as far as i can remember an ultra or expedition runner has never appeared at one of the key mountain festivals in the UK so for Keswick to roll out Jez Bragg and Rosie Swales (alongside the likes of Ian Parnell and Mike Stroud), really is top stuff
i wonder if Joss Naylor could be persuaded out of Wasdale to spin a yarn or two
the Keswick festival lectures are all at the beautiful Theatre by the Lake
the outline programme and all the usual gubbins can be found here
so the week winter mountaineering in Lochaber has been timed to collide with the Ft William festival maybe a weeks guiding or ultra running needs to be scheduled for 13 - 17 May 09
with a breaking strain lower than that needed to snap a Kit Kat, i had momentarily agreed to enter the 09 UTMB. i re-read my lessons learnt from the 08 DNF almost pressed buy on-line for the few bits of kit geekery that i wished i had taken last year then remembered i am due in church in the Peak District on the last weekend of August 09 best man for my best friend i have a lower DNF rate as his best man having finished the task once before
good luck with the entry lottery for the rest of you
a while ago, during another spate of internet-rabbit-holeing, i found the blog of Alastair Humphreys the devil that is Amazon-one-click-ordering sent me both of the books that he wrote about his 46000 mile / 4 year cycle ride around the world. in lunch hours, loo stops and late nights i have just finished both books. probably the best travel writing i have read since i finished Danzigers Travels a long long time ago. and Danzigers Travels changed my life (and the rabies innoculation put me in A&E).
a cleverer-than-i literary reviewer wrote this;
“…if a lad from Yorkshire can overcome international terrorism, dysentery, a crushing Siberian winter and a month without showering… then there’s not really any reason why we all can’t. He may not have meant it, but Humphreys’ engaging, sometimes brutal, sometimes comic style is above all a call to arms… documented with unflinching honesty. Humphreys conveys his loneliness, wanderlust, grit and despair in a manner reminiscent of the great tradition of British explorers. He may have spent many hours asking why the hell he was doing this; anyone reading his book may, in the great tradition of watching British explorers, be more curious as to whether this man was insane or not.” - The Guardian
and the best radio station on earth wrote this;
“Wonderful…” - Midweek, BBC Radio 4
you can buy both books, or one of them, or download one, or read the new book, or neither, or all here
do your imagination, ambition, intellect, sense of humour, sense of geography and sense of adventure a favour and indulge. it will not disappoint
i have spent quite a few posts over the last year or two rattling on about my own fund raising for various charities related to the welfare and rehabilitation of military personnel in the UK. i have also rattled on about a Mr David Goggins of the USA. David has similar fundraising aims. Except he goes about his in a David Goggins kind of way .....
"I’m nobody special. Let’s be perfectly clear…I don’t like to run. I don’t like to swim. I don’t like to bike. I do this to raise money for the children of soldiers killed in combat.
I joined the military over 13 years ago to push my limits. When I first joined, I couldn’t run down to the mailbox. I weighed 290lbs. The guy at the recruiting office looked at me like I didn’t have a chance. He was very wrong. I became a Navy Seal.
Well, after 9/11 hit, I lost some buddies in a mission that went bad in Afghanistan. I vowed to do something for the children of those fallen soldiers. I started looking into ways to raise money for them. I really didn’t think selling lemonade on the street corner would work, so I went online and Googled the 10 hardest things to do in the world.
That led me to enter the worlds toughest endurance races – I figured if I experienced some serious physical pain it would inspire people to get interested and donate some money. Someone told me about this ultra marathon race in Death Valley called “Badwater” (a 135 mile race in 120 degree heat). I didn’t even know what an ultra marathon was. So, I called up the race director of Badwater to see if he let me in. He asked me how many 100 mile runs I had done. I said, “None”. Then he asked how many marathons I had done. “None”, I said. He said I had to have at least one ultra marathon under my belt before he could consider letting me in. Long story short, I got that ultra marathon under my belt and haven’t stopped running since.
I know what it’s like to run 203 miles with busted-up feet. I know what it’s like to be alone three miles out in the freezing ocean in the middle of the night. I know what it’s like to bike 500 miles non-stop. I’m not scared of extreme pain. I’m nobody special, but I refuse to say the words: “I can’t”.
With the Special Ops Warrior Foundation's help, we put 266 kids through college last year. And that's what keeps me going. Like I said, I don't like running. I don't like biking. I don’t like swimming. I do it to raise money. But, now that I'm in this sport I want to see how far I can push myself. What makes me tick is that pain you feel when you do these ultramarathons. I can take a lot of pain.
