Anders did it--He has climbed the highest mountain in each of the 7 continents!

Pretty special time for us Christoffersons!  We climbed from the base of the mountain in Thredbo, Australia and all stood arm-in-arm with him on Christmas day!  It was just under 7 (somewhat harder than expected) hours roundtrip and we covered 13+ miles and over 3,100 feet of vertical!  Here are some pictures:

Our arrival at the airport and the van we would be trapped in for long hours:

At the base of the mountain, after a 6+ hour drive down from the Blue Mountains (we got up at 1:30 am), and after 8 years of hard work--Anders and "The Crew" were ready to go:

Anders at the base of the Merrits Nature Trail, which is where the climb officially began:

Anders, Kara and Alex on the way up:

On the lower mountain it was very foggy!

Anders leading the way (a little mellower path up than Everest!):

A little more than 3 miles to go:

Kosi is just to the left of Anders in this picture:

Pictures of the Crew climbing upward:

We are all very proud of Anders--especially Mom:

And finally, we all touch the Summit pillar:

Anders joins the select few who have ever climbed all 7:

Our family's summit picture:

Some final pictures from our great day:

I'll post a little video in the next couple of days!

Onward and upward!

Getting ready for number 7!

The whole Christofferson crew is on the ground in Katoomba, Au getting ready to head to Mount Kosciouszko tomorrow to crew with Anders as he goes after his seventh of the seven summits!  We are all very excited for this momentous day!

We left the afternoon of the 21st and all met in LA--Alex and Kara flew for JFK and Judy, Jen and I from PHL.  Both of our planes were late so we had to scramble and got on board (as did our luggage) and joined Anders for the nearly 15 hour flight to Sydney.  So we basically spent an abbreviated 22nd in the air due to crossing the International Date line.

We are in a small resort hotel near Katoomba and went out and nike a couple of times (for a total of 6-7 miles and probably about 1000 vertical feet) after flying in.  The Blue Mountains (where we are) are pretty cool and quite scenic.  The weather was clear and very hot--certainly in the 80s!  Nice family dinner last night and we all crashed pretty early as we were quite tired to say the least!

Today (the 24th over here) we will do some more hiking, hang by the pool, buy some supplies for the climb, etc.  On Christmas morning we are leaving around 2 am and driving the 300 or so miles south of here to the town of Thredbo, where Kosi is.  We expect the roundtrip climb to only take bout 6 hours, we'll be sure to report back tomorrow on how things went and follow up with some pictures and maybe video when we get back to Sydney on the 26th!

All good now and if all goes well we will be submitting in less than 32 hours!

onward and upward!

rc

Belated Updates

Sorry for the long period of Radio Silence--lots going on.  This is intended to highlight several developments:

1. I did race and finish my 14th IM at IMAZ in November.  It was a long, hard day and I discovered that being fit and having trained a sufficient mount is actually pretty important to do well in an Ironman.  Unfortunately, I was not fit enough and it showed.  My swim was surprisingly good given how little I was able to swim.  The bike was mediocre and it was a challenging day, wind-wise.  My run, well wasn't.  Basically had to walk it.  Consequently a very long 15+ hour race.

But I did it and was happy to get it over with.  A real race report is forth coming.

2.  I thought that race would be my last IM but I finished feeling strangely motivated to get IM fit again--something that I really lacked this year.  Most importantly, for the first time in a long time, I'm actually sound enough body-wise to actually pursue some real training.  Frankly, it's been almost 3 years since that was true--ever since the femoral-nerve compression post Vinson Massif, I haven't been right for any sustained period.

3. This combined with Anders wanting to through his hat into the IM ring again means I'm going to try to give it another go.  We are doing IMFL together again next November and I'm very psyched.

4. Training-wise, I'm already in the pool, swimming shorter, higher intensity efforts 2-3X/week.  In January I'll start a more traditional pool based foundation session where I'll focus on a lot of structured speed work and 40k+ of monthly swim volume.  Bike wise, I've joined the Wahoo Kickr/Zwift revolution and in addition to Zwifting with Anders, I'm focused on getting 30-60 minutes of higher intensity training each day.  Come January-March, my intent will be to follow a structured set of high intensity rides and my intent will be to get my FTP up above 250 watts again, perhaps try to push it closer to 275.  I really haven't trained like that in the past three years--I'm very excited about this!

5. For me, I've got to make a breakthrough on the run, without actually running all that much because of my knee.  My plan is to water run or Alter-G (my buddy Sparty is offering to hook me up with one) 3 X 1 hour each week.  Treadmill at 15% incline and above 3mph or old school Stairmaster for up to 2 hours/week, and run 5-10 miles/week for the January-March period.  I'll also throw some 5ks in their for fitness tests.

6.  I'm going to shoot for 10 or so races next year and will definitely plan a half-Ironman or two as part of my IM build.

7.  The biggest news right now is our family's preparation to climb with Anders down in Australia as he goes after the 7th and final summit of his Seven Summits Project.  Stay tuned for updates on this as it's just around the corner!

Feeling good to climb back in the saddle again!