Day 12 – Livigno
Day Twelve: 19/02/23
Resting Heart Rate: 80bpm
Blood Saturation: 93
Back at it! Straight up the mountain. 500m vertical elevation, burning quad and calf muscles. Today I found myself crying a lot, mourning and letting out my emotion on the mountain. My anger from yesterday had turned into pure sadness. Sadness realising I’ll never be able to have those long chats with my friend again. Sadness that his wife will need to carry so much weight and sadness that the boys have lost an amazing father. I was just sad.
The snow was fresh and soft near the top so as I took a step, I would just slide back to where I was. The crampons wouldn’t grip on the steep soft powder snow. Hard work, my heart rate was above 180 hiking up the steep slopes. On the way back down the heart rate drops dramatically however the load on the lower back, knees and leg muscles is very intense. The slopes are so steep that I need to balance leaning back in the right position and get the weight of my step just firm enough to lock me into the snow, ready to safely take my next step. Descending is a constant load on the body.
In the afternoon we went riding on Snowmobiles. I was way too fatigued to really get into it, it takes a lot of shoulder strength and movement of body weight through the corners so the snow mobile doesn’t flip. I nearly high-sided on one of my first laps so decided to tone it down a bit and stopped racing my brother around the 20km lap.
Taking my mum Delwyn for a ride
Riding the snow mobiles
Wazza (Bro), mum and I
9:30am: Snow Hike
Distance: 6.41km
Moving Time: 1hr53min
Elevation Gain: 537m
Average HR: 141bpm
Max HR: 191bpm
Calories: 1,109
30min Snow Mobile on the 20km race track.