Mt. Kinabalu--marathon without running!

In case anyone else enjoys climbing vertical things, thought I would share my experience climbing Gunung Kinabalu (Malaysian Borneo) last week. It's a beautiful mountain, but currently the weather is quite horrible--8-9 hours of rain each day I was in the area, starting between 11 AM and 2 PM. the trail consists of endless, large steps from about 1600 meters up to the lodges at 3200+ meters. It is supposed to take about 6 hours--I made it easily in 4 including a 1/2 hour lunch break. One spends the night at one of the lodges, and begins climbing the folowing day at 2-3 AM.

The second day is more vertical, and includes sections with ropes to help pull yourself up, not slide on wet rock or (in my case) not get blown off the mountain by gale-force winds.  People generally summit before dawn and stay on top for the sunrise; in my case, I summited in the middle of a cloud at 5 AM and there was no hope of seeing anything, so I headed back down. I didn't find summiting difficult or have any trouble with altitude; after seeing what I'd galloped up on the way down, I might have found it a bit scary--I guess that's the advantage of climbing in the dark (moon was bright enough before dawn until the summit area so I actually climbed by it rather than my headlamp).  On the way down, depending on which tour you booked, you have the option to engage in technical climbing for newbies via a via ferrata course on the big rock face. I enjoyed dangling off the mountain while attached to a steel cable (seriously). The deal-breaker is the last descent down from the lodge. I felt fine at the start but by 2km to go my quads were absolutely destroyed. Guess I can only chalk it up to the relentless decent (2500 vertical meters in 8 kilometers) and long day. At any rate, the last 2 km felt exactly like a marathon (if I trip and fall, I will just lie there and wait for death......), and it took about 5-6 days to feel like a human being again. 

This week I have great power for swimming kick and bike--even my swim coach noticed.  So if you want a (wet) marathon without running, and you like nature (cool plants, giant earthworms, fat pygmy squirrels) this would be a great "cross-training" workout! Would also recommend it for anyone who wants to know what marathoning feels like, but doesn't want to run one!

BTW  There is actually a trail race up and down this monster--men's record about 2:30, women's about 3:30. OMG!