Injuries and addictions.

Inevitable that you pick up the odd niggle with this level of training. Quite annoyingly it's my turn now. An inflamed achilles tendon is stopping me from doing anything but swim.

It seems I have some sort pre-disposition to this particular kind of problem. Previously I have had to suffer tendonitus in my left shoulder, left wrist (not what you think - I'm right handed!) and right hip. The hip was by far the worst and I spent a long time ignoring it. In the end it took about 6 months rest and a steroid injection to sort it. For that period I hobbled round like some sort of pensioner. In fact it was that injury alone that caused me to ever take a desk-job!

I'm particularly annoyed with this though as I was getting to a really satisfying place with my fitness. Ihad to sit out the Merrell Mudman last week, which was gutting as sounded like a ridiculously hard but fun event. My priority now is to get the tendonitus down as quick as possible, at least so I can compete in the Grim Challenge in just over a week, even if I don't do as well as I could have.

Unfortunately with this kind of injury rest is the only solution. However, I am apparently now hooked on exercise as the last ten days without running have been like going cold turkey on a ten year crystal meth addiction! I'm crawling the walls, and every now and then need to sneak down to the swimming pool for the only kind of hit I'm allowed. Swimming - a poor man's trim-trail, methadone to the smack that is proper training with Team Everest!

Morale

It's never easy when people drop out of things, especially as far into a journey as we have already come. In the last few weeks we've actually lost 5. Tenzing have lost a couple of players (Charlie Meek and Charlie Brewer) and our support crew, The Trektators have lost Laura, Elaine and Greg.

All had really valid reasons, and it was a tough decision for all of them to come to. We always knew we'd lose a few before even getting on the plane, I'm just grateful that these guys did the hard thinking and made their choice early enough for us to find suitable replacements.

This has all come as a disapointment to many and of course morale is some quarters has dipped a little. When this sort of thing happens, innevitably questions are asked - what could we have done differently? It also throws focus a little on the project as a whole.

In setting up this expedition, Wes and I have created an environment where people can get involved as much or as little as they like. Those that step up and make the effort will and already are taking more out of it. It's impossible to hold people's hands through all this, but we're always available to hear concerns.

As much as I'm gutted to lose those members of our little project, I have amazing faith in the principle members of this expedition. We're already massively on the case filling the spaces and should soon have a full medical team, along with DOP, photo-journalist and round the world yachtsman!

In the meantime, just in case anyone's marale is still flagging, can we remember that we're going to be playing cricket on Mount Everest almost 5 months to the day from here. If that's not enough, check the photo that I took last time I was there (taken from Kala Patta, which overlooks our cricket pitch as well as Everest Base Camp.)