My husband and his bootcamp fitness buddies were going to climb Snowden. Before I knew it, I heard the words ‘I can do that’ come out of my mouth.

Now bearing in mind that these guys have been committed to their fitness regime every single day for a good few years. Me on the other hand had just turned 50 and the only weights that I have been lifting are the ones that tend to burden my shoulders!

So, after a couple of feeble attempts to talk myself out of it, they were having none of it.

Bugger.

Now I’m no stranger to walking my talk. But this was LITERALLY walking.

On the big day we all rocked up for the bus to take us to the mountain. I could feel myself still searching for a plausible excuse. My inner child was having a right tantrum and the thought of having a celebratory Haribo at the top was not cutting it.

So, I surrendered.

I knew that I wasn’t fit, hell I’ve been saying it for the past two years and I had done zero training or preparation.

I would go at my own pace and I was determined to do it. At least we were doing the easy route, The Llanberis Path.

Should be ok.

Off I go and the group slowly disappeared from my sight, I stopped a few times for a snack and drink and more importantly to catch my breath.

It started to get a little steep and I could feel all sorts of emotions emerging. Irritation, sadness but I just kept focussing on the next step.

One thing that helped me was one of the guys in our group had a bright yellow coat on and every time I looked up, I could see him just disappearing around the next bend.

Brilliant – I’m not that far behind.

He was like a motivational signpost. This happened all the way to the top.

I had no intention on catching him up, but it was so encouraging to see.

When I reached the top, I was welcomed with a cheer and the most amazing thing was. I was only 10 minutes after them.

But that wasn’t the best news.

It turns out that we had gotten on the wrong bus and it had dropped us off to walk The Miners Path, which is harder!

That made my day.

On reflection of this huge physical challenge that I had taken on, I have vowed to never call myself unfit again. And just like the spiritual path, this mountainous path had someone just ahead of me, who was my source of inspiration and motivation.