The hotel transfer is now complete, actually it has been for a while, but Im just now getting a chance to get online.
After I got here, George and I went out for a long lunch alone and talked shop for around 2-3 hours. He was aware of the Aconcagua issues and it was good to hear his perspective on mountain related illnesses. He has been doing this for a very long time and has seen everything under the sun.
While not able to fully diagnose my situation, he did provide some insight to different cases he has seen over the years and some of his findings/thoughts were intriguing. He said, typically, you have less trouble with the altitude the older you get and that he has had numerous climbers that were in such good shape that it worked against them. The problem is your resting heart rate gets so low, that you cant get it up high enough to properly acclimatize. We discussed my training routine and I told him about when I was in the hospital in March how I kept setting the machine off because my resting heart rate routinely went below 50 and the machine thought I was dying so it beeped incessantly. Ironically, I trained harder for both Aconcagua climbs, especially the 2nd one when I lost 17 pounds while training, than any of the others. Is this the answer? Probably not the full answer, but it could be a small piece of the puzzle.
Ok, enough about that. So, I checked into the new hotel, and lets just say Im glad I didnt stay here all 3 nights. This hotel is obviously a budget option, has no AC, no alarm clock, and you have to return your tv remote to the front desk before checking out. Odd.
Im trying to watch the Alabama/Auburn game, but the only football on TV here is the kind where guys fall down when they are barely touched.
Our first team meeting is in 30 minutes, so I need to get rolling. George said there are 2-3 husband/wife groups on this trip and a few people who had issues on Aconcagua, so Im sure we'll swap war stories. Also, since there are 9 people, I am the odd man out. That means I get the hotel room and a tent to myself, which is totally fine with me - Now I dont have to worry about waking people up when I take my hourly leak!
Off to dinner, more when I return.
SZ
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