It's Done

Well bugger me that was hard.

If you signed up to the newsletters, have followed our progress on the website, or indeed seen any of the news clips about us in the last week, then you will know by now that our expedition was a success. Feels rather good to say that.

There were some hairy moments along the way, but then it would not have been much of an adventure if there weren't would it?

From my point of view it is great to breathe easy again (literally and metaphorically) in that nothing can go wrong now, it's done. Hopefully we will get the accreditation we need from Guinness, I can see no reason why we wouldn't especially given all the coverage we've received. Even if we don't, the fact is we know what we've achieved, and according to our PR guys, Captive Minds, so do 30 million other people, so I'll take that!

I have spent this morning looking over the photos I took, and all I can really say is that I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the ones George and Will took, as they will be considerably better! A few of mine are scattered around this post, to give you an idea of what we did if you've not already checked them out on the website or Flickr - there will of course be a few more to come now that we have equipment that works without peddling Yaks to supply the power!
I have to mention a few people who I would not have made it through the last three weeks without. Of course Kirt, for everything. No need to say more there. My sister Helen, who played Mum for pretty much the whole time which I was mostly greatful for! Hillsy, who saved my bacon in Lobuche when I hit my lowest point and thought I may have to turn around. G-Man was always around, Jules amused me no end and Glen was the perfect captain. There are others of course, medics Ian and Isla who were phenomenal, and Joe Williams, who's own struggles helped put mine into perspective, but yet he was almost always able to muster a smile.

You'll notice that Helen and I have now hit our £3000 fundraising target, which again eases a little pressure. However I would love to be able to push that a bit higher, so if you have the time or inclination please do log on and donate, it's for a wonderful cause and having now seen the part of the world we're trying to help, I can tell you that a little money will go a long way.

What next, well, I've been asked that multiple times already and I've barely been back 15 hours. Some decisions are already made, some are still to come, but I can assure my avid reader(s) that I shall continue blogging, although it may be at a different address to this.

So for now I shall sign off. There will be a book about this whole trip, from inception to completion and everything inbetween. If this is something you might be even remotely interested in then do comment and let me know.

The story includes front page news, corrupt government officials, massive highs and devastating lows. Throw in some humour, illness and a bunch of people from wildly different backgrounds who all have something different to offer and hopefully you'll have something that may be worth struggling through on a beach somewhere when you have nothing better to do!

Until next time.

The world's highest Umpire.

ps - for anyone wondering, I did not take a boil in the bag curry to eat on Everest, but plenty of rice and veg were eaten, so I reckon some of it must've been curried!

Kathmandu Christmas

Tom: "No can do I'm afraid"
Nick: "No can do, what's that, place near Kathmandu? Meet me halfway mate."

So goes the line from Lock, Stock and two Smokin' Barrels. Needless to say when I told people I would be spending Christmas and New Year in Kathmandu they immediately repeated the name of Nepal's capital back to me, to which I replied: "yeah, place near no can do".

Perhaps understandably, nobody got it - hence I am taking this opportunity to explain my gag - you will be pleased to know however that I persevered with it throughout the festive season, perhaps to the detriment of several friendships.

You may ask how it was, and those of you who have read Kirt's blog will know two things, it was busy and we got ill. To put into perspective quite how ill we seem to have got, I am still suffering now, and Kirt only went back to work yesterday - so the lesson to be learned here is avoid the burritos. We also met up with Charlie BN who was out there, which was an added bonus as it meant we could visit the Yak & Yeti.

I do have a couple of fairly amusing stories however. First of all, for those who don't know, Kathmandu is mental. Honestly, the place is full of motorbikes(which incidentally, drive where they please - so be careful on the pavements), you can't go two seconds without someone beeping their horn or someone offering you some form of smokeable product.

That is on a normal day, on Christmas Day at about 7pm when we arrived in Thamel, the craziness was increased ten-fold. We had to stop our cab a "five minute walk" from the guest house as the roads were closed off due to all the people partying. What ensued was quite an experience. I had no money in my wallet after some chancer persuaded me to pay him for doing nothing at the airport, so was very much in the hands of our guide Nir, and his mate Billy - who at this stage appeared to speak no English.

I soon found myself battling through what can only be described as the central line in rush hour - except in the middle of the street. I was also at the back of our team of four, which I decided to rectify as quickly as possible - particularly as Kirt and the guides actually knew where they were going and I had no idea, and no money to pay anyone to show me.

This proved a very wise move as Kirt and Nir soon vanished into the abyss and I was left with Billy, who simply uttered the word: "gone" after we had waited about 10 minutes. Fortunately we found the others swiftly enough and had a great night in a few bars with some wild boar curry and Everest Beer...obviously. After a few drinks it became evident that Billy spoke considerably more English that I thought, funny he chose to demonstrate this several hours after my moment of sheer panic, I have no doubt he was chuckling to himself the whole time.

My other rather amusing episode took place the following day. As some of you will know, I was fairly bearded by the time I left these shores, and as we discovered we would be meeting some fairly important people I decided to sort my face out with a beard trim – but got a little more than I bargained for.

There’s a barbers in the hotel – which is rather convenient, so in I went. There were about five people crammed into a tiny room and after rubbing my face several times the chap got the point. So he went to work and did a generally decent job – apart from the fact that he kept pulling the scissors away before closing them fully, thus pulling out a few hairs and making my neck bleed – but I guess you just accept these things.

Anyway, it was all going rather well and just as I thought he was done I went to stand up and he pushed me back down in my seat while saying something I didn’t understand. He then began rubbing some stuff into my red-raw neck which, let’s just say, burned. He then started giving me what was, I think, supposed to be an impromptu face massage. Without wanting to go into too many details – it was hell on earth. This burn-juice was rubbed into my neck three more times and he kept pressing his hands onto my temples and squeezing. Why I am not quite sure and I fail to see why anyone would enjoy such an experience. Still, he did succeed in waking me up before the meeting, so that was good.

As for the rest of the trip, you can see from the main blog and Yak Yak Yak that we were busy. Lots of meetings, all jolly good stuff but I won’t bore you with the admin side of things. The important stuff is that we managed to check out several bars and restaurants, hang out with several of the chaps who will accompany us up the mountain and learn a few new card games. I strongly suggest everyone gets well equipped with these games, the Nepali people love cards.

The illness that got us on New Years Eve made for an interesting start to 2009, and I genuinely hope that it’s not a sign of things to come. However, since coming back things have really gone into overdrive. There’s loads of really good stuff going on, most of which is courtesy of the Lord’s Taverners, but I cannot go into too much detail here. There’s actually a whole load of other things I could blog about but am aware this is getting a bit long so will tie it off now and save my other topics for a future date…by when I would have almost certainly forgotten them.

Thank you and come again.

Loving Every Minute

Busy days these I must say. It seems that every time someone asks me what I'm up to or where I am going, my answer is pretty much always Everest related. For example, tonight I am writing this, tomorrow I am meeting the Hillary boys, Wednesday Trim Trail, Thursday Hillary again. I could go on to next week as well, but I think you get the picture.

It may sound like I'm moaning, but actually the truth is far from it. I'm loving every minute of it, and what makes it so enjoyable is that so many others are as well, and people are really buying into the whole thing.

For example, I generally am a pretty lucky chap who comes from a good family and has, fortunately, never come across real hardship. I read a blog this morning that really brought home how lucky I am, firstly because of what I just said, but secondly to get a chance to know someone like Zooby, who seems to be having a slightly different experience to me.

As a group we've been gradually getting to know this bloke, but when I read his blog this morning I suddenly realised that I didn't know him at all apart from the odd email and boozey conversation. Yet this guy clearly has a story to tell. You can read it by clicking here. For what it's worth fella, I'm really glad you're on board and going to be sticking around.

Meeting people is one of the things I live for. I've got a great group of friends who I wouldn't swap for anything, but knowing there are so many brilliant people out there makes it worth getting up in the morning. Already through this adventure I have discovered a whole load of cool people, guys I hope I'll stay in touch with long after April next year. And that's what it's all about.

At the same time there is a bit of self discovery that's gone on too. Learning a bit about myself and finding out who I am and what I'm capable of. I didn't think I could get round a marathon - part of me still thinks it was a dream...I mean nightmare....but I did. If I can do that I wonder what else is possible? Getting to Everest is the next goal, but what after that?

One thing I'm certain of is that if I attack every future challenge with the same drive and enthusiasm that I, and everyone else, is attacking this one, the some seriously cool things can be achieved.

I've fired this blog entry off at rapid speed - my pasta is still on the hob, so it's a tad wishy washy and for that I apologise, I'll actually update on a few things that are happening next time - and as I said at the start - there's a lot!

Right, pastas is almost ruined, until next time.

Chatting with Graham Napier

When my mobile rang last Friday afternoon I was at work feeling truly hideous after another night out with the Hillary boys and a few Trektators, so it was perhaps not the ideal time to have a chat with the man who took this years Twenty20 Cup by storm.

At the start of the summer Graham Napier was a promising allrounder at Essex and had toured with England A in 2004, alongside Kevin Pieteren and Matt Prior, but after an astonishing 152* against Sussex in June his career is taking off.

Details of the innings itself can be found all over the place, but that is not what I wanted to talk to him about, I wanted to discuss his trek to Everest Base Camp last winter, and it seems I was not the first.

"It's safe to say the Everest trip has proved a popular topic of conversation, and I enjoy telling everyone about it," he said.

"There were times on the trip when I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into, it was seriously cold up there, but the altitude was by far the toughest aspect.

"I was OK,but one of our guys, Cameron, had to be helicoptered off the mountain on the penultimate day, which brought home just how difficult it was."

From my point of view perhaps the best line he came out with was to do with fitness: "it seemed to be the fitter guys who struggled more, because they went off too quickly. Nick Compton is one example, he took on a hill pretty fast one morning and paid for it for about two days!"

When the conversation moved on to the cricket match they played at Gorak Shep Graham gave a small chuckle.

"It was no more than beach cricket really, and a useful distraction because we were all feeling pretty terrible by that stage. For us the cricket was a small aside, it was all about reaching Base Camp."

When I told him what we're planning he was supportive in the extreme, and had plenty of advice to give.

"When I played the game I think I was wearing thermals, base layers, a jumper, fleece and a coat, and it was still pretty cold.

"Night was the worst though. One night I couldn't be arsed to get up and go to the toilet so just peed in my water bottle, which then proved to be a great source of warmth! After that I took boiled water to bed with me every night.

Another tip was to wrap up all your batteries to keep them warm: "you'll want a good camera because around every corner there's another amazing view, and the cold sucks all the life out of your electrical gear, so I wrapped my batteries in socks each night."

I coud easily tell how excited Graham was when he began talking, and the fact that we are taking up around 50 people was something he saw as a plus for us, because the camaradarie is so important in getting through the tough times.

I almost began to wonder if he was serious when he said: "if this season hadn't gone so well I would probably be trying to get on the trip with you!" Well Graham, I can tell you now, there's a spot on Team Hillary for you - we need all the help we can get!

I owe a massive thanks to Graham for taking the time out to talk to me, he was incredibly pleasant to speak with, as was his agent Greg Lansdowne - who I hassled for some time.

Despite the season being over he is still a busy man. On Wednesday he was at an awards dinner at Lords to pick up the Walter Lawrence Trophy in recognition of his innings against Sussex, and he will shortly be heading out to Hong Kong to represent England in the Sixes competition, a tournament he won in 2004, before once again playing for Wellington in New Zealand.

Despite all this he was kind enough to offer to write something for us and lend his full support to The Everest Test, hopefully next time he calls I will be slightly less hungover and able to ask some decent questions!

The time is nigh

Hi folks,

This is likely to be my last post before the marathon. How do I feel? Nervous as hell that's how.

Last weekend I went to Dubai on a work jolly, which was great but hardly ideal preparation! I didn't manage to get a run in which was disappointing, but not crucial I don't think. I ran for an hour last night and will go again tomorrow morning, then it's sit back, eat pasta and wait for Sunday.

Helen and I started up our fundraising page last week and seem to be going along quite well so far, as I write we are barely £2 away from the £600 mark, a decent start.

I also recently finished reading 'Every Second Counts' by Lance Armstrong. Now, this guy needs no introduction, he's a proper legend. I can't remember if I said, but I was lucky enough to have him as a guest speaker at a recent company do in Hawaii and he was really inspiring. More than that though, he has given me my slogan - "Pain is temporary, quitting is permanent." There shall be no quitting on my watch!

Work for Everest is coming along well, although I'm gutted to be missing the big meeting this weekend where the captains will be named. Fortunately I'm in the loop with that and will be speaking with Kirt and Charlie on Thursday about who will lead Team Hillary. There's so many decent candidates that it won't be an easy choice, but I guess the good thing about this is that no choice will be the wrong one.

One negative was that I had to send out a nasty email today chasing people for payment, that sucked but needed to be done. Did kind of make me feel like an asshole though.

Anyway, wish me luck and I'll let you know how I got on...if I survive!

Addicted to....

A little while ago, I forget when exactly, somebody made the mistake of emailing the old classic Tetris to me at work. I was addicted to this thing at school, and it seems the years have not diminished my enthusiasm for a game that is basic to the point of making me wonder if my IQ is gradually sliding downwards with every passing moment I play it.

All this made me wish I was able to get addicted to things that might be good for me, such as running, cycling, cooking healthy food etc. When I started training for this marathon lots of people said how I would get addicted to running and find it taking priority over everything else. Well, what a load of rubbish that was.

Seriously, all I have got addicted to from this training is buying plasters. I'm not kidding, all I concentrate on these days is finding ways to protect my feet and so far Compeed plasters have proved the way forward. I even bought some surgical spirit yesterday in an attempt to make my feet harder.

It reminds me of that scene in Forrest Gump where Lieutenant Dan tells Bubba and Gump to look after their feet and I know where he's coming from. Am I going to make it round this 26.2 mile course in Berlin in less than a month? I am starting to doubt it. What I am going to do is give it my best, and if I come up short, well, so be it.

Back to the Everest line, I've noticed how proud Glen is about getting himself in the South London Press and how he has been boasting about being the first to get some publicity(we also had a mention on Cricinfo recently) thus I am forced to burst his bubble.

The Wimbledon Guardian carried a story on me back on the second of August, so it's safe to say I am hugely famuos in my local area and spend my days walking around in disguise to avoid being mobbed by the local hero-worshippers....maybe not. Still, read all about me(even more) right here.

Until next time folks.

Padding up and getting the runs

During the last few weeks the Everest Test has become increasingly intense, which quite frankly, is bloody marvellous.

On Sunday 6th July eight of us ran the London 5K at some absolutely horrible hour; we met at 7:30am and having sunk multiple beers and eaten copious amounts of barbecued meat the night before I was actively encouraging everyone to "maximise our exposure" by going as slowly as possible. The race had to be completed in an hour so why waste coverage time by finishing any quicker??

My words clearly fell on deaf ears however, as we ran round in about 33 minutes which I was pretty surprised about - although I was more surprised by the fact that I thought I was going to die coming into the home straight and only have Ben Jarman to thank for his constant pep talks to get me over the line!

Now, as you may have read below I am planning to run a marathon at the end of September, so it is probably not such a good sign that I am struggling to get round a three-mile course. Well, hopefully come Berlin I will not be padded up and have a serious case of the meat sweats before I even start.

However, do not be surprised if that is the case on September 7th when myself and another load of Everest cricketers go round the Gyro 10K(http://www.gyro-events.com/) in full cricket gear once again, although I will do my utmost to avoid Kirt, Miles and Jules the night before this time!

Some of the boys are also doing the Nike 10k the week before but by the sounds of it full cricket gear is not acceptable dress for that one...tossers.

So, exercise aside I am spending my time desperately trying to avoid massive booze ups, which is really quite tough. Last weekend was my work summer ball - free alcohol all night - and this weekend is another company do, but this one is in Hawaii. Three days of non-stop alcohol consumption is likely to put my training back about two months, which is hardly ideal as I've only been doing it for six weeks, so at this rate I may not even make the start line!

My major concerns currently are my knees and constant blisters, I saw a physio yesterday who absolutely beat the crap out of me and left me bruised this morning, but it's all about no pain no gain eh?

So on that note I'm off to trap my hand in a door, as that's bound to hurt so I am sure make me gain in the long run....see what I did there?

Until next time....