Friday 18th September 2009

No training today, but fundraising instead for our charitites - hey ho!! Being the Divisional Adminstrator for the Institute of Directors in Wales my Director kindly agreed that at our Young Directors Working Lunch with guest speaker Ruth Badger from the 'Apprentice' that our nominated charity for it could be Ty-Hafan and Breast Cancer Care Cymru - Barclays Bank kindly agreed to match fund what we raised so double whammy!! Most of the Kili girls came to the lunch we had a photo session (see left Alan on the pull) plus one with Ruth who kindly donated £500 - many thanks Ruth! We made in all a total of £3,000 (including of course the match funding from Barclays)! This really gave us good start with regard to our fundraising target for Kilimanjaro!

Sunday 13th September

Angie managed to secure another recruit for our Welsh Women Walking - Lianne Jones from Wenvoe - she's great fun and if only we'd asked her a day earlier she'd have joined us walking Kilimanjaro, instead of which she agreed to go sking only the day before being asked! It's such a shame, as she continues to come walking with us and would have been a great addition to the team! Mind you she's pretty fit and is always ahead of me and Ang on our walks - puts us to shame a bit! Meryl came too and of course we took Lianne up Pen-y-Fan and Corn Du (still not sure if i'm spelling Corn Du right?) Lianne gave Meryl some dating advice (she's good at that) so it was educational as well! All in all had a fab walk, mist came in so views not great - but what the heck! Went home then to cook Sunday lunch and do the ironing - I'm so lucky!!

Sunday 6th September - Team Walk

Our monthly team walk is designed to be strenuous and hard in preparation for Kilimanjaro - our team leader - Gary Parker, certainly provided us with it this month. Our walk/climb was Fan Fawr and it all started very strangely as we had to climb a ladder to get over the wall which was at the Hirwaun layby in the Brecon Beacons by one of the reservoirs. Then 6 hours later our walk eventually finished, boy was that hard, I got in the car and didn't think I'd be able to get back out again - gosh were my little legs aching! - thanks Gary!

Saturday 29th August 2009 - Pen-y-Fan

This is getting to be quite a habit, but good for training purposes - this time managed to pursuade a friend of mine Dawn to come walking with me and Angie - Well we are trying to promote well being for women and Dawn said she wanted to get fit and had never been up Pen-Y-Fan! Dawn was a trooper and although struggled at the beginning really enjoyed herself and the views and felt very proud for achieveing reaching both Corn Du and Pen-y-Fan sumits! Well done Dawn!

Tuesday 25th August 2009 - Pen-y-Fan

My son plays for Merthyr Tydfil FC so thought I'd go and watch the game, didn't start til 7.45pm so thought it would be ideal for me and my hubbie to go on a little walk up Pen-y-Fan and show him the fab views!! Unfortunately he had a cold (or man flu should I say). Anyway what with the excuse of he needed petrol and had a cold anyway and didn't feel well, I went off in a huff and did it on my own after being told I had to be back down by 7.30pm because he didn't want to miss the game!! - It was already 6.30pm - Well I got up there and back in record time - running back down the mountain - my friend and partner for the trip Angie Smith was not impressed with me doing it on my own and told me so in no uncertain terms! Silly me!

17th August - 23rd August

Had a week in a caravan in Newgale West Wales, courtesy of a friend of mine - Marianne Pettifor (thanks Marianne) so thought it would be a great opportunity to do some more training!! First on the list was to walk from Newgale to Solva - approx 2 hours up and down andacross sime fab cliff tops - excellent training - not that my hubbie Paul thought, but to be fair he kept up and even wanted to walk back, but thought better of it and caught the bus back!!! Did many walks on my little break - Newgale to Nolton Haven (twice) was a great walk with superb views too. Fab walks along the beach which is over a mile long in the wind and rain too! Feel like I'm starting to get fitter - got to be good!

Saturday 15th August 2009 - Pen-y-Fan Ridge

Well what can I say - Angie and I thought we'd do a bit of training and it was very wet! Ang couldn't get a babysitter so we decided to take her 10 year old with us - she wasn't impressed and neither were we! It poured with rain, the wind howled and it was awful - Isaid to Ang this is child cruelty, but Ang said it would be good for her - Georgina kept asking "Are we nearly there yet" that terrible question all kids ask! We were just getting the ridge and the wind was really howling and blowing and one of the walkers coming back down warned us not to go any further than the ridge as it was too windy and we'd be blown over!! We didn't need anything more to stop us so when we reached the ridge we turned back, much to Georgie's delight and if i'm honest our's too!

I decided to join Welsh Women Walking

Monday 3rd August 2009 - Work

Emailed Jacquie the brain of Welsh Women Walking and agreed to join the team!!!!

Saturday 8th August 2009 - Pen-y-Fan

Met at the Plymouth Arms, St Fagans and went up to Brecon - Just hoped it would be easier than the week before! We were Jacquie, Jacquie's friend, Meryl, Angie, Karen and me! I had a bit of hangover and thought this is not good! Too much wine the before - but infact I was impressed with the walk, fab view and very scenic!! Angie, Me and Meryl reached the ridge first and as we were climbing up Corn Du a photographer from the National Geographic magazine asked if he could take a photo of us walking up the last bit of Corn Du and then preceeded to ask to take photos of our walking boots too for the magazine!

Welsh Women Walking Kilimanjaro - Debbie Trotman

Hi

My name is Debbie Trotman, Divisional Administrator for the Wales Division of the Institute of Directors. I am part of a team of 15 women called Welsh Women Walking who will be walking up Kilimanjaro in January 2010 in aid 2 Welsh charities - Ty Hafan a children's hopsice and Breast Cancer Care Cymru. I have decided to do a blog of all my training so far. It all started back in June 2009 when I attended the launch of Welsh Women Walking! I couldn't attend their first walk which was the first Sunday in July, but decided to go along to the 2nd walk on Sunday 2nd August which was a 4 hour walk in the Brecon Beacons - walking up Carn Pica (pics above)and boy what a walk, climb it was, but that's when I got hooked on walking!!

Sunday 2nd August
Well my walk what can I say - I started climbing and climbing and I was just so relieved that I hadn't signed up to walk Kilimanjaro, like my friend, Angie Smith - I thought they must be mad!!!!

I had asked a friend of mine Sharon to come with me on the walk and told her it would be fun! However the walk was far harder than Sharon or I had anticipated - our guide had to take another route up the mountain and boy was it tough - I crawled up the last part to the summit of Carn Pica and thought Oh my God!! I was exhausted - so much so that I didn't want my lunch as I felt sick! The walk back down was much easier and I began to enjoy myself and forget the ordeal of going up (bit like giving birth you soon forget)! After about 5 hours of walking we had eventually reached the bottom again and so we all decided to go to the pub for a glass of wine and after a glass I had forgotten how hard it had been and after some persuation from some of the team who had already committed agreed to think about joining the team! - Weird - I said I'd speak to my hubbie Paul and Kids and see what they thought, but I was very keen to join! My husband Paul was very supportive and said I should do it, but my daughter Jenna said 2"but that means you'll be away for my birthday" (29th Jan and she'll be 26) I said I think you'll be OK and will sing Happy Birthday to you when we reach the summit as that's the day we will get there (hopefully). My son Matt was very supportive and said - go for it - you'll do it Mum ! My other daughter Becky said "Your going to die!" - Typical just when I was so positive about it all!