Exercise helps my back. If I don't exercise, that's when it starts to hurt. The pain is a good motivator to run and exercise.

Many people find it hard to understand what it is about a mountain that draws men and women to risk their lives on her freezing, icy faces - all for a chance at that single, solitary moment on the top. It can be hard to explain. But I also relate to the quote that says, Iif you have to ask, you will never understand.

The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word - extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me... and the more of these words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different... and for me to learn that ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it.

To get ready to climb Everest, I did a lot of hill running with a daypack on and a lot of underwater swimming. I would swim a couple of lengths underwater and then a couple above. It gets your body going with limited oxygen.

I always had a really natural faith as a kid. Where I knew God existed and it felt very free and pretty wild and natural, and it wasn't religious.

I try and eat really healthy when I'm home, but I certainly don't eat worms and snakes.

That feeling when you're so cold you'd give anything to be warm - I've had it before, literally huddled around a candle flame on an ice sheet.