Training for Denali

Expedition: Denali

Client 360

Dear Marni

Thanks for this (and your email yesterday).  The build up to this fantastic trip is all very exciting!

With regards to your training suggestion:  I will be taking a slightly different approach…

Over the past month I have sourced a team of 6 Bassett Hounds, which I will be training over the coming months to pull me and my gear up the mountain.  This will allow me to better enjoy the vistas offered by Denali, without all that dull, energy sapping exertion.

The additional benefit of this approach is that it will free up my time to enable some great expedition photos to be taken and shared with the rest of the group and sold back to 360, at an exorbitant fee, for future marketing material (win-win-win!)

May I introduce you to “Team Bertie“, which I’m sure you would agree, are a perfect fit for this expedition….

Please don’t be fooled by their appearance.  As Helena said in A Midsummer Night’s Dream “And though she be but little, she is fierce“.  I plan to show them photos of Rolfe on a daily basis so they get used to his appearance and are not too aggressive when they see him on the mountain.  If you could send me photos of the rest of the team it would be appreciated as I couldn’t imagine the mess caused by unfamiliarity.  Although, the film rights for “Massacre on the Mountain: A Bassett’s Tail” could be rather prosperous…

Of course, I need a back-up plan if, for example, the cheeky little hounds decide to chase a rogue Polar Bear into a crevasse… As such, I have completed a month of cardio and core strength training (including squats. Thousands and thousands of damned squats…) and am moving on to more specific hill and weighted, uneven ground training (the potholed streets of South London provide a perfect arena for this very specific exercise!)

The resistance/drag training will be incorporated in March.  I am fully aware of the pains that I must endure to give me the best possible chance of success on the Alaskan Munro.  As Ben Saunders recently quoted “Training for Alpine climbing, if you sum it up in one phrase, is to make yourselves as indestructible as possible.  The harder you are to kill, the longer you will last in the mountains” (I’m not sure which book he was quoting, but I like it 🙂

Anyway.  That’s enough of my procrastination.  I’ve entered the Bassetts in an East London dog fight, which starts in a couple of hours (please remember the first rule of dog fighting!).

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