Grania Willis, who is attempting to become the first Irish woman to climb the north face of Mount Everest, was given a rude awakening in her latest fitness test en route to her attempt on the world's highest mountain.
The last fitness assessment I was subjected to in Trinity College's human performance laboratory was in May of last year. Fresh from five weeks climbing in Nepal, I was fighting fit and, with an elevated red blood cell count from the time at altitude, increased oxygen uptake meant my powers of endurance were considerably enhanced.
In the run-to-failure test, the comparison with my pre-climb assessment two months earlier was impressive. My VO2 max - the amount of oxygen consumed per kilo of body mass per minute - had increased from 55.4 to 64.5. But that was a year ago. Now, with the clock ticking ever faster in the countdown to my departure for Everest at the end of March, it was time to grit my teeth and take on another fitness assessment to check whether I was at least heading in the right direction in my training.
Unfortunately, my so-called "training" had taken on a less than traditional profile in the build-up to a January assessment at a new venue, Peak Centre Ireland in Dublin's Sandyford industrial estate. During a marathon run of late-night sessions that threatened to cause repetitive strain injury to my right arm and gave a serious workout only to my liver, I tried convincing myself that going to the gym with the mother of all hangovers was effectively simulating conditions on the mountain.
Altitude sickness in its less acute form is remarkably similar to a serious dose of the morning-after the night-before, so I reckoned if I could subject myself to a super-tough workout while feeling like death not very successfully warmed-up, my body would be ready for the big challenge at the end of March.
Living at sea level, I couldn't claim that lack of oxygen had affected what Belgian super-sleuth Hercule Poirot calls the little - in my case increasingly little - grey cells.
So who was I fooling? Only myself because, alas, I couldn't fool sports physiologist Carl Petersen, manager at Peak Centre Ireland, and his array of high calibre testing equipment that rapidly saw through my thinly veiled pretence at elite athlete status.
With the usual formalities of medical questionnaire, body fats et al done and dusted, I could escape the torture chamber - aka the treadmill - no longer. But, having got used to the claustrophobic masks used both in Trinity and on my last big climb in Tibet in September, I was pleasantly surprised to be handed a different sort of contraption by Petersen.
The Peak Centre variety has an adjustable headpiece that holds the whole thing in place and, instead of the all-encompassing mask I had previously encountered, there was a mouthpiece reminiscent of those used for scuba diving, along with a nose peg to ensure I inhaled and exhaled only through my mouth. Petersen adjusted the headpiece, asking if it was tight enough before I put the mouthpiece in, effectively cutting off all forms of communication other than sign language.
With the pre-exercise blood analysis done, my left forefinger became the victim of an intermittent stabbing campaign once the treadmill was up and running, or at least once I was up and running on the treadmill. But, not much more than halfway through the test, the sign language was called into play as I tried to alert Petersen to the fact that one of my laces had come undone. His efforts at interpretation were impressive in their range, but way off the mark.
Eventually I got the message across, the treadmill had to be stopped and the lace re-tied, with a double bow to prevent a repeat. Back up to speed and I was pleased with my progress. Even Petersen was encouraging, complimenting me on my strong, relaxed pace.
But it was still early days and another interruption was looming. My drink-diminished brain cells had apparently caused a corresponding decrease in the girth of my skull and I attempted to sign to Petersen that the headpiece was now seriously loose and using the bridge of my nose as a trampoline.
But a joint attempt to tighten the headpiece while I was still running resulted in part of the apparatus becoming detached - permanently. I was in good company as the last person to do similar damage to the equipment was former rugby international Paul Wallace, but if I thought it meant a reprieve from further torture I was wrong.
Without the maximal oxygen uptake analysis, a VO2 max result was impossible, but Petersen decided to continue the test and at least get some data from the bloods and heart rate monitor. That was useful in itself, but incomplete without the VO22 max, so I offered to return three days later and do the test again.
In full self-flagellation mode, I decided that only a thorough thrashing in the gym the next day would purge me of my recent excesses.
My overworked legs certainly knew they'd been through the mill and, 48 hours later, they were back on the mill out in Sandyford as I was run to exhaustion again.
The combined effects of two fitness tests in three days, a big gym session in between and the extra-curricular activities made for an early collapse and pretty depressing reading when the results were analysed. My VO2 max had plummeted to 53 and, even though Petersen told me that a lot of 30-year-olds - and I'm certainly not 30 - would be delighted with that, I was appalled.
My haematocrit levels, the percentage of red blood cells in whole blood, had dropped from a May 2004 post-climb 0.441 to just 0.374. With fewer red blood cells to transport oxygen around the system, my endurance levels - so vital on an 8,000 metre mountain - would be seriously compromised.
It was a timely wake-up call. A nun's habit and the habits of a nun are now the order of the day. From now until apres-Everest, chastity, sobriety and, after last month's indulgences, poverty rule.
Grania Willis is aiming to become the first Irish woman to summit the north face of Mount Everest in a charity fundraiser in aid of the Friends of St Luke's Hospital and the Irish Hospice Foundation. Donations can be made to The Grania Willis Everest Challenge, Permanent TSB, Blackrock, Co Dublin, sort code 99-06-44, account number 86877341.