Those that know me well know that I love mountains and open spaces so coming to live in Singapore with it's highest hill being a rather titchy 163m (540ft) would be a bit of a challenge for me. However I like a good challenge, particularly ones that involve mountains, fabulous views and walking and of course it didn't take long to find out that the Mount Kinabalu on the island of Borneo is not very far away and a very 'do-able' challenge.
Mount Kinabalu is 4095m (13,500 ft),although it is frequently referred to as South East Asia's highest mountain, it is actually only the 5th highest, with Hkakabo Razi in Myanmar at 5881m being the highest. Mt K is a 'trekkers' mountain, therefore no serious mountain climbing skills are required just a degree of fitness and determination-so I'm told.
Anyway soon after arriving in Singapore I decided that I would attempt to climb Mount Kinabalu at some point and started asking around to see if others would like to join me, my friend AR, being a fellow lover of hill walking and mountains readily accepted and a few months ago we booked our trip.
All very exciting but then the next challenge arose-how to get fit for a mountain climb when you live in an almost pancake flat country that has only a few short off road trails? I decided to adopt similar fitness training that I had used whilst getting fit for climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in 2012, that is to do lots of power walking i.e. walk as fast as possible for 1-3 hours.
We live very close to the Green Corridor-the disused rail way line which passes close by to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve where the highest point in Singapore can be found-Bukit Timah Hill. So a few times recently I've walked from our condo, along the Green Corridor and up the hill then back again, a round trip of 17km (10.5miles). It's a hot and sweaty walk but that should be good training as the first day on Mt K will be a hot and sweaty walk!
One of the old bridges and some of the railway track has been left
Occasional encounters with monitor lizards, snakes, moor hens and birds add interest to the route
Encounters with monkeys are not so enjoyable although seeing them from a distance is always fun
In spite of my dislike of gyms and indoor exercise I have also started using the gym in our condo, going on the cross trainer and intermittently putting it on the steepest gradient. I haven't become any keener on gyms but hope this will stand me in good stead.
But I was worried that I was not getting enough 'climbing' practice so a few weeks ago introduced stair climbing to my fitness regime. This entails climbing up and down the stairs in the emergency stairwell and for almost the first time I have been grateful to live in a condo that has 37floors, an ideal training ground. I started with 1 complete set and have built up to 3 sets -so that is walking up to 37th floor and down to the bottom three times, in total 111 floors! It is exceedingly dull as well as inducing very achey calf muscles and of course I never gain any true height so have no opportunity to acclimatise to high altitude. A local and super-fit friend who has twice completed the "vertical marathon" advised me to vary my steps therefore I now do 5 floors at a run (slowly), 5 floors at a walk, 5 floors with 2 steps per tread then 5 floors of wide treads per step. So far only I've only met 1 person whilst doing my stair training which is just as well as I must look slightly odd as I puff my way up!
I hope that all this training will be enough to help me get to the top of Mount Kinabalu, I will find out soon as this time next week AR and I head off to Kota Kinabalu to start our adventure
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