Hiking Boots and Why Team Kilimanjaro

We attempted to get our hiking boots on Saturday, which turned out to be a very bad idea.   Apparently on Easter Saturday the world and his or her wife also needed hiking boots, tents, backpacks and all of the other outdoor paraphernalia that the shops on our list provide.  

We did, however, learn that we require a day hiker for Kilimanjaro.   Apparently hiking boots are broken out in light hikers, day hikers and hikers.  As we are not going to be carrying 50+ lbs and do not have any ankle problems, it is the MEC guru's belief that a day hiker will fit our stability requirements without adding the extra weight of a hiker.  Reduced weight sounds great to me!   However, he used all of his available time to tell us all of this and then didn't have time to follow through with any fitting.   So, after trying Bushtaka and Expedition and having much the same luck, we have decided to postpone this shopping to Tuesday PM.   

A lot of people have been asking how I picked Team Kilimanjaro, so I thought I might as well add in a few posts detailing the planning and decisions I/we have made to this point.   

One of the first things I did was lock down Team Kilimanjaro.   A lot of the people I chatted with who have previously climbed Kili recommend just arriving and sorting out a climb group when you get there; this can apparently be cheaper.  However, as we are travelling with Mum, there are certain levels of standard that I wanted to ensure that would be met and decided to book from here.  My key search criteria were: 

• Registered with Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Project (http://www.kiliporters.org/)
• GPS/social media tracking for people at home to folllow
• Routes/service that involved high quality tenting and not using the huts on the mountain (ask me about this if you have any questions)
• Vegetarian meal options
• Full service company providing safari options
• Individualized routes so as to avoid traffic jams as much as possible (this can actually be a thing!!!)
• Friendly customer service!

I contacted quite a few companies and Team Kilimanjaro really stood out amongst the others.

We will be climbing their own variation on the Rongai Route (http://www.teamkilimanjaro.com/rongai.html).  This is a 7 day climb on a quiet TK variation of the standard Rongai route which allows for a better climb high/sleep low differential than any of the existing Rongai routes.  This is great as the reason the standard Rongai route is so quiet is because it has the second worst likelihood of summitting (failure rate of approximately 50%) of all 6 conventional routes.  With their route variation, which they own exclusively, TK have great success on the Rongai route and we will hopefully have a more serene experience!

Feel free to ask any further questions you may have as to how/why I selected Team Kilimanjaro!

In terms of our training this week ... we are making progress ...

Training since Wednesday:

Thursday - 6km tempo run.  I did this with an overall pace of 6:18 though, so below where I want my 'tempo' to be

Friday - 7.4 km walk

Sunday - 14km LSD run

Monday - 3km run.  Today is supposed to be my off day, but hubby has decided to start running so we are going to work through one of the intro 5k programs with him.  I also skipped Saturday, so this is not not resting, just diverted resting!

I need to add in some strength training somewhere and will likely add in some  Bodyrock on my running rest days ... I love love love Bodyrock (http://www.bodyrock.tv/) and find their videos one of the most amazing ways to kick my own butt in around 20 minutes!