Walking. Easy, right? You pick one foot up and put it in front of the other. Why, I walked all the way down to the shops the other day, can't see what all the fuss is about.
Except the funny thing is, you put one foot in front of the other enough times and things start to accumulate. Bits of muscle you didn't know you had seize up, the friction on your toes has the cumulative effect of brushing them repeatedly against a brick covered in sandpaper, and you develop chafing in places other activities cannot reach. The only cure for it is training. So today was my first training walk.
You might think I'd begin with a nice gentle stroll through easy terrain to get used to it. No sir, for I am made of sterner stuff. I took as my inspiration the mystical monks of the High Himalaya and chose for my first training walk a pilgrimage to a legendary temple where highly skilled acolytes practice their finely honed pugilistic skills.
Yes, my first challenge was the tricky ascent of Twickenham Stadium, via the arduous and little used Richmond Park col. Without, I should add, supplementary oxygen. And so it was, on a sunny august morning, I bid my loved ones farewell and set out along the Upper Richmond Road.
The Ur-Road (as it is known in ancient scripts) is one of the great commerce routes of Southern England, daily traversed by caravans of merchants trafficking rare goods from east to west and west to east, often stuck behind caravans of holidaymakers trafficking screaming kids from... well, you get the picture. For many years, the very idea of the Ur-Road was a joke among North Londoners, who believed that no serious commercial traffic could negotiate the narrow passes and treacherous obstacles. Yet here I was, traversing the very route that Marco Polo might have taken if he'd decided to go to Chiswick instead of China.
At least until I turned off up Sheen Lane. A short, technical climb past the dangerous LTA, with its ever-present threat of falling tennis balls, and I was at the Sheen Gate. Often ignored in travel guides in favour of other, more famous (and, let's be honest, bigger) portals such as Tiananmen Gate, this wrought iron monstrosity stands still as a reminder of Victorian England, when the British Empire covered so much of the world that the sun never set upon it. Nobody had pointed out to them that they could achieve the same effect with less administrative burden if they just claimed the North and South Poles. Or maybe that's what Captain Scott was trying to do.
Here, my map suggested a direct route, cutting a bold segment across the park from South East to North North West. But I, I took the one less travelled by. Has it made all the difference? That's for me and Robert Frost to know, and you to find out. If butterfly can flap its wings and change the course of a hurricane, I think the chances for a bloke out walking are far higher. I'm much bigger than a butterfly. All I can tell you is that my feet didn't start hurting until I reached the end of the park.
From there, it was just a quick stride down through the outskirts of Richmond and into Twickenham, with a little detour to St Margarets (one of those places the train stops at and you think "What a pretty name for a station. I bet it's lovely." It's always disappointing to find out that, these days, it's just another bit of suburbia). Of course, I say it's a quick stride, but by this point that old cumulative effect thing (remember the top of the blog? Back when you were young and all this were fields?) had kicked in and it was more a medium-pace trudge-shuffle-wince.
Once there, I met my family for the traditional rugby-day tradition of a curry. It's also quite appropriate training for a trek in Nepal, of course. Except I picked the one restaurant in Twickenham that serves Keralan cuisine, from southern India. But I don't care, because it's a nice restaurant, child-friendly and we like it. It's called Pallavi, if you want to look it up.
After that, we made our way to the mystical temple that is Twickenham Stadium. We only went as far as the metaphorical base camp of the Lower North Tier (under 5s like my son are not allowed in the higher tiers. Presumably the medical research of taking them that high has not been completed, though I've heard rumours that the doctor who's taking his kids to Everest this summer is planning that for his next trick).
Finally, we settled in to watch the real experts do their stuff. But despite valiant efforts, the Welsh team were unable to scale the mountainous peak that is Simon Shaw and were eventually buried under an avalanche of tries. No-one ever said this stuff was safe.
Which, oddly enough, was a thought that had come back to haunt me when I finally got home and inspected my feet. I'd walked about 8 miles - not, if I'm honest, that far - but I'd been going quite quickly, under two hours for the lot. The little whoosh of hot, moist air that greeted me when I unlaced my boots was worryingly reminiscent of the one you get when you open one of those trendy "steam it in the microwave" ready meals. I was half expecting to find some lightly cooked quinoa in my socks. Maybe next time I'll go more slowly.
So overall, how am I bearing up? Sore enough that I wince when I climb the stairs, stiff enough that I walk bow-legged like a John Wayne impersonator, but nothing that won't fade by the end of the weekend. Training has started, and it was OK.
Saturday, 4 August 2007
Wednesday, 18 July 2007
Training... after a fashion
This week was a breakthrough week for my training. Sort of.
I've been getting back into the cycling groove (8.5 miles each way to and from work, I'm trying to do 2-3 days a week). It's actually quite hard to combine cycling for training and commuting purposes. In London, you quickly reach a level where the main influence on your journey time is how many red lights you stop at. So the temptation to sprint when you're approaching a light that you know might change is very high, and there are a lot of lights on my route. Which means I tend to spend a lot of time with my heart rate well above the optimal training zone.
It's stupid, because if I could be disciplined enough to ride within my target rate for a couple of weeks, I would very soon be fit enough that I wouldn't have to worry about it. But I don't, so it takes longer to get fit.
Nevertheless, there's a magic point where you find you can go quite hard and still keep the heart rate in more or less the right spot, and I've hit that point this week. Now I just need to keep going.
I've also been doing some exercises as part of my morning routine - press ups, crunches, various variations on "the plank" and - crucially - pull ups (we have a stairwell that is just the right height). It was seeing these latter efforts that caused 2-year-old son-and-heir Gregor to declare that I was "like Sportacus."
If you don't own a toddler yourself, this may not mean that much to you. Your reaction might be "Jason can't type and why the heck is he letting his two-year old watch Kirk Douglas epics with homoerotic subtexts?"
If you do own a toddler, you might nod sagely. Sportacus is the hero of Lazy Town, a muscular exercise-addict with an Icelandic accent, a moustache to shame Terry-Thomas and a uniform that looks like Biggles reimagined by Steps. Lazy Town, with its wholesome promotion of teamwork, sharing and fanatical devotion to aerobics, was the most popular children's TV programme in the US of A last year (it was in the newspaper, so it must be true). Sportacus is, for toddlers bewildered by the sudden disappearance of Greg Wiggle (which is a whole other story), the hero du jour. For a dad to be described as "like Sportacus" by his offspring is A Big Thing.
In my case, the comparison is, of course, completely inaccurate. But delusional is different from delightful, whatever Neil Gaiman thinks.
And no, I still haven't put on my walking boots.
I've been getting back into the cycling groove (8.5 miles each way to and from work, I'm trying to do 2-3 days a week). It's actually quite hard to combine cycling for training and commuting purposes. In London, you quickly reach a level where the main influence on your journey time is how many red lights you stop at. So the temptation to sprint when you're approaching a light that you know might change is very high, and there are a lot of lights on my route. Which means I tend to spend a lot of time with my heart rate well above the optimal training zone.
It's stupid, because if I could be disciplined enough to ride within my target rate for a couple of weeks, I would very soon be fit enough that I wouldn't have to worry about it. But I don't, so it takes longer to get fit.
Nevertheless, there's a magic point where you find you can go quite hard and still keep the heart rate in more or less the right spot, and I've hit that point this week. Now I just need to keep going.
I've also been doing some exercises as part of my morning routine - press ups, crunches, various variations on "the plank" and - crucially - pull ups (we have a stairwell that is just the right height). It was seeing these latter efforts that caused 2-year-old son-and-heir Gregor to declare that I was "like Sportacus."
If you don't own a toddler yourself, this may not mean that much to you. Your reaction might be "Jason can't type and why the heck is he letting his two-year old watch Kirk Douglas epics with homoerotic subtexts?"
If you do own a toddler, you might nod sagely. Sportacus is the hero of Lazy Town, a muscular exercise-addict with an Icelandic accent, a moustache to shame Terry-Thomas and a uniform that looks like Biggles reimagined by Steps. Lazy Town, with its wholesome promotion of teamwork, sharing and fanatical devotion to aerobics, was the most popular children's TV programme in the US of A last year (it was in the newspaper, so it must be true). Sportacus is, for toddlers bewildered by the sudden disappearance of Greg Wiggle (which is a whole other story), the hero du jour. For a dad to be described as "like Sportacus" by his offspring is A Big Thing.
In my case, the comparison is, of course, completely inaccurate. But delusional is different from delightful, whatever Neil Gaiman thinks.
And no, I still haven't put on my walking boots.
Monday, 9 July 2007
On a scale of 1-10 for likelihood, how highly would you rate "Jason Whyte - International Athlete"?
No, me neither. But strangely enough, I find myself carrying that label, albeit somewhat uneasily. Y'see, there's this thing called the Microsoft UK Challengers' Trophy, which bills itself as the UK's top corporate adventure race. And I was in it, sort of, and qualified, sort of, for the international version (no sort of in that - it is definitely international. I'm going to need a passport and everything).
So, you may be wondering, what's an adventure race? If, like me, you're a reformed boy scout, I can explain it easily by saying it's a very big wide game. But it appears that the scouting movement was in deep recruiting trouble even when I were a lad, because I only ever get blank looks for that explanation. So I'll say it's like orienteering but with more complicated strategy and some other bits mixed in, like cycling, canoeing, pub quiz and GCSE woodwork.
Anyway, teams from businesses (and bits of government) all over the UK compete for this thing (which this time was held in Sheffield. In late June. It was, to say the least, wet), including Accenture. Now your typical team member is the sort of all-round sportsperson who not only knows that a 10k run is something other than a very, very small .exe file, but can complete one in less than 45 minutes. But there's this bit in the rules that says each team needs a Senior Executive to turn up for the last few stages of the contest. And, largely by virtue of no-one else being available to support the auspiciously-numbered Team 13, I was that Senior Executive.
A moment or two of seriousness, now: the Trophy is a really great event, and this year raised half a million quid for the NSPCC. And Accenture Team 13 are simply awesome; two tough refereeing calls left them well down the pack at the half-way stage, but they came back strongly in the second half, recording 4th, 12th, 4th and 2nd place finishes in the remaining stages to finish 7th overall.
I can't claim much credit for this. While they were posting their first stunning comeback result, I was in the queue to register. I just escaped the queue in time for the next phase, which turned out to be trivia and sudoku. I think I may have answered 3 questions. They graciously let me do the strategy for the next phase, so I didn't feel so useless, and the rules required me to make a short jog to collect one of the objectives. Which amply demonstrated why it was better not to use me in the final phase, which had lots of running.
Anyway 7th (out of 122) is a pretty good result, though it wouldn't ordinarily be enough to qualify for the world event. We were 4th in the mixed category, and only the top 3 qualify. But one of the qualifying women's teams wasn't high enough up to qualify, so the place went to the next best placed team. Which was us.
What does this mean for my VSO trek? I'm still trying to work it out myself. It's another incentive to train, at the very least.
Anyway, we're off to the World Challenger event this December. Perhaps having learned their lesson from Sheffield, the organisers have decided to run it from a town on the French Riviera. Which will be, as Mark Williams once said on the Fast Show, Nice.
No, me neither. But strangely enough, I find myself carrying that label, albeit somewhat uneasily. Y'see, there's this thing called the Microsoft UK Challengers' Trophy, which bills itself as the UK's top corporate adventure race. And I was in it, sort of, and qualified, sort of, for the international version (no sort of in that - it is definitely international. I'm going to need a passport and everything).
So, you may be wondering, what's an adventure race? If, like me, you're a reformed boy scout, I can explain it easily by saying it's a very big wide game. But it appears that the scouting movement was in deep recruiting trouble even when I were a lad, because I only ever get blank looks for that explanation. So I'll say it's like orienteering but with more complicated strategy and some other bits mixed in, like cycling, canoeing, pub quiz and GCSE woodwork.
Anyway, teams from businesses (and bits of government) all over the UK compete for this thing (which this time was held in Sheffield. In late June. It was, to say the least, wet), including Accenture. Now your typical team member is the sort of all-round sportsperson who not only knows that a 10k run is something other than a very, very small .exe file, but can complete one in less than 45 minutes. But there's this bit in the rules that says each team needs a Senior Executive to turn up for the last few stages of the contest. And, largely by virtue of no-one else being available to support the auspiciously-numbered Team 13, I was that Senior Executive.
A moment or two of seriousness, now: the Trophy is a really great event, and this year raised half a million quid for the NSPCC. And Accenture Team 13 are simply awesome; two tough refereeing calls left them well down the pack at the half-way stage, but they came back strongly in the second half, recording 4th, 12th, 4th and 2nd place finishes in the remaining stages to finish 7th overall.
I can't claim much credit for this. While they were posting their first stunning comeback result, I was in the queue to register. I just escaped the queue in time for the next phase, which turned out to be trivia and sudoku. I think I may have answered 3 questions. They graciously let me do the strategy for the next phase, so I didn't feel so useless, and the rules required me to make a short jog to collect one of the objectives. Which amply demonstrated why it was better not to use me in the final phase, which had lots of running.
Anyway 7th (out of 122) is a pretty good result, though it wouldn't ordinarily be enough to qualify for the world event. We were 4th in the mixed category, and only the top 3 qualify. But one of the qualifying women's teams wasn't high enough up to qualify, so the place went to the next best placed team. Which was us.
What does this mean for my VSO trek? I'm still trying to work it out myself. It's another incentive to train, at the very least.
Anyway, we're off to the World Challenger event this December. Perhaps having learned their lesson from Sheffield, the organisers have decided to run it from a town on the French Riviera. Which will be, as Mark Williams once said on the Fast Show, Nice.
Thursday, 28 June 2007
Welcome to Jason's Everest Base Camp Blog
Dear all -
If you're reading this, then my cunning advertising strategy has worked. I've left a number of cryptic (and not so cryptic) messages about my upcoming (and indeed upgoing) trek to Everest Base Camp. You may have seen my Facebook status, one of the posters I've left at work and at Gregor's nursery or one of the emails I've sent out.
Lots of you have asked about it (and thanks for your interest), and some of you have already sponsored me (I'm off to a great start - thanks! I still have a way to go, though...), so it seems the right time to let you know a bit more about it.
On 28th February next year (that's 2008), I'm going to fly out to Kathmandu with a bunch of other Accenture types, and begin a 20-day trek that will take us from Chumoa (at 2743m) to Everest Base Camp (5300m) and Kala Pattar (5545m - where you get the classic view of Everest) and back again.
For me, it's a lifetime ambition. I've always wanted to see Everest up close (in my sillier moments, I have been heard to say that I'd like to try to climb right to the top... but Leah, entirely correctly, would never let me do it), and when the email announcing the trek came round it took me all of 30 seconds to decide to go for it. Which is a good thing, because places filled up within minutes.
The trek is part of Accenture's ongoing relationship with Voluntary Service Overseas, which has built since 1999 to the point where we have sent over 118 volunteers to support VSO's projects in some of the poorest countries in the world. VSO today is much more than the "student gap year" organisation you might have encountered years ago. Today, over 2000 skilled volunteers, whose average age is 38, work in 30 countries to address gaps in education, governance, healthcare, securing livelihoods and the response to the threat of HIV/AIDS.
They give their time for free, but there is still a cost to support them on their assignments. It costs VSO around £5.25 per day for each volunteer.
Of course, not everyone can volunteer for VSO. Some of us have mortgages in South West London and need to spend most of our time working to pay them off. But we can still help by fundraising. Accenture has raised money for VSO in several ways over the years, but last year saw the advent of a new approach that has really captured people's imaginations. 25 of our people trekked to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro, raising over £100,000 between them. That's enough to support over 50 volunteers for a whole year.
A second Kili trek is on its way at the moment. Fellow Monty Python fans may be relieved to hear that it is not searching for last year's expedition, which did not attempt to build a bridge between the two peaks of Mt Kilimanjaro (and which did return safely).
And then there's the Everest trip. I couldn't resist, and when I read about what VSO is doing in Nepal, I was even more determined to go. Nepal has a population of 24m, one third of whom live below the poverty line. Think about that for a moment. If they lived in Britain, one in every eight people you met would be too poor to feed themselves properly. Nearly one in two children suffers from malnutrition. If that sounds shocking, it should be.
The key to changing one statistic is another one: literacy. Adult literacy in Nepal is only 56%. Nepal's people have little hope of pulling themselves out of poverty without decent education, and this has been a key focus of VSO's work. And it is working - Nepal has 28,000 schools (from having none fifty years ago) and literacy at the primary school level is now over 70%. But that in itself raises new challenges: class sizes of 90 (and you thought your local state school had problems) and a chronic shortage of textbooks and other teaching aids.
This trek should be a life-changing event for me. With your help it should be a life-changing - perhaps a life-saving - event for the people of Nepal as well.
Often with these events some of the fundraising goes towards the cost of the trek. But that's not fair - I would have paid to do this sooner or later, and I can afford it (even after my mortgage in South West London). So I have told VSO that I will personally pay the total cost of the trek.
It means that any sponsorship you give me (plus 28% in gift aid from the Government, if you're a UK taxpayer) will go straight to VSO and their work in Nepal. And there's a benefit for you too, on top of the warm feeling of having done the right thing and the vague hope that I might fall off a mountain. If you're a higher rate taxpayer, you can claim the rest of the tax relief on your donation through your tax return, and offset it against your tax bill. I've tried it, and it works.
Please do give generously. It's a great cause. I've set a target of £3,600, which (with gift aid) would fund two volunteers for a year. My deadline for reaching it is the end of November 2007.
You can donate via www.justgiving.com/jasonwhyte, or use VSO's donation form at http://www.vso.org.uk/Images/vso_donate_form_tcm8-705.pdf - but please make sure to put the following on the back of your cheque: “Jason Whyte / 262053 / Accenture Everest Base Camp Challenge 2008” so that they know it's towards
Many thanks - and keep posted (pun intended) for updates on my training and fundraising. I'm trying to organise a charity go-karting event for later in the year (if you're interested - let me know) and perhaps even a charity ball.
All the best,
Jason
If you're reading this, then my cunning advertising strategy has worked. I've left a number of cryptic (and not so cryptic) messages about my upcoming (and indeed upgoing) trek to Everest Base Camp. You may have seen my Facebook status, one of the posters I've left at work and at Gregor's nursery or one of the emails I've sent out.
Lots of you have asked about it (and thanks for your interest), and some of you have already sponsored me (I'm off to a great start - thanks! I still have a way to go, though...), so it seems the right time to let you know a bit more about it.
On 28th February next year (that's 2008), I'm going to fly out to Kathmandu with a bunch of other Accenture types, and begin a 20-day trek that will take us from Chumoa (at 2743m) to Everest Base Camp (5300m) and Kala Pattar (5545m - where you get the classic view of Everest) and back again.
For me, it's a lifetime ambition. I've always wanted to see Everest up close (in my sillier moments, I have been heard to say that I'd like to try to climb right to the top... but Leah, entirely correctly, would never let me do it), and when the email announcing the trek came round it took me all of 30 seconds to decide to go for it. Which is a good thing, because places filled up within minutes.
The trek is part of Accenture's ongoing relationship with Voluntary Service Overseas, which has built since 1999 to the point where we have sent over 118 volunteers to support VSO's projects in some of the poorest countries in the world. VSO today is much more than the "student gap year" organisation you might have encountered years ago. Today, over 2000 skilled volunteers, whose average age is 38, work in 30 countries to address gaps in education, governance, healthcare, securing livelihoods and the response to the threat of HIV/AIDS.
They give their time for free, but there is still a cost to support them on their assignments. It costs VSO around £5.25 per day for each volunteer.
Of course, not everyone can volunteer for VSO. Some of us have mortgages in South West London and need to spend most of our time working to pay them off. But we can still help by fundraising. Accenture has raised money for VSO in several ways over the years, but last year saw the advent of a new approach that has really captured people's imaginations. 25 of our people trekked to the top of Mt Kilimanjaro, raising over £100,000 between them. That's enough to support over 50 volunteers for a whole year.
A second Kili trek is on its way at the moment. Fellow Monty Python fans may be relieved to hear that it is not searching for last year's expedition, which did not attempt to build a bridge between the two peaks of Mt Kilimanjaro (and which did return safely).
And then there's the Everest trip. I couldn't resist, and when I read about what VSO is doing in Nepal, I was even more determined to go. Nepal has a population of 24m, one third of whom live below the poverty line. Think about that for a moment. If they lived in Britain, one in every eight people you met would be too poor to feed themselves properly. Nearly one in two children suffers from malnutrition. If that sounds shocking, it should be.
The key to changing one statistic is another one: literacy. Adult literacy in Nepal is only 56%. Nepal's people have little hope of pulling themselves out of poverty without decent education, and this has been a key focus of VSO's work. And it is working - Nepal has 28,000 schools (from having none fifty years ago) and literacy at the primary school level is now over 70%. But that in itself raises new challenges: class sizes of 90 (and you thought your local state school had problems) and a chronic shortage of textbooks and other teaching aids.
This trek should be a life-changing event for me. With your help it should be a life-changing - perhaps a life-saving - event for the people of Nepal as well.
Often with these events some of the fundraising goes towards the cost of the trek. But that's not fair - I would have paid to do this sooner or later, and I can afford it (even after my mortgage in South West London). So I have told VSO that I will personally pay the total cost of the trek.
It means that any sponsorship you give me (plus 28% in gift aid from the Government, if you're a UK taxpayer) will go straight to VSO and their work in Nepal. And there's a benefit for you too, on top of the warm feeling of having done the right thing and the vague hope that I might fall off a mountain. If you're a higher rate taxpayer, you can claim the rest of the tax relief on your donation through your tax return, and offset it against your tax bill. I've tried it, and it works.
Please do give generously. It's a great cause. I've set a target of £3,600, which (with gift aid) would fund two volunteers for a year. My deadline for reaching it is the end of November 2007.
You can donate via www.justgiving.com/jasonwhyte, or use VSO's donation form at http://www.vso.org.uk/Images/vso_donate_form_tcm8-705.pdf - but please make sure to put the following on the back of your cheque: “Jason Whyte / 262053 / Accenture Everest Base Camp Challenge 2008” so that they know it's towards
Many thanks - and keep posted (pun intended) for updates on my training and fundraising. I'm trying to organise a charity go-karting event for later in the year (if you're interested - let me know) and perhaps even a charity ball.
All the best,
Jason
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