As she prepares for her attempt on Everest, Grania Willis, fast-paced guinea pig volunteer, describes being put on a treadmill and wired for everything but sound at a lab usually reserved for elite athletes
HEALTH WARNING: couch potatoes avert your gaze. What you are about to read could seriously damage your health.
If the prospect of being run to exhaustion on a treadmill, with a mask clamped over your mouth and nose and someone taking blood from a hole in your finger every three minutes has limited appeal, then this article is not for you. If, on the other hand, you consider the supremely fit athlete to be a thing of beauty, then read on.
A body toned and tuned to perfection, ready to produce a winning performance on command, has always held a fascination. The ability to push that body to the limits of endurance and beyond has an appeal for me that most right-minded people would believe raises serious questions about my sanity.
But I've always wanted to push myself to the limit; to see what happens when there's nothing left in the tank. I entered the Dublin marathon in 1989 on the morning of the race itself, having previously run nothing over six miles.
I thrive on a challenge and, although the under four-hour first-timer target eluded me by just over a minute because I ran with a conservatism inspired by a healthy respect for the so-called "wall", I sprinted the last leg because I still had so much in reserve.
A serious back injury the following year put paid to my running career, but hill walking and now climbing have taken over and, with a view to an attempt on Everest next year, I booked myself in for a thorough overhaul in Trinity College, Dublin's Human Performance Laboratory before leaving for Nepal to tackle a 6,500-metre peak in the Himalaya (not Himalayas).
The idea was first mooted when I met some of Ireland's top equestrians just after they had undergone the Trinity grilling that is designed to assist in the honing of the perfect athlete so that they peak at exactly the right time. Knowing I was something of a fitness freak, they suggested that I should have a go and, with Nepal coming up and wanting to know if my fitness regime was on the right track, I decided to give it a go.
Oddly enough, the toughest challenge was actually getting through the doors, as the tight-knit team in the Anatomy Department is used to dealing with elite athletes, not some hack who thinks it might be fun to run to dropping-point on a treadmill.
Bernard Donne, director of the Human Performance Lab, was none too impressed when I phoned and asked if he would put me through my paces. It was only when I revealed my climbing aspirations that he agreed to take me on.
So I finally breached the hallowed portals of Trinity's Anatomy Department only to be greeted by a disembodied voice "encouraging" an unseen athlete who had obviously reached the end of their energy tether and wished to be released from the torture.
Shortly afterwards, a tall, red-faced being, svelte to the point of fragility, tottered past me and fled - slowly - to freedom.
With rising trepidation, I made my way into the inner sanctum to be met by Dr Nick Mahony, who lectures in anatomy and sports medicine and who does all the preliminary medical checks on all athletes before they are assessed.
While I was filling in a detailed questionnaire on my general state of health, marathon-running pharmacist Barbara Casey, the escapee, returned voluntarily, to go through her results with Nick. As an asthmatic and a coeliac with a lactose intolerance, Barbara has a higher "wall" to scale than most marathon runners, but the Trinity team, with a skilful blend of toughness and sympathy, have her on the right road.
Brian Maher, a cross-country runner from Meath, was next into the lion's den and, after a warm-up and stretching programme, was put onto the treadmill and set in motion. "How long will you be running?" I queried innocently. "How long is a piece of string," Bernard Donne put in, as Brian's answering ability was severely curtailed by the mask sunctioned onto his face.
All too soon I was the one up on the treadmill, harness in place as it is for all tests to prevent a possible fall. Starting at 9 kph, the speed was increased by a kilometre every three minutes, so that I was up to 16 kph by the end of 27 minutes. The mask, which measures metabolic data, including oxygen consumption and respiratory exchange rates, was quite claustrophobic and, with Bernard taking blood from my finger intermittently to measure lactate levels, it was hard to concentrate on running.
Having lanced my fingertip with a blade before the start of the test, Bernard told me not to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding as he would be taking blood throughout. Unfortunately, my body's defence mechanisms in the shape of clotting came into play and, when Bernard next squeezed the finger, no blood. "So you're one of the non-bleeding Willises are you?" he asked, as he attacked me with the blade again.
As I reluctantly held out my hand on the next command, the words "You've joined the bleeding Willises" were music to my ears and, thankfully, I remained a member of the bleeding Willis clan, proffering blood on demand for the rest of the test.
Increased lactate levels in the blood are an indicator of fatigue, establishing the threshold where the body switches from working aerobically to anaerobically. Increased lactate tolerance plays a crucial role in improving fitness levels and I now know that I have to become more economic during lower intensity exercise to increase my stamina and endurance, both vital components in the climber's arsenal.
"Can you go another one?" Bernard asked, as he upped the speed to 16 kph for the next three minutes. I nodded agreement, because I was having to dig fairly deep now, but Bernard was full of encouragement. "Come on Grania, you need this one. Just over a minute left. 45 seconds 10 seconds." Suddenly it was all over and I was allowed to walk for a while, before being put back into a cool-down jog that seemed tortuously slow after the previous speeds.
Gratifyingly, my chart records that my aerobic capacity is "very good". My VO2 max - the amount of oxygen consumed per kilo of body mass per minute - of 55.4 per cent is apparently around 80 per cent higher than the average for my age group and on a par with the Athens-bound hockey teams and equestrian athletes.
My bone density scan, which Human Performance Lab founder Prof Moira O'Brien suggested I should have, was less encouraging, but I shall be redressing the balance with increased calcium and Vitamin D intake.
The session ended with Bernard going through my results in detail before he mapped out a new training regime for me. So, after my return from Nepal in May, I'll be back on the Trinity treadmill for Bernard to assess what improvements I've made and how training at altitude has affected my performance.
• Grania Willis is the Equestrian Correspondent for The Irish Times