Over the Christmas and New Year period, I drew up a training and hiking plan and decided that the hiking would need to take priority over dancing for the time being.

So I planned some weekend hikes up bigger and bigger mountains here in Spain. I looked at the elevation of them and tried to plan so I would hike a bigger mountain every week and increase my capacity for going up steep hills. I started setting my sights on:

1. Pico Torrecilla
2. La Concha
3. Pico Huma
4. Mulhacen in Sierra Nevada

I also decided to do lots of hiking during the week around one of my favourite trails near Casares.

I began with good old Sierra Carbonera on 2nd January and did Sierra Crestallina near Casares on 4th. Every time I went hiking in Casares, it rained on me, so my plans of going up, then descending down and going back up the tricky goat path again got thwarted as it was too slippery and dangerous!

I didn't manage to do Pico Torrecilla, but hiked Pico Huma at El Chorro on 16h and finally did La Concha on the 21st. I loved Pico Huma - HATED La Concha! La Concha had some horrible drop offs and I found it difficult to stay ahead of my fear of heights on this one. However - the fact that I did it at all shows how much I actually have overcome that fear!

I did Pico de Mijas on the 29th and in between the big hikes, did several routes around Casares, carrying a bigger backpack loaded with more weight than I would be carrying on Kili.

By the end of January, I was starting to feel pretty good.