Go Hard or Go Home

Well i've been doing the lot over the past week, here goes

Sat- Slow 12 mile run with Laura (fish & chips apres)
Sun- To London for Tenzing run and nets. 2-3 mile each way with full packs and then running for two hours whilst bowling and batting. (BBQ and beers and brownies!)
Mon- Comedy night @ comedy store Picadilly was absolutely brilliant and haven't laughed for two hours like that before. (definite abs workout!!) great to see the Gahans sisters from School as well.
Tues- cycle to and from work 20 miles
Wed- Gym session (90mins), to Birmingham in the evening for Snow Patrol gig which was great and some very moving and cool songs etc. Legs a bit tired.
Thurs- horizontal all day ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Fri- Gym 2hours, swim 60 lengths and sauna

Going for a swim and sauna again in a minute and then the Bath half Marathon tomorrow........
LOVE IT feeling great, but hope there's plenty in the tank for tomorrow!! aiming for 1hr 35mins?!?!?!?!?!?
After the Tenzing nets we sat down as a full team and had a brilliant chat about all things Everest at the Blanca Casa De Dolph with Mike and Helen the hosts, muchos gracias. I love the team ethos of Tenzing and feel truly honoured and excited to be part of something so passionate and special. I have made friends for life and met people with similar attributes in a hugely fun and different atmosphere. We haven't even started the trip yet, Superb. I'm getting really pumped about this thing so get on board.

Viva la bam
Vive la vida loca
Verve de va va voom

Unit

Never been skinny, it's colder.

Well, when i'm not doing 13 hour shifts cleaning the streets or sleeping i seem to be training. At least 6 days a week and on some shifts swimming lengths off nights and then hitting the sack. Laura is running 4 times a week for the Bath Half and we are just hitting the treadmill and trails regular as clockwork oranges. This has had a very strange effect on my body????
My ankles and wrists look like runners ?
I am developing the right kind of six pack?
My big thighs are less prominent and even my swede is smaller!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOPE NO JOY THERE..
I am 13st 3............... I haven't been that light since about i was 15. Not complaining just don't remember ever feeling skinny. it's slightly disconcerting and hope it doesn't affect my ferocious power and roundhouse kick snap that Van-Damme taught me. Makes running a hell of a lot easier mind. Thought i'd let you know as i'm rather pleased. My ideal weight for Ironman was around this weight but thought it wouldn't happen until Nepal or beyond. I may have to watch i don't get serious issues and just disappear???
Who am I kidding my BMI is still in the overweight section for my height and I still lurve pizza and doughnuts far too much to give me any worries. Still 12stone something is a posibility for Ironman now and with the bum wee expected on Everest a distinct dream/nightmare.

Cheers fatties

Breathless cricket and Zinger time

So the 5 week to lift off mark is here and the Tenzing standards are being raised in levels of fitness, cricket and chat, i'm the exception to the rule of course. Also two massive hundreds from the Everest team figure heads Andrew 'Mr T' Strauss and Alistair 'The Chef' Cook leading the way.

So to back up the beef, I had a training weekend for ten of the team at my gaff in sunny Oxfordshire. On paper I wanted to create a tired team so that when we played some cricket during nets and a mini game we would gain some insight into the pressures and dificulties of base camp.....

Paper converted to reality!!!! Mission accomplished.

A 6 mile cross country run in glorious sunshine had the boys smiling and chatting away, so i threw in some core work and excercise to shut them up and finished with some paired hill sprints. At the end they were still laughing and smiling and happy??? GIVE EM SOME MORE...

Onto a top secret location with level 9 Cobra command clearance required for a concept i called breathless cricket. Basically you run hard all the time and push yourself to exhaustion. Result, the fella's started to waver but pushed through the 4 hour session well and earned their pint and pie in the local for a great meal and social time. The highlight being saffron ice being delivered when peach melba and pistacio were murmered, something like that... see Tooves blog which is hilarious.

Some good slepp and off to the Chilterns for a romp in the hills for 5-6 hours and a good sunday roast. All best laid plans and all that, the pubs were fully booked and the hunger mood swings became apparent. Luckily Laura was on hand to save the day and find us a buffet indian and all the bhaji you could eat... satisfaction guaranteed, we ate well and finished home with some great banter and beautiful scenery. Tenzing feeling and looking strong... i'm so proud and the competition for places and the win on the mountain feeds the mind most hours of the day and hots up the training.

GET AMONGST IT,

G

Thanks Mr Nobody........

I have some ideas who you are with such a massive donation (£500) but i will just say an enormous thanks for your generosity and will make you proud. Woweeeee thats awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kit Kat time

Since the New Year I have upped the intensity of my training quite a bit and therefore having been eating a wee bit more!!! However Laura my girlfriend has been away for two weeks and so the slippery slope developes. Shopping on my own with no dairy free eating woman in my ear.......

KIT KAT's pack of 5, 2for the price of one...game over i'll take 4. Pizza....treat yourself G go one. Apple pie yep, cream? Double every time. Pork pies, nuts, choc chip cookies, etc etc. Suffice it to say no weight has been lost in the past fortnight.. I have been good with homemade stews and fajitas as well!! no-one buying it? Okay i'm back in the game and chocolate free until after Everest, well until that cadbury's cream egg easter advertising push when i start dreaming of a cream egg i can swim in ohHHHHHHH like living in a house sized doughnut.....yummy.

Well February is here and half a stone needs to go before April, luckily with a little effort in normally goes so cycling 70 miler tomorrow to Tunbridge Wells and will try and stop Laura's lovely Mum Glynis from spoiling her favourite future son-in-law. Meow!!!!!!!!!

My Dad has contacted family and friends about the cause and been a leg-end recently getting behind the cause so thanks Papa san. Welcome those of you new to my Blog. Thanks for your support and spread the word.

A guy at my work is doing a body building competition this summer and is currently 16st looking to put more on then cut it down lean to 13 and a half st in 10 weeks!?!?!? Hope for us all.
MANIAC

Stay away from shopping hungry, G

Rage David in Herefordshire

Chums

Well 23 Everestors made it to Farmer Kinsey "BOOM BOOM" Herns chicken and apples farm in HEREFORSHIRE. 23 made it out in one piece as well.
I made it in complete leisure on Friday after travelling up with Nick Mullineaux from Oxford and we had time to take to the fields around the farm for a hour walk before checking in with Kinsey folks and arriving 4 hours arlier than expected. A great feed and catch up with the crew ensued before team sleeping in the local village hall. Anyone would think it was cold as the girls cranked the heat upto 33degrees which meant i got about 38mins sleep. Great.
So the big day arrived and events and results went something like this: -
Bleep test (3rd) very happy with this and my best test so far at level 13 in a chicken shed!!!
Caveman (8th ish) Rubbish at tossing a big stone over my head, disappointing.
As a reasonably fit guy i had been seeded in the top four for the weekend and needed some points in the strength events to cling on to the whippet runners, not a good start.
Michellin MAN: Hilarious team event in which we rolled a 5ft high tractor tyre around a 100m square course in teams of six. With a team of two girls against other teams with 1 girl we somehow won the event by a second with a photo finish and some high fives and shouting. More like it.
Team G next did a sterling job in stacking big stones on pallets game ( manual labour for the farm), we were robbed by some rule changes mid game, biased reffing and jealousy to be honest and my calm exterior and politness went AWOL as did my initial impression on new friends as i threw my toys into the sheep sh$t and started my noisy cross-examination of anyone and everyone. BULLONI. No change 3rd place and brimming with fury.
After lunch we started with the SCARECROW pushing those swiss roll style bails O'hay around a slalom stlye course. Going last i was seriously pumped about this one, started like a dream getting a head start in a one on one race with Kimi the tournament favourite and eventual winner. Turning after the slalom completed all i had to do was turn and burn it in to the end. What happened next can only be compared to a scarecrow brain fart. I hit every slalom barrier on the way back and decided to just power through which just hit the brakes on my Bail O'hay and Kiwi flew right by (film?) gutted I brought the dried grass home in 7th place when a W was well within my powers.
TUG OF WAR: Disasterous, Milo, Hog and myself would have done better standing on the rope rather than slip sliding ourselves to 3 losses and the girls were at a loss at our ineptitude and I soon lost the plot and let out somemore growls of rage.
Last up was the five mile finisher with a few hills. More like 6 miles and vertical travalators with quick sand fields. Gave it my all and then some with the tank feeling good and brought it home in third. Some great running with the top 7 guys going under 49 mins and looking strong. A good finish to a tough but very fun and productive day. Finished off with 9 pints of cider and a steak, grrrreat.

Overall i finished 11th with some email replying points on offer!!!!! When the mouse clicking was taken out I was a respectable 6th overall and therfore content ish with my labours and that my training and hard work wasn't a waste. Highlights include Tooves getting beaten by girls, Hog trying to crush himself like a worm with a big rock, our one win, the great attitude from all the girls and beef and banter from the lads. Amazingly well organised and executed from Kins and great team building weekend.

New Charity and recent news

Hi

Check out the new donation site, http://www.justgiving.com/gateverest.

For those asking why Lords Taverners rather than Sport relief well its simple, LT were much more helpful and proactive for our small/unproffesional outfit, plus we are a cricketers!!!

The Lords Taverners coming on board makes the realms of possibility with the sponsorship even more exciting, England players, training at Lords, contacts, advice and full backing for our causes. We are all more than happy at them being our charity. We also welcome Mr Andrew Strauss as Tenzing team celeb Captain and mascot aka Mr Tenzing (Mr T) to the boys in the know.

The whole project is going from strength to strength and i'm getting very excited and nervous, I still give us a 70/30 chance of breaking the world record as it is going to be so unbelievably tough. But I know everyone is training their behinds off and we will need to.

Lots of training weekends coming up to fill you in on so stop by from time to time.

Thanks