Hi everyone! My name is Anthony and I’m currently living in Roanoke, Virginia. I’m scheduled to climb Mt. Rainier with RMI the week of September 19th. I was fortunate enough to get one of the last spots for the Expedition Skills Seminar-Camp Muir.
The idea to climb Mt. Rainier occurred to me a couple of years ago. It seemed like it would be a really neat challenge and a worthy accomplishment if I was successful. Unfortunately, work commitments and scheduling conflicts prevented the opportunity until now. Why Mt. Rainier and not some other mountain? I don’t really know, other than to say it seemed like a serious challenge and a great place to learn about mountaineering. Who knows, if I like it, maybe I’ll try some other climbs (although my wife may have something to say about that).
My training really started around November of last year. At that time I was overweight and out of shape (approx 200lbs @ 5’ 7”) to say the least. I made up my mind to do something about it, so I joined a local gym and hired a personal trainer. I got a lot of flack from friends and got a lot of strange looks from the muscle heads at the gym about the personal trainer, but I paid them no mind. It worked for me. It was a great motivator knowing that someone was at the gym waiting for me and expecting me to be there. The results were good too. In a few months I was able to drop 35 to 40 pounds and cut my body fat percentage from around 30% to around 10%. Since then I’ve been training on my own and making steady progress.
With the climb coming up in September, I’ll be focusing on hitting the cardio hard (treadmill and stair-master primarily) and getting as much hiking with a weighted pack as I can. Unfortunately, living in Virginia, there is very little way to train for the altitude of a big mountain like Rainier and honestly, I’m a little nervous about that. I’m hoping that a regular routine of high intensity interval training (HIIT) will help, but I guess there are always factors we can’t train for perfectly.
Anyway, I’m excited about the climb and look forward to a great adventure!
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