They say one can do the Everest Base Camp trek with a moderate fitness level. However for someone who lives in the tropics and trying to grasp this 12-day long ass walk to the world's tallest mountain, we wanted to make sure we were fit.

 

Better to be over-prepared than under.

 

I started training in July 2016. Dad and I made it a point to trek at least once a month, gradually increasing the difficulty of the mountain. Come 2017, we increased the frequency of our treks to almost every weekend. We wanted to get into the motion of having to keep walking on and on and on. Click here for the list of mountains we did for training.

 

Along with that, I did the following activities at least 2-3 times a week:

 

1. Circuit training

2. Crossfit

3. Muay Thai - For exercise-variation so I won’t get bored

4. Bikram Yoga - For my breathing and stretching my muscles

5. Zen Meditation - For my breathing and focus

 

 

Even if I had the power and energy to do more days of training, I had to remember that I should not overtrain either. Because if I did, I put myself in more risk of getting injured. And a sprain is the last thing I wanted. I had to remember to give my muscles time to rest and relax. I frequently called for home service sports / deep tissue massage whenever my muscle sores got really bad.

 

The only thing that was could not train for was the altitude. There’s no place in the Philippines that was high enough to have the thinness of air. The closest place that had it would be Mt. Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia. So we had to do without it and just had to be mindful to trek slowly.

 

 

 

Read next: Packing for EBC  > > > >

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