Mountain climber shares training tips

We had a chat with , Charlin Ntuli who this year, took part in Trek4Mandela to raise funds for sanitary pad donations to keep girl children from missing school.

Ntuli Ntuli, a 40-year-old enterprise and supplier development superintendent at Glencore Ferroalloys trained for almost a year in her preparation to summit Mount Kilimanjaro. Training, along with her teammates, included tackling multiple hikes in the Drakensburg range, Suikerbos in Heidelberg as well as the Westcliff stairs in Johannesburg. 

She shared some training tips with us:

1. Mental fitness is key

One needs to be mentally prepared for what lies ahead and be open to walking for long hours daily. To keep up, you need to have a resilient spirit

2. Do not have expectations and be open to change

Kilimanjaro takes one out of their comfort zone, there’s no special treatment on the mountain. We are all the same, our positions in society, at our different workplaces really do not matter. For example, you will go for days without taking a bath and you need to be okay with that and learn to adapt.

3. Be prepared to be part of the team

I have found the African proverb: “if you want to go fast, go alone and if you want to far, go together” to be true. We did it as a team because we were together, hiking is an extremely slow sport and is mentally challenging thus you need a team to keep you motivated. The journey to the top can be very lonely and mentally exhausting thus having people around you, people to share your daily experiences with, laugh and cry with really made a huge difference

4. Adhere to the training programmes

Our programme was drafted by an experienced mountaineer, Mr Sibusiso Vilane, he has summitted a number of mountains around the world including Mount Everest and has summitted Kilimanjaro more than 30 times. We were guided by someone with extensive knowledge and experience thus all the recommended training was worth it and adherence was key.

5. Limit your research or try not to ask too many things from those who have done it before

I have learned that although we climb the same mountain, our experiences will never be the same, so doing too much research or asking too many questions from those who have done it before can leave you overwhelmed.

Some will share their bad experiences which can leave one very anxious, the less you know the better.

In addition, what was the recovery process like when you got back?

Because I had comrades marathon coming a few weeks after I returned from Kilimanjaro, I didn’t have much time to rest however my recovery was very quick actually. I made sure that for the first few days I rest my body and got enough sleep.

The biggest challenge during the summit journey is actually mountain sickness more than anything therefore as soon as you are back at the normal altitude which is under 2000m above sea level then you start to feel much better.

I would say recovery differs from person to person, for some it might be quicker and for some, it might take longer