Latest / The STA Clinician Podcast / Ep.291: Summiting Mount Everest with special guest Tim Allardyce
Transcript
- 0:00You're listening to the STA Clinician Podcast, connecting clinicians across healthcare.
- 0:16Okay, we're live. Hey people, how are you doing? Welcome to episode 291 of the
- 0:21STA Clinician Podcast, formerly known as the Sports Therapy Association Podcast.
- 0:27I'm your host, Matt Phillips, and as always, this episode is being recorded
- 0:30live on the Sports Therapy Association YouTube channel and Facebook page at
- 0:348 o'clock UK time on a Tuesday.
- 0:38In this episode, I'm going to be joined very shortly by the incredible Tim Allardyce,
- 0:41founder of Rehab My Patient,
- 0:43fresh, although as i mentioned in the advert maybe not that fresh considering
- 0:48that he's recently summited mount everest and tim's going to be on very shortly showing the highs,
- 0:53the challenges and the grit it took to conquer the world's tallest peak,
- 0:58along with the powerful story behind the charity funds he raised along the way
- 1:01and just in case you are having a massive dose of deja vu this originally was
- 1:05going to come out last week but there were some technical issues and so that's
- 1:08why we're here this week you're not going crazy it's fine
- 1:11and if you have joined us live, then thank you very much.
- 1:13If you want to got questions directly for Tim, then you can put them into the
- 1:17chat and I can bring it up on the screen. For example, Gary Benson,
- 1:20founder of the STA has come through the door and says, good evening all.
- 1:23I hope everyone is well. And Tim is getting used to being back at sea level.
- 1:27Exactly. It's a very good question. We're going to find that out very, very soon.
- 1:31Before I do bring Tim up, then I must thank my guests a couple of weeks ago,
- 1:36in episode 290, which was entitled a preview of the Midland Sports Therapy Association
- 1:41conference that took place Saturday, 20th of June in Ludlow.
- 1:46I was joined by conference organiser Mike Grice from Movement Therapy Education
- 1:50and Performance Sports Physio Kieran McMahon.
- 1:53Mike and Kieran together gave a fascinating insight into the event's focus on
- 1:57movement, soft tissue therapy, exercise integration, and practical hands-on learning.
- 2:03And by all accounts, I'm sure you've seen if you follow UK underscore STA on
- 2:06social media, the event was a huge success.
- 2:09So congratulations to everyone who was involved in that.
- 2:12And the episode is, as always, available on all popular podcast apps and the
- 2:17YouTube channel for Sports Therapy Association.
- 2:21People are still coming through the door, very keen to hear from Tim himself
- 2:24about how everything went. Brian Huxley says, good evening, Tim.
- 2:26Hi, Brian. Thanks for joining us and everyone else.
- 2:28And if you are listening to the podcast and you do have questions,
- 2:30remember, you can put them in on the YouTube channel.
- 2:33We do monitor that. So if you've got any questions over what is such an interesting
- 2:36topic, then go to YouTube Sports Lover Association channel and put some questions
- 2:40there and I'll make sure they get forwarded to Tim and get some answers for you.
- 2:44Right then, talking of which, let's go and start tonight's episode.
- 2:48Summiting Mount Everest with special guest Tim Allardyce, founder of Rehab My Patient.
- 2:58Hey Tim, how are you doing? Good, how are you? I'm great, better than you.
- 3:01Well, probably physically at the moment.
- 3:04Yes, yeah. I'll just explain what that meant.
- 3:07Yeah, it's funny, I wrote down, I thought, you know, obviously on every single
- 3:11podcast, what would be 290 episodes now or something now, 291.
- 3:15I always go, how are you? It's kind of like normal, isn't it,
- 3:17when you've got a guest on.
- 3:18But in your case, I really do want to kind of pause and say, how are you, Tim?
- 3:23I'm doing really great. I'm doing really great. I mean, apart from nine numb
- 3:27fingers and thumbs, numb toes, mild frostbite on my big toe,
- 3:32a DVT in my calf, I'm doing great.
- 3:35Okay, let's just quickly, obviously, as we've got MSK clinicians listening to
- 3:39that, numb as in like what extent of numbness are we talking about?
- 3:43Yeah, luckily now, very minor. In fact, my index finger on my left side has now come back.
- 3:49My second finger is coming back. So I've only got nine numb fingers and thumbs now.
- 3:54But the tips on my fingers all numb so it's very a very weird sensation both
- 3:59my big toes are completely numb the ends of the toes i mean you could tap my
- 4:04big toe lightly and i wouldn't feel it is it.
- 4:06To what extent is this to be expected when you look at kind of the literature
- 4:10or the kind of is this yeah it's it's it's basically frost nip which which is
- 4:14sort of first stage of frostbite which is where the
- 4:17ice particles get under the under the skin and cause nerve damage so that they
- 4:21actually kill the nerve endings, the,
- 4:23peripheral nerve endings, but they grow back, so you get the feeling back.
- 4:27And it takes around four weeks usually.
- 4:31It's been five weeks now, but I can feel it's improving.
- 4:34Fantastic. God bless neoplasticity. This is great news. I'm pleased.
- 4:38And you realized this because you were so prepared, which we'll get into in
- 4:40a second, but of these symptoms, what about, what did you say with the car?
- 4:43I've got a 3.7 centimeter DVT in my posterior tibial vein.
- 4:49So I thought I pulled my calf on Everest, pushed through it.
- 4:54It was a minor pull. I thought I've strained my calf, pushed through it, got down.
- 4:59And I started limping within 24 hours of getting down off the summit.
- 5:04It's gradually getting worse i rest it and it's getting worse and then i fly
- 5:08back 16 hours from nepal to london i just have a stop over at delhi a transit
- 5:14for a couple of hours and i get in delhi and i'm,
- 5:17i'm like this is really not good i'm really bad in limping get back on the flight
- 5:21and i want to chop my leg off,
- 5:23i'm in economy i can't get comfortable as soon as i land at heathrow i go straight to hospital,
- 5:29and they you know my local host i got back went straight to hospital,
- 5:33they did a d-dimer um and my d-dimer was 6 000 off the scale and it should be
- 5:40500 or under which is your clotting factor they then sent me to the main hospital
- 5:46they then put me on with roxaban they then,
- 5:48asked me to come back they did a scan and then they found this this blood clot
- 5:523.7 centimetre blood clot which is why i wanted to chop my leg off,
- 5:56but apart from that yes never fly with a dvt.
- 5:59I was going to say again we've got a lot of cliches listening and thinking hold
- 6:02on that's like that's that's one of the bad ones isn't it that's when we tell
- 6:05our client go to a and e now because it could that's right yeah i mean you decided
- 6:09to climb a bit more of a mountain in between and have a couple of 20 hour flights and then go yeah yeah,
- 6:14yeah yeah so i had a 16 hour flight back from the pool with a dvt and and yeah
- 6:19i had this very achy leg and i realized i haven't pulled my calf I've got a blood clot,
- 6:24so I took myself to hospital and then of course they confirmed it on a scan
- 6:28and then they prescribed a drug called roxaban,
- 6:32which is blood thinner this really feels like a safe this suddenly turned into
- 6:35a safeguarding issue i think one for that i should report you to somebody because
- 6:38you're a danger to yourself.
- 6:40Yeah i didn't look the thing is i didn't i didn't know i had a dvt when i flew
- 6:44i just thought i told my car i thought i don't because calf injuries are quite
- 6:48common in mountaineering because you put so much load through your calves because
- 6:52you're hiking you're hiking and climbing so it's very hard on the calves
- 6:56so so i just what i've i've told my calf,
- 6:59and he hadn't had a week to kind of measure swelling or anything or notice that
- 7:02symptoms were going down here and other things on your mind they measured it
- 7:05it was two centimeters wider my calf but i,
- 7:08i couldn't see any swelling no to look at it it looked the same so it wasn't
- 7:12red it wasn't swollen i wasn't overweight i was in you know it but but but then
- 7:17i found out you know obviously after the flight i realized there's a problem a serious problem here,
- 7:22wow that's i mean unless you're going to come up with some other bombshell that
- 7:25sounds like it could have been potentially one of the most serious problems
- 7:28if it happened earlier on and you just
- 7:30honestly i had bigger problems than that really oh my god right if you just
- 7:34tuned in then make yourself comfortable have a cup of tea make it or something
- 7:37you've got the podcast pause it now,
- 7:39because yeah we've got some interesting times coming out for people who aren't
- 7:42aware hopefully people who there are some have just joined in and gone who's
- 7:45this crazy dude called tim with a name that rhymes with paradise who's yeah,
- 7:50give us a little bit of a background of of who you are and what you do and then
- 7:55yes slide that if you can and find a segway of you deciding to.
- 8:00Climb up the tallest mountain in the world.
- 8:02Tim Allen Zeiss, and I created a brilliant software called Rehab My Patient,
- 8:06which is widely used by sports therapists, rehab therapists,
- 8:10physios, osteos, chiros,
- 8:12And I was a physiotherapist and osteopath and worked a lot with sports therapists
- 8:17at multiple games. So I've been to eight Olympic Games now and built up a really
- 8:22good relationship with STA.
- 8:24But my journey into mountaineering really started with a love for hiking.
- 8:28And it was really social media three or four years ago that made me actually go, do you know what?
- 8:33I can see, I see other people climbing mountains. I want to take it to the next
- 8:38level. I'd done some mountains. I'd done all the usual ones.
- 8:41And a few years ago, we climbed a 4,000 meter mountain and I loved it. We did it with the kids.
- 8:46That was Mount Kinabalu. So I'd been taking the kids up mountains.
- 8:50We'd done eight or nine mountains with the kids.
- 8:53My little girl summited Ben Nevis, age five, on her own. And she's amazing.
- 8:58And so I'd taken the kids around and done a few mountains. and and then,
- 9:02i said i want to take this to the next level so i i booked a trip to the himalayas
- 9:07found a summit climb company and i went and climbed amadablam one probably the
- 9:12most beautiful mountain in the world,
- 9:14and i said to myself if i can do amadablam then i can do something bigger this
- 9:19is the the step this is the route that bear grills had taken,
- 9:23and he went from amadablam and then went on to to do everest and i thought and
- 9:28it's a very common route and i thought i'll do that so i i went to the himalayas
- 9:31i summited amadablam well first i summited le boucher east which is a 6 000 meter
- 9:36then amadablam which is technically very very very difficult mountain,
- 9:41and came home took a month to recover and then started planning other mountains
- 9:46in the alps like grand paradiso which is 4 000 meters in italy and then mont blanc
- 9:54which is 4 800 meters highest mountain in western europe.
- 9:58And then the mighty matterhorn and if you've ever seen a matterhorn that is
- 10:05probably the most beautiful mountain in the world actually it's a toss-up between
- 10:09amad blah and matterhorn people say
- 10:11and i'm lucky to have summited both the most beautiful mountains in the world the matterhorn is,
- 10:16like like this it's extremely steep
- 10:20very dangerous very sketchy very nervy I had serious anxiety prior to going
- 10:26up it but I knew if I can do the Mathe Horn of Mont Blanc I can do Everest so that was the plan.
- 10:33If you listen to the podcast, this is like one episode where I really suggest
- 10:36you stop and you go to Sports Table Association YouTube channel to see the passion,
- 10:41in Tim's eyes here as he's describing what's going up. It's seriously infectious and inspirational.
- 10:48I was interested, over what sort of time period then? You mentioned you summited
- 10:51a few there, and it was a great example of progressive loading,
- 10:53which was great for the founder of Rehab My Patient.
- 10:56You kind of did it carefully in the steps, which is brilliant.
- 10:59But what sort of time period are we talking since when you first started and
- 11:02then kind of got to to Matterhorn for example it was probably well I did Amitablam
- 11:07about just under two years ago,
- 11:10which was the bit which was a big one I I classified big anything over 6,000 meters,
- 11:15you know that's where you are in serious mountaineering yeah arena you know
- 11:214,000 meters mountains you know they're tough,
- 11:25Kili's an almost 6,000 meter mountain and and that's you know a brilliant transition
- 11:30point from sort of hiking into mountaineering, Mount Tubical in Morocco,
- 11:35which I've not done, or Killy.
- 11:38But these are great, you know, these are great starter mountains for going into something much bigger.
- 11:44Excuse me, to put that into perspective, Everest is what, 8,000 something?
- 11:478,848.9 to be specific. Or you'll say that's 848.
- 11:54But from the way you talked about it, Matterhorn can be more of a challenge then?
- 11:56Because it's the matter is very very very dangerous and very difficult but everest
- 12:03is way harder there's no doubt about it but what we say is the matter is very
- 12:08technical which means there's a lot of a lot of climb a lot of rock climbing,
- 12:12Whereas Everest has less rock climbing, but it's much, much, much harder.
- 12:16And much, much harder than Mont Blanc. You know, Mont Blanc has,
- 12:20Matterhorn's had over 600 deaths.
- 12:22And Mont Blanc's had, I mean, well over a thousand deaths.
- 12:26It's an interesting segue, actually, because I've been talking about you to
- 12:28a few people, obviously, because I'm just so impressed. And knowing you,
- 12:31I mean, one thing is talking about, oh, Everest, but then knowing someone who
- 12:34is actually doing it, or first of all, decided to do it and then done it.
- 12:38It's just, it's very special. And so I've been talking about you to people and
- 12:42it's funny isn't it it's funny how so many people they kind of respect the fact
- 12:47i know you and they think on that case he's not just some idiot who's kind of
- 12:50gone up there a whim that you prepared for it but there is some bad presses
- 12:54in there for this sort of thing they do think that there's a lot of deaths it,
- 12:57puts a lot of stress on emergency services and sometimes they can run problems,
- 13:02i guess that still goes on but to make it clear you really prepared for this properly didn't you.
- 13:07Yeah i did i mean just to talk about that point so so i didn't meet a single
- 13:12tourist out there that was something everest they were serious mountaineers,
- 13:17yeah they probably were there probably were people up there but everybody that
- 13:21i met and i met quite a lot of people they had climbed some big mountains you
- 13:25know in my team of 13 they were they'd all climbed serious mountains like denali mont blanc amateur blam,
- 13:32several times some people you know so they climb big mountains so it's very
- 13:37very unusual to get a tourist turning up and the reason for that is it's because
- 13:40you have to have a strong technical knowledge of what to do,
- 13:43the equipment the clothing the conditions the actual equipment that you've got
- 13:49to wear and how to use it's quite complicated if you don't know what you're doing so it's
- 13:53very very hard to just turn up and do it you've got to and and most reputable
- 13:58climbing companies will not let you you have to put down what you've climbed
- 14:02before you apply for these big mountains you know that
- 14:06if you put down i've climbed ben nervous and snowden and i now want to go and climb.
- 14:11Everest that they just won't every episode company will not accept you onto
- 14:15their team because you're a liability to their to their team to their sherpas
- 14:20you know you're high risk and so,
- 14:22so it doesn't really happen i'm sure that i'm sure it does but but very.
- 14:27I didn't meet anybody that was was a tourist up there so without going,
- 14:32dwelling too long on the morbid side of things but the numbers you mentioned
- 14:35of tragically people who don't make it,
- 14:38these are people this includes people who experience climbers as well yeah problems
- 14:43oh yeah and look we had five deaths on everest this year which is a very very good year,
- 14:48okay so i mean i summited at 1 22 p.m and i i didn't see them but it was an
- 14:55indian team straight after me they
- 14:57summited at two o'clock so we must have passed each other as i came down,
- 15:01they ran out of oxygen just after the summit and had to leave a guy behind at the hillary step,
- 15:06and they left that guy behind because they ran out of oxygen two of them almost
- 15:10died up there unfortunately one did die his friend made it down far enough to
- 15:15get a replacement bottle from another climbing team but he was running out of oxygen
- 15:19i met that guy on the way down in the icefall and he
- 15:22i stopped we stopped we chatted and he explained to me what happened and this
- 15:27was one of recorded deaths
- 15:29two days later that body's on a heli it took our heli we were going to get a
- 15:33heli out of base camp and they put a body on it and got the last heli so we
- 15:36had to spend the night in base camp which is fair enough,
- 15:39but this is the reality and i watched that body fully clothed go onto a heli.
- 15:46And get airlifted out, helifacted out, repatriated or whatever the term is called. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 15:51But, you know, people do die. It's a very, very good year this year.
- 15:54A Sherpa, 20-year-old Sherpa died.
- 15:56So he fell on the lotsy face. And people have said to me, I mean,
- 16:00Tim, you know, if you fall on Everest, it can't be that bad.
- 16:04You just kind of slide down, right?
- 16:07But the problem is, it's absolutely full of crevasses.
- 16:11So you don't just slide down. well and you slide down but you fall in a crevasse
- 16:15which is exactly what happened to this 20 year old sherpa,
- 16:18he unclipped he fell down the lotsy face and fell into a crevasse and they're 40 to 50 meters deep,
- 16:25and they're everywhere which is one of the reasons why through the crevasse
- 16:28fields we all rope up so we rope to our sherpa or to another member a climber
- 16:34so if one of us falls down the other will stop us.
- 16:38This is crazy but i guess it's you could say the same risk is there for people
- 16:44who i don't know jump on a motorbike and race at 200 miles an hour formula one is is part of the,
- 16:52risk probably why people do it it's yeah there's all there is risk there is risk but
- 16:57you know when you take the body to an extreme or in an extreme environment the
- 17:02risk increases yeah yeah you know mountaineering is the second most dangerous sport in the world,
- 17:08to base jumping right yeah and that's yeah that's statistically you know established
- 17:16you know so there is a lot of danger and if you do enough of them at some point
- 17:19you're probably going to get into real trouble
- 17:21there are some exceptions out there like nims die who you know summed,
- 17:25you know 40 mountains over 8 000 meters or whatever you know 40 times,
- 17:30who's the exception but if you do enough of them you know there's a good possibility
- 17:33that something's going to go wrong. Yeah.
- 17:35Okay, let's move away from the depressing side of things.
- 17:39There's many more questions, but we'll get rid of that. So we might dip into it a little bit later on.
- 17:45Just to mention as well, before we bring up some images, you did this for some
- 17:50charities as well, didn't you?
- 17:51There was raising, I mean, there was a video put out on social media the other day.
- 17:54I think it's on your maybe Facebook or Instagram program, which Give It The
- 17:58M is a wonderful video, which kind of took people through what you did in the
- 18:04lead up, which included going to a school or something, didn't it?
- 18:06And doing a kind of, so talk to us a little bit about that and,
- 18:10yeah, the charities you were raising money for.
- 18:12Yeah so i went into local schools and the kids all tried on my gear and we raised
- 18:18money for pet from parents and and we had an everest day at local school we
- 18:21raised 13 500 pounds which was amazing,
- 18:26and then we raised another 9 800 pounds to four charities including the sherpas
- 18:31so i i donated money to sherpas so i donated four thousand dollars a lot of
- 18:35my own money actually more of my money than raised
- 18:38to sherpas to buy solar panels for their lodge and and then
- 18:43we raised so that the rest of that money that that 9 800 went to guys or hasn't
- 18:47yet but it will be going to guys and st thomas's an education group and and a.
- 18:52Health foundation and then we raised 3 200 pounds for an orphanage in katmandu,
- 18:58and they have just bought bedding and pillows for all the kids they've paid
- 19:02school fees for 20 orphans for the next year and we're paying for a new water
- 19:07system for their orphanage,
- 19:09and so that's really amazing and the cool thing is this this money's going directly
- 19:14to people there's no third parties it's going directly and they're buying this
- 19:19stuff and your money goes a long way in Nepal,
- 19:21so three thousand pounds to an orphanage in Nepal is like you know that's like.
- 19:26Probably you know you can get a lot for that money,
- 19:29out there and so so we raised a lot of money and we we did a lot of good things
- 19:34we we also i built a website for,
- 19:37the lodge owner that that looked after me in in one of the villages and that
- 19:41will go live in a couple of weeks we've we've been working on it so we've got
- 19:44a new website coming up so he can attract more western clients into his his hotel,
- 19:50and i believe but you know and i the reason i did this one reason i did this
- 19:54because the the first you know the first ever person to summit everest sir edmund hillary,
- 19:59gave back an enormous amount to the to the kumbu region to the himalayas he
- 20:04built hospitals he built schools he even helped build the airport which is called
- 20:09the tenzing hillary airport in luckla at.
- 20:112400 meters elevation i think this or 2800 and so he gave an enormous amount
- 20:18back and his foundation have actually built something like 50 schools,
- 20:22and i think if we're going to go over and climb another nation's mountain for our own benefit,
- 20:29we have to give back and and i was determined to do that so so so i have given
- 20:35back and i'll continue to give back and support the people.
- 20:38That's such a yeah that's such a great way of looking at it that's really cool
- 20:42that last bit you said in particular yeah if you're,
- 20:45not taking advantage of you're using for your own benefits a structure or something
- 20:49in somebody else in another nation's land then yeah you've got to give something
- 20:53back that's really cool way of looking at it,
- 20:55i just want to mention you mentioned as well guys and saint thomas charity that's
- 20:58got personal meaning to you as well with the money you raised for them,
- 21:01yeah they did my wife's kidney transplant so my wife had very serious kidney
- 21:05failure and they did a transplant with her in 2012 and then when k got pregnant
- 21:12they supported us massively through the pregnancy because,
- 21:16having a one one kidney in your,
- 21:19above your bladder is a big complication for pregnancy so they gave us a team
- 21:23they had a multiple student team of five people,
- 21:25the day she went into labor they had a team on call and they would have sent
- 21:29a team to us from guys hospital to look after us,
- 21:32and and they were on call through the night available for us it was amazing
- 21:36so i mean you couldn't pay for it they really did an incredible job we had two
- 21:40very successful births and and
- 21:42so i thank them for their support for that that's amazing that's so cool.
- 21:46I guess we need an extra shout out for Kay and kids as well,
- 21:49because although they've been involved in your mountaineering over the years
- 21:53and that, it must have been kind of weird.
- 21:55I'm sure they've kind of had a few conversations now about you being away and
- 22:00maybe not contactable sometimes and just knowing how dangerous it is.
- 22:03That must have been quite tough for them and maybe tough for you knowing what
- 22:05you were doing and just having to do it maybe in some sense.
- 22:08Yeah, it's really tough. Like when kids are going up to your 10 year old boy
- 22:11at school going, you know, your dad could die on Everest and things like that.
- 22:15And of course, it's incredibly stressful for Kay.
- 22:18She has to pick up all the pieces. You know, where I do school runs,
- 22:21she's now got to do school runs. She's got to take George to football.
- 22:23She's got to do X, Y, Z. You know, they're all the things that I'd normally do.
- 22:28And she has to pick up those pieces. As the grandparents, they stepped in and
- 22:31picked up pieces as well.
- 22:33And ultimately, climbing mountains and doing long expeditions like this is an
- 22:37incredibly selfish thing to do.
- 22:40And I knew that. And I try and make that up to them now.
- 22:43And there's something in me that just had to do it. but it's selfish and other
- 22:47people have to fit around me and my choices because of things that I've done
- 22:51they have to then adapt and it's it's stressful for them and and upsetting at times.
- 22:58That's very big of you to say that. That's cool. Great.
- 23:01Well done, Kay. Well done. Must be very tricky for you and the kids.
- 23:04And just before we move on to have some fantastic photos, just a selection of
- 23:07the photos, just to let people know the JustGiving page is still live, is it?
- 23:11If people do want to give anything to those. So we'll make sure it goes in the show notes.
- 23:14But if you are listening live, or if you're watching this and you've got a pen
- 23:18handy, then it is justgiving.com forward slash crowdfunding forward slash,
- 23:23and then just write Summit Everest at the end of it. So S-U-M-M-I-T, EV, E-V-E-R-E-S-T.
- 23:29And that'll take you to the Just Giving page to raise some money for some of
- 23:33those charities, which you mentioned. So yeah, amazing.
- 23:36Brilliant one. So inspirational.
- 23:39Right. Do you want me to tell you about the journey?
- 23:43I think so. I feel like I want a photo. I'm quite visual. Should I bring something
- 23:46up? Why not? Should I bring something up? We know that a lot of people will watch this.
- 23:50Again, if you listen to the podcast, you want to see some photos,
- 23:52then Tim will talk us through it.
- 23:53And he realizes if you listen to the podcast, you might not well you won't be
- 23:56able to see what's on the screen but for those of you do like a bit of visuals
- 24:00then you might want to go over to youtube as we have a look now and bring this up so,
- 24:05i mean that i guess is is you playing with some lego looks like on the top of
- 24:10now what's going on that is.
- 24:148 848 meters at that point i was standing in,
- 24:18on top of the world it was just you know two meters above me,
- 24:23there was no one higher than me and i had two or three minutes where,
- 24:26i was standing on top of the world and and there was no one else up there,
- 24:31and it was an incredible experience i look back it was tough very tough at the
- 24:34time it's only really sinking in now but that's 8 848 meters i've taken my oxygen
- 24:39off for about 10 15 minutes and was just breathing the air
- 24:43and and it's quite a steep steep it's very steep just there so you kind of most of us sit down,
- 24:48and yeah that was top top of the rest that's crazy i love the way you put that
- 24:52you literally were the highest human being in the world at that time that's so crazy.
- 24:57That is pretty crazy so yeah i thought i'd start with that um just to show where
- 25:01you've got but i'm really interested in the journey
- 25:03um and everything as well i just feel i want to mention this so much we could
- 25:06do this for two hours but i was really impressed when you meant in the preparation
- 25:10when we had on the show before when you were talking about some of the latest
- 25:13developments in me have my patient um software,
- 25:16um i think it was the ai element but you mentioned that you'd been sleeping
- 25:19in a tent to get used to the oxygen deprivation to remind us listeners a little
- 25:23bit about that in the preparation what that involved i spent five months sleeping in an altitude tent,
- 25:28so i had two hypoxic machines one in my office and one in my spare room during
- 25:33the day i'd go through pairs for five minutes on five minutes off,
- 25:36with a hypoxic machine where i could work with it very hard to work but i did
- 25:40it many days and in the at night i would sleep in an altitude tent so i had
- 25:45a tent on the spare bed so k is in,
- 25:48main bedroom i was in the spare room tent on the spare bed and then i'd sleep
- 25:52in the tent attached to a hypoxic machine which would pump low oxygen into the tent
- 25:57we started at 2 000 meters i pushed it by about one to 200 meters every five
- 26:02days and after five months i got up to 6 600 meters which puts a lot of stress
- 26:07through your body And I would even, when I went away.
- 26:11When I went to Snowdonia or Cornwall, I took the machine with me.
- 26:15Spoke to the hotel and put the machine up and rigged it up in my bedroom,
- 26:19so i was constantly sleeping at altitude
- 26:22so to mimic the the 6 000 meters well what sort of oxygen percentage are we
- 26:27talking about to prepare your body for that what did you get to and i was getting
- 26:31down to about 11 percent oxygen so sounds so,
- 26:3620.9 percent to 11 about 11 percent yeah,
- 26:41so that's one of the preparation things are so important isn't it that's kind
- 26:44of like yeah i mean the hardest thing out there is without doubt is,
- 26:47is dealing with low oxygen and it's amazing because we we talk about energy
- 26:52and and and what do we need for energy and we talk about nutrition and carbs
- 26:56but by far the most important thing we need for an energy is oxygen,
- 27:01you know and breathing effectively and getting the oxygen in and utilizing that
- 27:05oxygen is just essential,
- 27:08at high altitude and the people that most suffer it's not necessarily i mean
- 27:13you could be there are people out there that run ultras there are people out there do iron mans,
- 27:17but you know it that doesn't that's not the deciding factor the deciding factor
- 27:21is how efficiently your body utilizes oxygen and how you cope with altitude,
- 27:26because because oxygen if you can't cope with altitude you get inflammation
- 27:31in your brain in your lungs it's very very very serious and a lot of people pulled out,
- 27:37because of altitude sickness incredible incredible.
- 27:41Which is kind of a segue on that. There's a photo on here. If you see the podcast,
- 27:43there's a photo of you with your beloved Sherpa, whose name is Gilbert.
- 27:49Yeah. Yeah. That's Gilbert. That was my second Sherpa. So unfortunately I lost
- 27:54my first Sherpa. He had to get helivacked off Island Peak.
- 27:57He had mountain sickness on an earlier peak we'd done as an acclimatization summit climb.
- 28:02So I lost my first Sherpa who I'd done other mountains with,
- 28:05which was extremely distressing.
- 28:08And I bawled my eyes out. gosh yeah that's a real shock to the system yeah real
- 28:12shock to the system a guy i i,
- 28:14i loved and trusted and a real brother so i i we planned everest we would do
- 28:19everest together we you know and unfortunately he had a cold and he went up island peak,
- 28:25and got very sick and we had to get him a heli and he had to get evacuated to
- 28:30hospital he's fine now yeah i take it he's fine now yeah we're still in touch
- 28:33but this this is galby who's the replacement sheriff a great guy very very strong guy
- 28:38and this is at the top of everest the sign that back it says everest mount everest spring.
- 28:44I'm interested to what extent is the the physiology of sherpas,
- 28:49it's talked about and used an example but physiologically have they got like
- 28:53more of a tolerance to low oxygen capacity is that something just living most
- 28:57most of them are born at 4 000 meters and so you know so they are born at altitude
- 29:03yeah and and they there is a genetic,
- 29:06a genetic something genetic with their blood which means they somehow transport
- 29:11more oxygen i can't remember exactly what it is but it's there's some you know it's documented,
- 29:16online and so they're highly adapted to altitude and effectively what that means
- 29:21is that that their their red blood cells are bigger and carry more oxygen around
- 29:27and their body so they cope better in low oxygen environments.
- 29:32Amazing. Fantastic.
- 29:35I'm just going to go with these photos. That's good with you,
- 29:37because I think we take it back now a little bit now. And I'm hoping this will
- 29:39bring back some memories for you. And again, if you listen to podcasts and you
- 29:41won't be able to see this, you might want to go to YouTube.
- 29:43But then, yeah, we've got a photo on here, which is you. It says in the caption
- 29:47from Facebook, I think it was Day 5 Namche Bazaar. Is that the pronunciation?
- 29:51The gateway to Everest. Gateway, yeah, gateway to Everest. It's the Sherpa capital of Himalayas.
- 29:56So Namche Bazaar is about 3,000 something meters, 3,000 and 3,400 meters, it could be.
- 30:04And it's a beautiful beautiful town incredible sherpa town popular touristy
- 30:09now when i say touristy i mean it's still in the middle of it it's the middle of nowhere.
- 30:13Um in the himalayas and it's the gateway so from there everybody goes through
- 30:17namche and then kind of splits off into different directions depending on where you want to go,
- 30:22which is why it's kind of a gateway so there's a lot of very interesting history
- 30:25there and and prayer areas and flags and and and things that's been in water
- 30:30and it's a very cool place what do they there's in the image there's i'm not
- 30:34sure if they're locals but i was interested what do,
- 30:37locals make of you do most of them speak english or do they kind of look at
- 30:41you with a quizzical look of what is this guy doing what's whitey they're doing
- 30:45is he's kind of trying to go climb up our mountains or what's the yeah how are you,
- 30:49how did you feel they're walking around so so welcomed i mean the nephalese are incredible
- 30:54they are so warm they're gentle they're kind the sherpa people are just amazing
- 31:01i don't know if it's because i was english and we've got this fantastic history of the gurkhas,
- 31:06and the gurkhas are incredibly that that is the top of the top out in the pool
- 31:10that is one of the most respected jobs that you can get
- 31:14and thousands of people apply and it's very very hard for nepalese to get into
- 31:18the gurkhas and so if you get in you're very well respected so i think we've
- 31:22got this great history and tradition of working with with the Brits and and
- 31:26they treat us extremely well
- 31:27I I mean they're just the most wonderful people,
- 31:31um which is another reason why you just want to give back because they're just so lovely.
- 31:36That's so cool. That's so nice to hear. Okay, another one and you in the hospital.
- 31:41Hospital? No, sorry, four years left. You in a helicopter.
- 31:45Just tell us where you went to there. What was that? I think that was after
- 31:49we summited. So I think we were flying back from Everspace Camp to Dingboshe.
- 31:52Actually, we had to get diverted, so we went to Ferrishe and then hiked to Dingboshe.
- 31:57I think that was in a heli coming back, and we were very lucky to get a heli
- 32:02back. It was very crowded. People all trying to get helis out.
- 32:05Everybody's departing Everest Base Camp and I think that was the shot we got
- 32:09several helis so I think I took four or five helis at various times because it was at some points,
- 32:16if you want to come down it's much easier but it could be a two-day hike or a six-minute heli,
- 32:23you know and so your body's really dead at some points you just need to get
- 32:28lower the helis very effective but they're hard to get a very inconsistent so
- 32:33if cloud comes in if there's too many people,
- 32:35you know there's a chance you're not getting on a heli and you you are typically
- 32:39waiting around three hours for a heli.
- 32:41Yeah yeah that's cool all the way down must feel great it did yeah i think actually
- 32:46the pilots all have oxygen so we have no oxygen there that's at you know 5 000
- 32:51meters but all the pilots have bottled oxygen yeah yeah,
- 32:54so what they're sharing it with you no we don't need it that we are acclimatized
- 32:59they're not oh i see what you mean okay yeah yeah they're not acclimatized they
- 33:03have to have bottled oxygen because they're just popping up to pick you up they're,
- 33:08not acclimatized so they have to have oxygen so they're breathing oxygen but we're not,
- 33:13that's so bizarre looking at the physiology it shows how we're just products
- 33:17of our environment and the context around us is quite incredible isn't it amazing
- 33:21yeah it is amazing it is amazing.
- 33:25Right, look, I want to know, let's jump to some of the bigger questions like,
- 33:28for example, on the way up, was there a particular moment that was particularly
- 33:34emotionally powerful for you, either positively or negatively?
- 33:38I mean, the most emotionally powerful bit that happened to me was coming down,
- 33:43was getting to the base camp after summiting.
- 33:46It was a six-day journey, so it took six days to summit and then get back down to base camp.
- 33:52Yeah and and spending six days on everest is a very,
- 33:56tough thing to do i'd previously spent seven days during rotations so that was
- 34:0113 days in total on on on everest which was very very it's very harsh conditions up there
- 34:07and so when i got down i i just could not stop crying and i was uncontrollably
- 34:12crying so even though i was telling myself,
- 34:15this is ridiculous stop crying anything would set me off anything i mean so
- 34:19some trekkers came to our tent and wanted to chat and they started,
- 34:24asking about everest and i just bawling my eyes out and i just could not stop
- 34:28crying i spoke to k on the phone i could not stop crying,
- 34:32so so something emotionally happens it took a couple of days to get out of my
- 34:35system but anything would set me off,
- 34:38and that was just all the stress i guess would have been released so that was
- 34:42the most emotionally sort of challenging part i think was was was afterwards
- 34:46was the release the realization that that you're safe and,
- 34:51you know so curious because i bet i mean i bet a lot of listeners are thinking
- 34:54well obviously it's when you got to the top when you thought i've done it in
- 34:57reality i mean i'm sure that was an incredible moment like you said already
- 35:00but it's getting down to the end of thinking okay i have actually done it.
- 35:04When you get to the top you're only halfway there most deaths happen on the
- 35:07way down It's a survival. You are in survival mode.
- 35:11We were running low on oxygen. We're 8,800 meters with 50 kilometers an hour winds.
- 35:17And you are like, I have got to get the hell down in one piece.
- 35:22Because this is, you know, this is a dangerous place to be for too long.
- 35:26Was there anywhere...
- 35:28I suppose again on the way up mainly but was there any way you
- 35:31seriously kind of considered turning back and if there was what kept you going
- 35:35or was it on summit night so we left at 8 30 p.m from camp four so we you you
- 35:41on some on we call it a summit push so we started stomach push at base camp,
- 35:46you know you then go through you go go through base camp which takes an hour
- 35:49and then you you go through the kumbu icefall which is big blocky big icy,
- 35:55ice field with massive blocks and crevasses and and you know it's it's got sarax
- 36:01and it's got these massive blocks and it's an incredible place and we we went
- 36:05through there in the middle of the night and through the early morning and then we arrive at camp one,
- 36:11absolutely exhausted you sleep for an hour recover get up and then you trudge
- 36:16over to camp two which is uphill and it's absolutely exhausting as we get to
- 36:21camp two which is about five,
- 36:24thousand about six thousand two hundred meters,
- 36:27and then from camp two we we did we spent a night and then we pushed to camp three which is seven,
- 36:34thousand nine hundred seven thousand and thirty meters and then we spent a night
- 36:38at camp three i spent a night without oxygen and then in the morning put on
- 36:43the oxygen bottle and then we climbed to camp four which took about 10 11 hours,
- 36:49and we arrived at camp for about 2 p.m the next day.
- 36:53And then we had an hour a couple of hours rest and then we started our summit
- 36:57push for the for the main summit and that took 17 hours to get to the summit.
- 37:03It was hell and i cannot describe i mean it was hell i mean and i'm,
- 37:10There were lots of people. I didn't ever want to turn back, but there were lots
- 37:14of people coming down. One guy came past me and he just shook his head and did
- 37:18this with his gloves and just shook because it was really windy.
- 37:23And the problem we had was we went on the second busiest day.
- 37:27So there was packed. I mean, we caught up a queue ahead of people. I mean, you know.
- 37:35We were planning to summit at 10 a.m. And we didn't summit till 1.22 p.m.
- 37:43And we left so early, half eight. And there were 100, maybe 150,
- 37:4760, 80, 100 people on the mountain already.
- 37:49Oh, my God. You can see the head torches going all the way up Everest.
- 37:53And we caught the queue up. But then we had to queue. And we were getting battered
- 37:58by the wind. It was so strong.
- 38:02So that was not good. A lot of people turned back. It's very frustrating.
- 38:06We didn't turn back. A lot of people turned back.
- 38:08What? When you're saying we in this, this is you. Myself and my Sherpa.
- 38:12Yeah, the two of you as a pair. Yeah, I had myself a Sherpa,
- 38:16I had a videographer, which was almost pointless because he was getting absolutely
- 38:23brutally battered up there as much as I was.
- 38:26So you could barely use any devices up there.
- 38:29I mean, we were so cold, you could barely grip the Jumar, the ropes.
- 38:33You could barely walk. I mean, you imagine, like, I don't know if you've ever
- 38:38jumped into cold water, like a lake swim.
- 38:41But you know that feeling, like jump into a really cold water,
- 38:44and your muscles seize up, and you can't use them. You're like,
- 38:48you have this almost shock.
- 38:50That's what it's like on Everest to 8,000 meters.
- 38:53It's like your muscles don't work, because you're so cold, you have no oxygen.
- 38:57And then we were standing in a queue. I mean, these queues are real.
- 39:01I mean, we were standing, we were in this queue for like on and off for like two hours.
- 39:07It was really bad situation. And of course you're using more oxygen because you're taking longer.
- 39:12So everyone, a lot of people running low on oxygen. A lot of people got frostbite,
- 39:16including I got very minor frostbite on my big toe.
- 39:19And it was like, it was difficult situation.
- 39:23It was hell. It was really hell. Yeah.
- 39:26Was this, I mean, the queuing, for example, was that something which you hadn't planned for?
- 39:30Or indeed, I'll write the question. Was there like a particular misconception
- 39:34you had before doing it that you didn't realize until you were there?
- 39:37I didn't realize how bad it would be. I didn't realize how bad queuing would
- 39:40be. Everybody said there's going to be queues, but I didn't realize how bad it would be.
- 39:44You know, I just thought, okay, what if there's a queue and we'll just go around
- 39:47them? We'll just climb up around them. And we did a little bit,
- 39:50you know, people were getting into trouble.
- 39:51I passed two guys on ropes that were in real serious trouble up there.
- 39:56Very close to camp four and and you have to go around them they had they had
- 40:00people assisting them but you had to go around them and when you go around them
- 40:04and you go off the fixed line,
- 40:07it's just exhausting absolutely exhausting and you know you have to stop because
- 40:11you just have no energy so you end up literally forming a queue and you're all going a snail's pace,
- 40:17because no one's got the energy to almost overtake the queue because it requires
- 40:21so much effort it's quite a bizarre experience but you take two steps and then
- 40:25you wait in two minutes you take another few steps and you wait in two minutes
- 40:28because of q constantine is down and that's because they're bottlenecks on everest
- 40:32so there's technical sections on everest,
- 40:34so there's sections where you actually have to climb up rocks.
- 40:38There are technical sections on Everest, like the Hillary Step.
- 40:41We were queuing at the Hillary Step.
- 40:43You know, you get to the Hillary Step, according to ChatGPT,
- 40:45it should take 40 to 60 minutes to get to the summit. It's only 100 meters.
- 40:50It took us two and a half hours. Oh my goodness, yeah. And you don't want to
- 40:54be at 8,800 meters for two and a half hours, I can tell you. You are burning oxygen.
- 41:00Yeah? You are flying through oxygen. It's a bad situation.
- 41:04So that's why we summited so late, 1.22 p.m. and you everyone knows the famous 2 p.m rule,
- 41:11you know you need to be up there and turned around by 2 p.m or you're coming
- 41:14home in the dark and you're in trouble yeah and that's where most people get
- 41:18in trouble is when they summit late,
- 41:20because of the weather changes in the afternoon what happens in the kumbh region
- 41:24is a lot of times the clouds come in in the afternoon and that's where things
- 41:28get nasty and of course you run low on oxygen.
- 41:31And people think, oh, you just put another bottle on. Yeah, who's going to carry
- 41:35the damn thing? They weigh four and a half kilos.
- 41:39Yeah? And that, when you're trudging up a 50 to 60 degree slope in crampons,
- 41:44in 8,000 meter boots, in an 8,000 meter suit,
- 41:48absolutely frozen with no oxygen or very low oxygen, very low flow on your oxygen canister.
- 41:56And you're carrying four and a half kilos. We were carrying eight kilos up to the summit.
- 41:59It is hell. It is hard, hard work. And you are exhausted, absolutely exhausted.
- 42:07What did you do? It reminds me of like ultra marathons and endurance runners.
- 42:11They're kind of like a joke of where it's 80% psychological and then the other
- 42:1420% is in your head kind of thing. But.
- 42:19Did you consciously prepare yourself for the psychological challenge you're
- 42:22doing? Because physiologically you were on it.
- 42:24Was there anything you did in preparation for that psychological?
- 42:29Physiologically, I was super fit. I'd run every single day, except when I was
- 42:33at Maton and Mont Blanc, I'd run every single day bar two days for the last
- 42:39450 days or something like that.
- 42:41So I was doing a lot of endurance running.
- 42:44In January, I did the, you're probably familiar with the 396 challenge,
- 42:49where you run 396 kilometers in January, run 1K on day one and two count.
- 42:55I did that. So I'd done some endurance stuff.
- 42:58Are super super fit but their mind you have to prepare because you could be
- 43:02as fit as you like but if you've not got the mindset,
- 43:05your body is gonna you're gonna get beaten because your mind your body's dead
- 43:10everybody's exhausted everybody's exhausted,
- 43:14Everybody, everybody's got no energy. A lot of people are low on oxygen,
- 43:17but your mind tells you, my mind was telling me one step, one step,
- 43:21one step, one step. Just take one step at a time.
- 43:24Go as slow as you want. Just take one step at a time. And then my mindset when
- 43:28I couldn't take one step because I wasn't strong enough, my mind told me take
- 43:32half a step, half a step, half a step, half a step.
- 43:35So it's like going like this, half a step for like five, six,
- 43:3910 hours up a slope like this.
- 43:43Amazing and if you look at video footage i've got video footage people just
- 43:47stand there it's like a line of people just standing they're not moving,
- 43:51or they're moving so slowly it looks like they're not moving because everybody
- 43:55has to go slow you just don't have the energy to go fast because it's a little
- 43:59oxygen even with a canister you can't get anywhere near normal levels of oxygen
- 44:04because you've got a flow rate,
- 44:05if you put on a high flow rate you use the oxygen so so where to get the other
- 44:09bottles from you know i paid for extraction and it didn't even it wasn't there,
- 44:15i paid three thousand dollars i think it was for extra four bottles of extra
- 44:18oxygen and it wasn't there we didn't get it,
- 44:21so you can't rely on it how do you get logistically bottles of oxygen up to
- 44:25eight thousand meters not very easily.
- 44:28Yeah so was there was there looking back was there some psychological preparation
- 44:33you did to get that determination or do you think it's something that your
- 44:37life experience has brought you or do you think it's a genetic predisposition
- 44:41you've got just to be able to not be the one who turns around what do you put it down to i think,
- 44:45i've always had a bit of an ethos of not giving up you've got to have a not give up attitude,
- 44:50and that can be dangerous as well because sometimes it's right to turn around,
- 44:56but you know you've got to have an attitude of you have to keep going and and
- 45:00they you know ant middleton talks a lot about i used to listen on celebrity sas and essay,
- 45:05and the sas program you know when your body is gone it's your mind that keeps
- 45:09you going and it is it's true,
- 45:12because there's no nothing in your body it's like you can barely pick your legs
- 45:15up and and you have to you've got like one and a half kilos on each leg on each
- 45:19foot and it's just and you're going through snow,
- 45:22right and the snow is quite compacted but it's not like walking on a pavement it's like,
- 45:26it's hard it's hard work you You know, the snow gives and it's physically strenuous.
- 45:33So it's your mind. Your mind is everything.
- 45:37Absolutely incredible. Out of interest, was there...
- 45:41Was there something small that maybe you took, which turned out to be really useful on the way?
- 45:47Or was everything go to plan and you had what you had? Nothing goes to plan on Everest.
- 45:52Absolutely nothing. Nothing goes to plan. And the same for everybody. Everybody gets ill.
- 45:58Nothing works out. Nothing goes to plan. You know, I had my bag stuck in Heathrow
- 46:03and my kit bag was stuck in Mumbai and arrived three days late in Kathmandu.
- 46:07I lost my Sherpa, who got helivacked off Island Peak.
- 46:10I had stomach bug on my summit push going to camp two i had terrible stomach
- 46:17cramps and diarrhea you know,
- 46:20nothing goes to plan you know and and i i lost a glove i lost one of my gloves
- 46:25down a lotsy face luckily i had a spare pair but i
- 46:29my glove literally flew down the lotsy face you know nothing goes to plan my
- 46:33phone battery died on on the summit nothing works,
- 46:37everything goes wrong and that's high altitude mountaineering so.
- 46:41Fortunately it was that extra pack of gloves that yeah the pair of gloves which
- 46:45say today that was good that was i had some technical gloves for rock climbing
- 46:48and i had some 8 000 meter gloves and i lost one of my technical gloves okay which i was wearing,
- 46:54i did i wouldn't have worn it for summit day because it was too cold but but
- 46:57i were up to camp for but yeah this damn thing flew down the lotsy face and that was it gone,
- 47:03but nothing goes right nothing goes right you know i wore the wrong pair of
- 47:06socks on one day because i couldn't find my socks because i didn't realize in
- 47:09my sleeping bag i packed my sleeping bag
- 47:11i couldn't didn't have the energy to unpack my bag so i borrowed some socks
- 47:14off someone and then my boots rubbed my shins and i got blisters on my shins
- 47:19and stuff like that you know and then,
- 47:21i tried to put some blister pads on i took my gloves off,
- 47:23my gloves my hands got crazy cold off where i got frostbite on my hands you
- 47:28know nothing goes to plan everything goes wrong it's a mountain it's high altitude
- 47:32and you have to be adaptable and cope,
- 47:36incredible.
- 47:38So to bring it all together then, I mean, you are a very determined,
- 47:43incredibly dedicated professional and also in your own personal life as well.
- 47:49But I'm wondering then, even somebody of your nature who was like you were before
- 47:54you went up, has summiting Everest kind of changed your perspective anyway?
- 47:59Yeah. In terms of risk, ambition or anything else? It made me de-risk.
- 48:04Yeah, I de-risked my life, I think. and uh i'm not looking i mean i was thinking
- 48:08i'll do everest and i'll do k2,
- 48:11i don't think my body's strong enough for k2 and k2 is 25 death rate right now,
- 48:16you know and it makes you reevaluate what i've got in life and how lucky i am and i came back and,
- 48:22surrounded and england's such an incredible country and i've been so grateful
- 48:26to be back because it's just a different world from being in Kathmandu which
- 48:31is chaos and polluted and crazy busy traffic everywhere
- 48:36you know it comes at you all angles to being in the Himalayas where there's
- 48:39no cars but it's just so brutally cold,
- 48:43you know and it's so,
- 48:45I'm so lucky to live in a country like this where we have communications and
- 48:50stable internet you know you get power cuts every day in the Kumbu,
- 48:54there's no electricity It's all solar or gas, you know, there's,
- 48:57there's, so there's no mains electricity.
- 49:00And, you know, it's, it's such a harsh environment, but in England,
- 49:04we have so much, so many amazing things from our transport to our communication, to our, to our climate.
- 49:10And I've been so grateful to be back around my family. So I'm de-risking.
- 49:13I don't think I'll do another 8,000 meter. I don't think my body's strong enough.
- 49:16And I don't think that it's worth the risk having done a big 8,000er.
- 49:22They're, they're, they're dangerous.
- 49:24And although I was never in a situation where my life was threatened,
- 49:28like some people, I never got that bad. I never got to that level where I thought,
- 49:34oh, shit, I'm in real trouble here.
- 49:36And it's a very hard environment to be in.
- 49:40Very, very hard. I mean, the temperature swings are crazy.
- 49:44When the storms come in, the snow storms, it's like a whiteout.
- 49:47You can't see five meters in front of your face.
- 49:51And these the the variability of the conditions it changes so fast,
- 49:56in the mountains and it's just an environment you know i witnessed an avalanche
- 50:02i mean i saw several avalanches i mean there are avalanches there are 10 avalanches every day,
- 50:08and you hear them all the time but i actually saw one 200 meters ahead of us.
- 50:13And and this is not like an avalanche like snow comes down and you kind of go
- 50:16down with it these are like blocks of ice come down,
- 50:19and one of these blocks of ice hit a climber 200 meters ahead of us so we were two hours away,
- 50:27and and this guy had a serious head injury they got him a helicopter the helicopter
- 50:31circled like five six times just could not land i videoed the whole thing the
- 50:35helicopter came in tried to land had to fly off couldn't land on the side of mountain,
- 50:40they eventually landed this thing this amazing pilot landed thing with these
- 50:43guys on the side man trying to pull this heli and trying to tell him to move this way and,
- 50:48shifting that trying to get heli to shift over and they got this guy in a heli
- 50:53but this is the reality is there's avalanches there's weather conditions there's extreme cold
- 50:58there's low oxygen people get lost people fall people pass out
- 51:04people lie down and then don't get up again,
- 51:06that's the realities of of high altitude mountaineering.
- 51:11Well, it's powerful stuff. I don't know whether I want to put you in the position of someone.
- 51:17Do I? Yeah, because I won't get this opportunity again. Do it.
- 51:21If someone came up to you now and said, oh, Tim, I'm thinking of doing it myself.
- 51:26I've done this. I've done this. I'm thinking of going up.
- 51:29Do you think you would be more inclined to make them stop and think about it?
- 51:32Or would you be 100% there and going, prepare for it, do it.
- 51:35It'd be the most amazing thing in your life.
- 51:37If it feels right if it's in your heart and then and it's something you just
- 51:41have to do then then go ahead and do it the key thing is just being prepared
- 51:46prepare as much as you can with to minimize your risk,
- 51:49did you know if it is safe as long as you have a team and you follow the rules and you stick to the,
- 51:56the the rules and you're well prepared and you've done this sort of thing before
- 51:59it it's fairly safe and i say that i haven't talked all about death but it is
- 52:03it is a safe mountain compared to many mountains
- 52:06and and considering the number of people that go up actually the death rate's
- 52:09incredibly low and five deaths this year was incredibly low,
- 52:12you know it's incredibly low and so so you know the risk is is is,
- 52:17is there but it's it's it's a respect you have to have for the risks and for
- 52:21the mountain and as long as you do that and you're prepared and you go to a
- 52:24good team and you make those preparations you know then then go for it.
- 52:30Amazing. Okay. Well, look, it's five to nine. That's incredible.
- 52:35If you listen to podcasts, and this really is one I wanted to try and share.
- 52:38I know people these days don't join, not so many join live anymore,
- 52:41but I know we're getting an awful lot of downloads.
- 52:43I'm hoping that if you are listening to this podcast, then yeah,
- 52:46do someone a favor and just send them the link to it so they can,
- 52:49because I'm sure there's so much everybody could get from this.
- 52:51I'm not saying everybody's going to go and climb Everest. God, no, imagine that.
- 52:54But there's so many life lessons there and so many do you know what i would
- 52:58say to people yeah just get outside and go and do a hike,
- 53:03you know find your closest big mountain in england,
- 53:06that could be a mountain on the south down a hill on the south as it could be
- 53:10the mountain in the dartmoor it could be in the lake district you know go find
- 53:15one and just go and hike it could be scoff or pike or ben nevis or snowden or,
- 53:22or one of those you know go and hike them and and enjoy it and see how you feel
- 53:27you know we take our kids up mountains and it's a brilliant way to de-stress to get away from tech
- 53:33to be in nature and it's great for like your physical and mental health.
- 53:38Great what a beautiful way to sign out that's great,
- 53:42um gary benson has summed it up quite well as or very well gary benson founded
- 53:46the sta says sometimes there are no words but wow in capital letters yeah that's
- 53:51what i'm feeling gary no amazing,
- 53:52very very cool um if people are interested because you shared and managed to
- 53:56share so much as well on your social media feeds which is amazing so people
- 54:00can go back and relive this,
- 54:03journey with you they can go to tim.allardyce on instagram which is allardyce
- 54:08is a double l-a-r-d-y-c-e
- 54:10um also on facebook um they can find you there as tim allardyce which is great
- 54:15i'm on tiktok as well are we on tiktok now tiktoks yeah crazy so they want to
- 54:20see you doing a little dance or something crazy videos
- 54:23i did do a dance funny enough i thought she did ding boche with my shareper which was quite cool
- 54:28it's tim.climes.everest brilliant on tiktok i'll have to check out Yeah, TikTok.
- 54:32I'm excited about that. Yeah, there's some crazy videos.
- 54:35And then there's also... A guy getting rescued by the heli. Oh,
- 54:39really? Is that on TikTok? Okay. And there's a video of the guy going...
- 54:43The guy, unfortunately, is getting in a heli, being put into a heli.
- 54:45There's some hard stuff there. Wow.
- 54:49Again, there's also, we mentioned a couple of times, obviously,
- 54:52you've been on the podcast before talking about the exercise prescription software, Rehab My Patient.
- 54:57So if people want to go to rehabmypatient.com, all information about that exercise
- 55:01prescription software you can find there. And also across social media,
- 55:04Rehab My Patient as well. There's a load of stuff there.
- 55:08If you do a search for Tim Allardyce on STA Christian Podcast,
- 55:12you'll find at least two other episodes talking about different aspects of that. So amazing. Thank you.
- 55:18Right then. so just about enough time I,
- 55:22don't even want to say what's on next week now but I'm going to have to because it is
- 55:26it's going to be me in the hot seat first time in ages probably in two or three
- 55:30years so if you're interested in joining the show then next week Gary Benson
- 55:34founder of the STA is going to take the host seat and he's going to
- 55:38ask me questions about a topic we've put together which is called it's not the
- 55:41person rethinking difficult conversations in MSK practice so yeah it's going
- 55:46to be in the hot seat answering questions about that.
- 55:49With regards to my passion and knowledge of communication skills.
- 55:52As some of you may know, I've recently hung up,
- 55:54My Run Chat Live gloves or shoes probably is better to say for that.
- 55:58And social media accounts has all moved officially over to my new website,
- 56:01mattphillips.education. So this is all kind of part of that to let people know
- 56:05why after 12, 13 years of Run Chat Live we've moved over.
- 56:09So that'll be next week. If you want to join me live for that with Gary interviewing
- 56:12me, that'll be live as always on YouTube and on the Sports Network Association
- 56:16Facebook page. Or of course, you can wait for the podcast to come out on all popular podcast apps.
- 56:22So that'll be next week if you want to join us. but that is like we have we
- 56:26cannot finish on that we need to finish on an amazing hour spent with the incredible
- 56:31tim allardyce who i had utmost respect for before obviously but now it's just
- 56:34like okay as gary said wow,
- 56:37i'm so pleased as well especially of what you said that you're back and you're
- 56:40safe and you're healthy and you're spending time with your beautiful family
- 56:43it's got to be really emotional,
- 56:45and i just want to say i just love the way you've described it all the little
- 56:49details of it hasn't just been a case of
- 56:52climbing a mountain because it's there it's been a case of giving something
- 56:55back to the community that's there
- 56:57it's all the money you're raising for charity and all the work you do,
- 57:01and and the stuff you said about you know how difficult it's been for family
- 57:04it's brilliant man really really inspirational so my hat off to you completely
- 57:07for all of that and thank you for sharing it thank you very much namaste.
- 57:12Namaste is a lovely way to end it my people even listen to the sda collision
- 57:16podcast uh with my very very special guest Tim Allardyce.
- 57:19If you're free next week, then do come along at 8 o'clock on YouTube or Facebook.
- 57:23But until then, take care of yourself, take care of each other.