else in the area even if the car park requires you to take out a second mortgage. It has the added benefit of just walking out the front door and instantly having access to three of the main routes, Pyg, Miners and Crib Goch, to Snowdon which means that you can get on the hill nice and early and therefore make it back in good time for tea and medals in the bar.

The next day was cold and clear with the tops of the surrounding peaks clear in the low early sun. What cloud there was blew through quickly and I was very hopeful of getting a decent view when we got to the top. There was some lingering mist and cloud in the lower valleys which gave some spectacular views as we made our way up the Pyg track.

Despite having been here many times before the significance of climbing Snowdon was not lost on me. A great many of those who had been to the Himalaya and specifically Everest had trained in Snowdonia. Even the YHA bar, Mallory’s, at Pen-y-Pas was named for the legendary climber George Mallory who famously coined the phrase “because it’s there”. Mallory later lost his life on the North Face of Everest either just shy of the summit or, as I hope, shortly after achieving his life’s ambition and climbing the world’s tallest mountain. His body remains on the mountain.

Even with it being late November there were a lot of people on the mountain and there was the usual flow of “traffic” up the mountain. This is always one of the least enjoyable aspects of a day in the mountains for me as I enjoy a certain degree of solitude, or as my wife puts it “I am a misanthropic miserable bastard” which is probably more accurate.

We made good time on the way up the Pyg track and the weather was so good that I regretted not heading up and over Crib Goch. Reaching the ridge I was treated to a spectacular view. I had never seen it even remotely that clear before and as we slowly made our way up to the actual summit we took the time to admire the view down to the coast and back across the whole of Snowdonia. The summit was crowded but we still managed the obligatory summit shots complete with Wooden Spoon bobble hat!

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We decided to head back down the Miners Track and after the steep descent straight down to the valley bottom from the ridge we meandered back around the lakes to Pen-y-Pas and a well earned beer in Mallory’s bar. A good day and it felt like my lungs had started to get some of the their capacity back. I am starting to remember why I loved walking the mountains and I very much want to go back to Snowdonia before my trip to Everest to walk an old favourite route of mine up around Tryfan, Glyder Fach and Glyder Fawr.

Next up though for my preparation is South Wales. Three days in the Brecons and Black Mountains beckons in early January and I look forward to re-visiting Cribyn, Pen-y-Fan and Waun Fach all of which were regular climbs in my early twenties. Shortly afterwards I join up with the rest of the LMAX Everest Rugby Challenge team on Ben Nevis for another training weekend. I am hoping to get at least some snow during these trips just to get a little flavour before arriving in Tibet. Hopefully the “client lunch” heavy Christmas period will not put too large a dent in my fitness drive but if so I am sure the Welsh and Scottish mountains will soon sort me out!

As the trip comes ever closer I am still trying to define #MyEverest but despite my ongoing doubts and reservations about being ready and my concerns over whether my battered frame will hold together long enough to play that final rugby match I am starting to rediscover my love of the outdoors. For me that makes the effort worth it and I am hopeful that I will want to continue after I return from Everest regardless of the outcome.

Everest: What A Difference A Month Makes

30/10/201829/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

After discovering quite how unfit I was on a team training weekend in the Lake District I decided to get as many miles/hours on a mountain as possible in addition to the usual cardio stuff in the gym. I suspected that there is really no substitute to pulling the boots on and getting out on the hill. I live near the North Downs so a few short treks up Titsey Hill to Botley Hill Farm were a decent boost but, being honest, not nearly challenging enough.

With a certain amount of trepidation I booked a “wedding anniversary” trip to Ambleside to treat my long-suffering wife, Buffy, to a spa break and purely coincidentally to have another crack at the Fairfield Horseshoe.

It started as all trips to the Lake District do when you live in Surrey; a bloody long drive. A stop off in Huntingdon to see a living legend called Mel Thompson helped break up the drive nicely. After a “few” Guinness had been sunk and he gave me some wise words of advice we drove the rest of the way wondering how on earth three people had managed to eat that much cheese. We were somewhere around Manchester when we finally remembered opening a bottle of Port at about 1am that morning.

After checking into the Low Wood Hotel & Spa we prepared for the next day’s walk. I decided to go the other way round (clockwise) the Horseshoe on this trip. This decision was entirely based on my assumption that going up Nab Scar could not be worse than descending Nab Scar. I should probably tell you that my decision-making is often suspect. For example, the previous trip had seen me drinking red wine in the hotel bar with Paul Jordan until 2am, based entirely on the premise that as I was fat and unfit there was no way I could feel worse the next day; I was wrong.

Much to my surprise I actually made a good call for once and the ascent went reasonably well.

For me. Unfortunately Buffy did not speak to me for the rest of the walk.

Fairfield Horseshoe is beautiful. Something I appreciated a whole lot more on the second attempt. The weather was perfect and the recent rain had not been heavy enough to turn the grass areas into a bog, meaning the going was very good. The best part however was the fact that I didn’t feel like I was suffocating with each step. I also didn’t think at any point that I wouldn’t make it round, something that certainly wasn’t the case on my first attempt the previous month.

We made good time along the ridge in near perfect weather watching the RAF running ultra low level training flights up and down the valleys below us. The breathtaking beauty of the Lake District was never more clear to see and it is no wonder it inspired Alfred Wainwright to explore and write so much about her. We made good time along the ridge from Heron Pike to Great Rigg and Buffy and I seemed to be the only people, aside from a lunatic running along carrying his mountain bike, going this way round. The weather closed in slightly as we arrived at Fairfield so we pressed on before sitting to “enjoy” the pack lunch from the hotel at the base of Dove Crag.

With the weather clearing up again nicely we set off on the return leg and started to encounter people coming the other way. There were less people than I expected given that the weather was so good for the time of year but then again it was a Monday in October. We took the stretch from Dove Crag along to High Pike and then down to Low Pike at a leisurely pace taking in the majestic views down to Ambleside and Lake Windermere. Worryingly we bumped into a family of four at Low Pike at around 2pm who were attempting the horseshoe in the opposite direction and who seemed very poorly prepared given the fact they only had two or three hours of sunlight left. It was however reassuring that there are still some people who are worse prepared than I am.

The descent was gentler on the knees going this way and this made the end of the work a great deal more enjoyable than the previous trip. The point of walking in the hills is, at least partially, to enjoy the experience and it is certainly fair to say I enjoyed this trip to Fairfield a lot more than the previous one. We arrived back to the hotel at around 1630 having left the car park at 1045 – a time of approximately five and a half hours was something I was comfortable with and I knew I could have gone faster if I had to.

As I relaxed the following day in the luxury of the Low Wood Spa I was pleased that progress has been made. I knew I was still overweight but recognised that I was at least fitter than I had been after years of sedentary life, injuries, surgery and all the associated self pity that inevitably goes with it. There was certainly some more work needed in the gym and it was vital I got back on the hill as soon as I could spare the time.

To my wife’s “delight” I had already booked a trip to Snowdonia to get some more miles under my belt on Snowdon. I figured that if it was good enough for George Mallory to train there before his trips to the Himalaya & Everest then it was definitely good enough for me.

Everest: Dinner At My Place

15/10/201829/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

As soon as I decided to give the Everest Rugby Challenge a go I knew that I would have to host a fundraiser at my local Nepali restaurant: The Gurkha Kitchen in Oxted. The restaurant is owned by my good friend Purna Gurung and I have been going there and enjoying their hospitality for over twenty years. In fact many of my friends look forward to the almost annual invite to celebrate my birthday although they often tell me they are there for the food not for me. I suspect there is probably a little truth in that as the food is certainly more interesting than I am most of the time.

So on Tuesday 2nd of February I will host seventy friends and family at “my place”. The hope is to raise in the region of £10,000 for the charity Wooden Spoon which will go towards using rugby to improve the lives of disadvantaged and disabled children in the UK. By raising that amount I will also meet my own personal target allowing me to achieve an old dream to go to Nepal and Tibet and see the Himalaya up close and personal. Not quite the mountaineering adventure I dreamt of when I was growing up but it might be a step in the right direction.

If you want to join in on the 2nd February for some great food, amazing hospitality and to find out about what the LMAX Exchange Everest Rugby Challenge is all about then please feel free to drop me an email.

Everest: Making Plans

09/10/201829/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

OK I have 185 days until I get on a plane to Nepal and at this point I am very aware that I am still 19 stone and I need to lose roughly another 3 stone. I am also aware that apart from the near death experience in the Lake District a few weeks back I haven’t really done much mountain walking since I did the Three Peaks in 2009.

I probably need to play a few games of rugby as well because if I can’t play a game at sea level in Surrey I suspect I might struggle a bit at over 6500m in Tibet.

I also need to work out how to replicate training at 6500m because unless there is a substantial, and as yet undiscovered 8000m high mountain, somewhere in the UK there are not many options locally for me to stagger up or fall down. I still need to climb a few of the usual UK peaks like Snowdon, Ben Nevis, Pen-y-Fan and Waun Fach and I have booked trips to Wales, The Lakes and Scotland over the next three months but I suspect they will just help with the cardio fitness rather than the altitude.

It isn’t all bad news as I’ve joined a gym, the Nuffield Health club, in Chislehurst just off the A20 so I can get in early on the way to the office. The even better news is that I’ve even been to it and no, to the cynical bastards among you, not just to use the Sauna and Jacuzzi. In fact I have dropped from over 20 stone to 19 stone since joining so I must be doing something right.

I’ve also managed to raise over £1000 of my £10,000 target through the kindness of donations from friends, family and other well wishers. If you can afford to donate to the fantastic charity that is Wooden Spoon and help me hit my fundraising target please click here

I have also been lucky enough to have received numerous suggestions and messages of support from friends and family. A friend of mine, we’ll call him “Dave”, who teaches mathematics has helped me break down all the problems, tasks and issues I have into simple formulae so it doesn’t all seem so daunting.

Helping Disadvantaged Kids = (Mountain + Rugby + Altitude + Pain) x Fundraising

(Mountains x Altitude) + (Gym + Rugby – Cake)/Gin* = Not Dying*

*Apparently to make these formula work Gin is a constant and Not Dying is a variable.

“Dave” also suggested I come up and play a few Vets games for my old club, Old Mid-Whitgiftian, in Sanderstead. He suggested this whilst lying on the sofa, watching Peppa Pig and moaning about his aches and pains from playing the day before and surrounded by used ice packs. The whole situation was made infinitely more amusing when his son ran in and jumped on him. I suspect it will take until the new year for me to find the necessary courage to actually pull a pair of boots on and run out on the pitch but I think it prudent to see if I can still catch and/or pass.

“Dave” also suggested I take up smoking because apparently research has shown that smokers do better at altitude than sensible people. As I very much suspect this research was done by the sort of people who write the “Six Months of Snow Hell and -20° C In May” weather reports for the Daily Express so I decided to take his suggestion “under advisement”. Apart from the other obvious disadvantages I wasn’t sure that making myself smell even worse on the side of a mountain was in anyone’s best interests least of all the poor unfortunate soul who has to share a tent with me.

I also just heard that the fabulous team at Wooden Spoon are also sorting out “Altitude Training” for all the challengers and this sounds both incredible and awful. Simulating the effects of playing rugby at 6500m sounds dangerously close to “simulated dying” on a mountain so I am nervously awaiting the details.

So between trips to mountains, suggestions from “Dave”, giving up cake, drinking Gin, going to the gym and “simulated dying” I have the basics of the plan to get me ready to play rugby on Everest. My wife liked this plan so much she recently increased my life insurance premium and has started saying things like “I will miss you forever you know”. In hindsight I am not sure watching the film Everest with her was such a good idea.

So the planning is done (ish) and now comes the hard work. It most probably will not be plain sailing but I am excited about seeing what I am actually capable of and how I can adapt to the curve balls thrown at me. The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!

Everest: Reality Check

23/09/201829/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

Have you ever had that feeling of trepidation when you look around a room and everyone there is so much more prepared than you? I’m in a briefing with the rest of the LMAX Exchange Everest Rugby Challenge team, listening to Dave and Carrie from Adventure Peaks telling us what to expect, and I’m pretty much shitting myself. To make it worse, they are only talking about the training walk around the Lake District tomorrow and not the actual trip to Everest.

It probably doesn’t help that since I last climbed any mountain I have had my L5 disk removed, recovered from a bout of ITP, torn the ACL in my left knee and eaten far too much cheese. I was pretty sure most of the people in that room could outperform me on the hill in their sleep and I was genuinely not even sure I’d make it out of Ambleside before I started struggling to breath.

The plan was a route known as the Fairfield Horseshoe which has a disarmingly cute “5 Fells” rating. What that actually means is that people who, like me, look more like Shrek after a substantial pie-eating contest than a mountaineer should seriously think twice about attempting it. The route itself starts and finishes in Ambleside and contains the following hills: Nab Scar, Low Pike, High Pike (Scandale), Heron Pike North Top, Heron Pike (Rydal), Hart Crag, Great Rigg, Fairfield, and Dove Crag. All in all, just over a 1000m climb and, with the trek in and out of Waterhead, roughly 20km of walking.

What that really means is a lot of up, followed by a lot more up and then a knee-breaking descent back down after taking in some spectacular views down towards Windermere and Coniston.

So, if that was the plan… what happened? It started well enough, but then again, I’d like to think I can walk through a town on a road with the best of them. As we started the climb out of Ambleside, the realisation that I was in for a tough day hit me, along with the fact that judging from the size of everybody else’s rucksacks I had, as usual, gratuitously over-packed.

The initial climb was certainly a reality check; it needed to be. Climbing Everest, even if only as far as the North Col, is not to be taken lightly. I knew that if I couldn’t walk up and down a mountain in the Lake District then I had absolutely no chance of doing that at 6500m in the Himalaya.

Barely an hour in and having only climbed a hundred metres or so I genuinely didn’t think that I was going to finish the day’s walk and once again started to wonder what on earth I was doing. I have no doubt that most of my companions also thought I wouldn’t be capable but that didn’t stop many of them offering encouragement throughout the day. Their kind words certainly helped me to keep putting one foot in front of the other and I’m pretty sure without them I probably wouldn’t have made it round.

Basically for the next two hours I walked up the side of a mountain trying to keep my breathing under control and focusing on nothing more than one painful step at a time. I could feel my heart racing in my chest as it got the toughest workout it had received in many a year. I also think at this point my fitbit had logically assumed that I had either accidentally put it in the washing machine or that I was being chased by a pride of Lions.

The route around the ridge was a relief, the weather holding off meant that we could see down to Windermere and South over the Lake District. Cumbria is a beautiful place and those views down over the lakes certainly helped remind me that all things that are worth having never come easy. A brief lunch stop on Fairfield itself and the chance to pull on my trusty old Buffalo shirt was a welcome break – a quick sandwich though was all I had time for and then we were back on our way before our legs stiffened up. I also realised that trying to lose weight quickly was all well and good but that I needed to make sure I was fueling my body as well. Again my lack of preparation with regards to food made what was always going to be a difficult day even tougher.

The descent was horrid. I mean it was actually so awful that falling over the edge might have been preferable to the short agonising steps down the ancient stone path back into Ambleside. My knees were swollen and my feet ached from the unyielding confines of my new boots and it just seemed to go on for ever. When I finally reached the tarmac road back to the hotel at Waterhead I was shattered and ready for bed. I was so stiff I could barely walk to the minibus back to the hotel.

Arriving at the hotel I was taken aback by the kind words I got from the other members of the expedition, many of whom were nursing aches and pains of their own. Many of them took the time to speak to me and give positive feedback on what had basically been a torturous day in the mountains for me.

Throughout the drive home I started to plan the next six months. I had a lot of work to do but the fact I hadn’t crashed and burnt in the Lake District gave me the confidence that this expedition was actually doable. The reality check had been worth it and although success, for me, on Everest was still nothing more than a vague possibility it was no longer the rose tinted pipedream it had been 48 hours earlier.

So what next? How do I get the amount of time I need on the hill? Not only that but how do I achieve that in the time-frame without breaking my already notoriously fragile body? In those and so many other unanswered questions, as the Bard would tell us, lies the rub.

Everest: Strange Decisions

22/09/201829/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

Recently, when asked in an interview why I had decided to join an expedition with the challenge of setting not one but two Guinness World Records, I discovered I actually didn’t have an answer. To be honest I was also rather surprised to be interviewed, by none other than World Rugby TV, in the first place. Given the fact that I was only ever an almost average rugby player on my best day and that the likes of Tamara Taylor, Ollie Philips and Shane Williams were also on the expedition, I wasn’t really sure what appeal I would have to anyone outside the circle of my friends and family.

But I am getting ahead of myself; let me start at the beginning of this particular tale. My name is Mark Dean, I am 40 years old, overweight, catastrophically unfit, former bog-standard rugby player, a lover of wine and cheese and all the other things that tend to be bad for you and *spoiler alert* I haven’t set foot on a mountain in almost ten years. All of which might make you question why, two months ago, I agreed to join an expedition to play rugby at the highest altitude ever attempted – Mount Everest in the Himalaya. I made this strange decision, somewhat predictably after a few drinks, when a friend of mine told me he was going to set the World Record for playing a game of rugby at the highest altitude ever and suggested I come along for the ride. To be fair, after a few more G&Ts than is sensible when making any sort of grown-up decisions, this sounded like a grand idea, and the fact it involved raising a serious amount of money for the charity, Wooden Spoon, made it impossible to decline.

Back in the present, sat in that interview, I began to wonder what on earth I’d got myself into. What had possessed me to agree to something that was so far beyond my capability and outside my comfort zone that I may as well have agreed to play rugby on the moon. For what seemed an eternity, I thought about the question before coming up with something like, “I had always loved rugby and had always wanted to visit Nepal and Tibet so to combine the two made perfect sense.” I went on to elaborate that, “if it was to be my last ever game of rugby then playing it on Everest, with an amazing group of people, whilst raising a huge amount of money for the charity Wooden Spoon wasn’t a bad way to bow out.” All of that is actually true, if a little clichéd, and may even be a small part of why I am going, but for some reason it rings hollow in my own head.

So, for better for worse, I am going to Everest next April to play what will almost certainly be my last ever game of rugby. In doing so I am going to have to get fitter than I have been in over a decade, lose roughly 5 stone (32Kg), climb more than a few mountains in preparation, raise in the region of £20,000 for charity and somehow not lose my sense of humour along the way. Hopefully, somewhere en route to that rugby pitch, laid out just below the North Col, 6750m up the face of the tallest mountain in the world, I’ll find my reason for going. In the meantime, I am going to take this incredible opportunity to improve my life whilst raising money to help Wooden Spoon use rugby to change the lives of disadvantaged children in the UK.

My last thought on leaving the interview, to start what will undoubtedly be the toughest challenge I have ever attempted, is that maybe it isn’t all about the destination, maybe how you get there is the worthier part.