West Highland Way: A Spur of the Moment Challenge

Distance: 96.5 miles

Elevation gain: about 3,500 meters

Difficulty: Depends on your fitness, how much you’re carrying, and how many days you

Rannuch Moor, which we walked across on day four, was my favorite part of our journey.

do it in. I’m moderately fit (these days I run three days a week, have two one-hour sessions a week of weight training at the gym, and go to two boxing classes a week). I found walking around 30 to 35 kilometers for each of our five days on the Way while carrying a 12kg backpack very challenging but, in the end, doable. I’d recommend training specifically for the walk by doing long hikes while load-carrying several weeks beforehand.

Start: Milngavie, Scotland

End: Fort William, Scotland

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Tom, my personal trainer, asked me sometime in December if my husband Colin and I had plans to do anything interesting over Christmas.

“Yes! We’ve decided to walk the West Highland Way,” I responded enthusiastically.

“Why would anyone do that?” he asked, partially in jest.

“I don’t know. It’s just something to do. It’s just a walk,” I said. “Anyone can walk.” Ha! Little did I know what was to come.

“And whose idea was this?” I’m sure he was expecting the answer to be me. But this time it wasn’t me coming up with the crazy ideas.

“Colin. He asked me towards the end of November if I’d like to walk the West Highland Way over Christmas. I asked him what’s that? He said it was a 96-mile walk over five days. I said, ‘Ok.’”

“Rosie and I never have those kinds of conversations,” Tom joked. Tom, by the way, is a really badass personal trainer. But he likes to make fun of me and all the crazy challenges I keep coming up with for myself.

But that really was how our West Highland Way walk came about. It was a spur of the moment suggestion from my husband at the end of November. I said yes. And that was that.

Had I known what we were up against, I might have put in a bit more training in preparation for it.

Winter mountaineering: A new hobby for the list

Call it hiking, hill walking, or trekking, almost anyone can do it with a bit of fitness and

On top of Stob Dearg in Glencoe, Scotland

some simple gear (hiking boots, gaiters, trekking poles, water proofs, layers, and a backpack). Depending on where you are hiking, you can do it on your own by following a clear trail, hire a guide, or use your navigation skills to get from one place to another. I’ve been doing it for several years now. I’ve done lots of hill walking in the UK, I’ve climbed the mountains of Sinai in Egypt, hiked in America’s Smoky Mountains, climbed and summited Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, walked the full distance of the Inca Trail and did the Santa Cruz trek in Peru, walked between the seaside villages of the Cinque Terre in Italy, and attempted (but failed) to summit Mont Blanc in France and Aconcagua in Argentina.

It was on that last trip that my tent buddy Victoria mentioned an amazing Scottish winter mountaineering course she had taken a few months earlier. I had taken a short course in using crampons several years ago before I climbed Mont Blanc. But I felt maybe it was time to refresh those skills and to get some of the technical skills needed to climb in the UK in winters; something I’ve mostly avoided when there has been snow and ice.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wanted to know if winter mountaineering was for me.

Let’s just say it was EPIC. 

Smashing the UK national three-peak challenge

Ever since I was a little girl…

…is NOT where the story of this next grand adventure begins.

In fact, I can think of only one grand adventure of mine (which happened not to be sport or activity related) that originated in my childhood. I’m constantly coming up with new dreams and new ideas for adventures.

This story actually starts here:

I’m not sure which mountain this was taken on. The backgrounds in our pictures on all three summits are almost identical. Let’s just say it was bleak.

Ever since about four years ago when I first heard of the UK’s national three-peaks challenge, I’ve wanted to give it a go.

I have no idea who thought of this idea or when. I’m not even going to look it up to tell you about it because to me, that part is irrelevant. The national three-peaks challenge is about hiking up the three highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales in a period of 24 hours.

It’s not an official race. There are no official times. There aren’t marshals or registration forms. There’s no one to announce you’ve accomplished the task. There are no certificates at the end or event T-shirts. There isn’t a specific day to do it, although I hear throngs of people choose to do it on June 21, the longest day of the year.

You just go out and do it.

I’ve been nagging my husband ever since I heard of this being “a thing” that we go and do it ourselves. He had already done it twice. He wasn’t enthusiastic in any way to do it a third time. I couldn’t understand why. My husband is huge on physical activities and challenges. But after four years of nagging and an opportune relatively free summer, he obliged.

He put together a team of five. It’s better to have a few people with you because the challenge involves an incredible amount of driving. Only days before our set date, two of the five pulled out, leaving us with a small team of three: me, my husband, and one of his work colleagues who also, it just so happens, was our third team member on our grand cycle from London to Paris in three days only three years ago.

I knew the national three-peaks challenge would be challenging. It wouldn’t be called a challenge otherwise.

Nadia’s Ten Tips for Healthy Living

Anybody and everybody is writing about healthy living nowadays. Much of what is out there is common sense and you have to

My husband, a friend of ours, and I cycled from London to Paris this year. Having a short-term goal will motivate you to keep exercising.

wonder why someone has written a whole book about it. More of what is out there is just a load of crap. Generally, I think too many people have turned healthy living into something that is way too complicated for someone who wants to start on the road towards a healthier lifestyle.

So, since I am an anybody and I have accumulated some personal experience on this topic over the past few years, I thought I would share my own tips on how to live more healthily.

1.    Your goal should be gradually shifting into a lifestyle change and not finding a quick fix solution. One of the first things you need to do is completely remove the word diet from your vocabulary. YOU ARE NOT STARTING YET ANOTHER DIET. Your goal is not to lose a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time. Your goal should not even be weight loss. Your goal should be to become healthy. This will inevitably result in some weight loss. But stop focusing on your weight and start focusing on changing the way you live.

2.    Lifestyle changes do not happen overnight.