We woke up stupidly early on Sunday morning to head towards Llanberris. Dan told us to meet him and Annalie at the Snowdon railway station at 9, so we cleverly found a leaflet with the station’s postcode on it and punched that into the satnav.

The drive from the cottage to the station was about 30 mins, and we arrived at around 8.45, congratulating ourselves on not having got lost.

At 9, we suddenly realised that despite the trains and the station-looking building, we were actually parked up at some kind of slate museum (Wales’ greatest attraction). Once again, we were lost. After a few minutes of faffing, we managed to find the actual station just around the corner, parked up, and set off on the highest walk of our training so far.

The walk up Snowdon starts off quite steeply on a tarmac road. By about 3 minutes we all needed a rest and started regretting our decision to climb a mountain on our bank holiday. But, poked by Dan, we all ploughed on and the terrain soon changed from tarmac to slatey/stony ground. Luckily, the steepness wore off a little and we were able to push on ahead.

Annalie had been suffering from a nasty bought of tonsilitis in the week leading up to this training walk, and it was beginning to show. She found the walk particularly difficult and started to hang back a bit from the rest of the team. We quickly made a decision to split into two smaller teams, Dan and Annalie would head up the rear whilst the rest of us pushed on.

There’s a small train station about a third of the way up the mountain. We used this as a meeting place and the whole team regrouped at this point before pushing on. After the train station, the incline began to get steeper again – this was the final straw for Annalie and around 2/3 of the way up the mountain, she couldn’t take any more and felt she had to head back alone.

The rest of the team decided to push on for now, heading up some even steeper inclines. The temperature had dropped markedly and the climb was extremely difficult.

After a lot of moaning, we managed to reach the summit of Snowdon – the climb/fall back down was markedly quicker (although quite difficult). Our first climb and decent was completed in a respectable 3hours 36 mins.

We then decided to take a 4 hour break to really seize up our muscles (and to get some food in us).

We met up again as a team at 4 (Annalie included) and started the mountain climb again. This was noticeably tougher for most of the team – it was a lot harder mentally and it was really hard to focus on the task in hand.

Annalie really pulled something out of the bag this time round. A bit of rest and recuperation really did her good and she made it to the summit with the rest of the team. All in all the second climb took 3hrs 56 minutes – nicely within our 4hour self-imposed target.

We all headed back to the cottage to munch on lasagne and to fall asleep, proud of the fact that we’d conquered Snowdon twice in one day.

There’s one problem with walking in the UK – the weather. Rain, wind, sun, snow or whatever can all be prepared for but the thing is you can never be confident which of these things it’s going to do. You have to be ready for all of them. So, heading off to Cyprus a couple of weeks back for my jollies I decide to take advantage of some of those mountains they have there, and while my fellow geeks were turning blue up the slopes of Snowden, laden with backpacks stuffed with all the protection required to ward of the British climate, I took off in a pair of shorts, t-shirt, sun cream and a good pair of walking sandals, for a nice walk in the sun. Several walks actually. There are some serious hills and mountains in Cyprus, a good selection of peaks for this geek to choose from.

For most of the walks my wife, Janet, kept me company. And together we were treated to the delights of the Cypriot wildlife. Flowers of all hues, numerous lizards and birds, and more butterflies than I have ever seen before in my life were amongst the things we saw. Oh yes, and a snake. The Blunt Nosed Viper is probably the only seriously dangerous snake in Cyprus. Research tells me that it is, in fact, the most venomous snake in Europe. I mention this only because I almost stood on one the damn things.  Its front half was on the path and the rest of it was hidden in the verge. In truth it was probably harmless to us as it was in the process of eating a bird, jaws dislocated and consuming its prey whole, as snakes do (“Hey snake, what you doing with that bird?”; “Girg? Gog Girg?”).  Never the less, it was slightly unnerving, and made us wonder about the wisdom of traipsing about with just scandals to protect our bare feet and legs.

One trek I was keen to do was from our village to “the tank”. The tank is an actual tank, as in military vehicle, which somehow got itself stuck close to the top of the mountain range during the Turkish invasion in 1974 and has been left there, abandoned, ever since.  The walk, I decided would be about the equivalent of a walk up Snowdon, the main difference being the heat, at thirty-five degrees it was a tad warm so I would need a good supply of water. Janet was not to be joining me. When I asked she gave me a look she has which suggests that I had to be crazy, which was fair enough I suppose. It took me just two hours to get up there, following mostly a long winding road, and about the same time coming back down again (typical for me, I tend to be much stronger relatively speaking going up than coming down). On my way I saw just four cars (one of which stopped and asked if I needed a lift!) and NO other walkers. Heat exhaustion was an issue, despite my water supply I felt a little jaded when I did finally reach the tank, which I remedied by sitting down for ten minutes or so as I took in an awesome view of the Cypriot coastline.

And now, sadly, I’m back in Blighty.  The volcanic dust cloud failed to prevent me returning home as it had threatened to do. Shame. So, it’s back to the mud and the grass, the sunny Med just a distant dream. Perhaps it’s as well that my training from here is done in UK conditions; there are just a few weeks to go now before we take on the three peaks proper. And they tell me the top of Ben Nevis is covered in snow even in June…!