DUBLIN, IRELAND (Geared Up Blog) - Gerard McDonnell is going back to K2 this year as part of a Dutch expedition to climb the formidable mountain. I’m not sure is he part of their team or just with the expedition so that he can attain his climbing permit. The expedition website is here though just beware it is mostly in Dutch so i can’t really understand a whole lot of what is going on.

-Eoinod-

Keep the hard days hard and easy the easy days : interesting post about how alternating hard and easy training days works better than trying to go hard all the time, as then you feel tired and get into mediocre training.

Cross-training : an article about the benefits of cross training as a way to improve performance and reduce burn-out.

Cross-training for runners: want to maximize your training time while minimize injury-related problems? Take a look at this article . It talks about how aerobic-based cross-training, such as elliptical machines and cycling, will improve your aerobic conditioning, and so improve your running condition while sparing you the pounding from running.

Championship Triathlon Training : George Dallam, PhD, USA Triathlon’s first national team coach is the author of a new triathlon book that has just been recently published. On Championship Triathlon Training Dallam gives coaching insights to all those tri athletes who want to get the training right.

And completing this week’s post, a bonus for the adventure racers: the 2007 Gobi March which will kick off this year’s edition on June 5th. Check it out here

-Ed-
Find much more trail, endurance and adventure running at trailrunningsoul.com

Image credit - Clear Lake Triathlon 01 , by Daily Mik

UPDATE 2215hrs - Video of torch on summit via Reuters:

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - An incoming report on the news today started like this…

EVEREST BASE CAMP, China (Reuters) - The Olympic torch was lit at the top of Mount Everest on Thursday, the crowning moment of the Beijing Games torch relay which had been dogged by anti-Chinese protests on its world tour.

Live reports from ‘Everest Base Camp’ have such a historic ring to them it generates excitement before reading them. The Everest flame will be reunited with the main flame later in the relay, possibly when it passes through Lhasa in mid-June.

Three months to the day before the Games open, the first batch of climbers from a 31-strong team set out at about 1.30 am (1:30 p.m. EDT) from a camp at 8,300 meters.

The climbers trudged slowly to the summit, in the final stages, staging a mini-relay. They unfurled the Chinese national flag, a flag with the five Olympic rings and a flag bearing the Beijing Olympic logo.

The real news here is that the Chinese authorities banned anybody else from stepping onto the mountain so far this season to insure themselves against having anybody get in their way to the summit. Now they’ve summited the other teams can start moving above camp 2 where the army have been preventing them from moving.

Is it right to close a mountain?

-Robin

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Spotted on GO Blog, here’s a movie I will be queuing up to see. Blindsight the documentary/movie follows the gripping adventure of six Tibetan teenagers on their journey to climb a mountain in the shadow of Everest.

Lhakpa-Ri peak, the goal of the expedition, is 23,000 feet high. The expedition leader is blind climber Erik Weihenmayer. On May 25, 2001, Erik became the first blind man in history to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak.

In 2002 I shared a pint with Erik’s climbing sherpa from that expedition in Kandersteg, Switzerland. He was on a hut exchange where he ran a swiss alpine hut for a summer while a swiss guide helped out in a Nepalese one. I can’t remember his name, but I swooned in awe when I saw his Everest Summiteers Association membership card. Not only had he helped Erik place his hands & feet up the Hillary step, but he had also carried the IMAX camera to the summit on his back during ‘Everest’ movie (and was wearing the cap to prove it in the bar!).

Watch the Blindsight trailer:

There’s a nice line in there by an American:

The difference between westerners and easterners, we want to stand on top… it’s just ingrained in our make up.

Eastern response:

Get one person to the summit and everyone succeeds.

Very true of the east from my experiences.

Nice… see you there with the popcorn.

www.blindsightthemovie.com

-Robin.

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - We’ve reported on Ian McKeever before, but now that he’s bringing his godson up Kilimanjaro, he deserves another mention!

I saw this in the Irish Independent yesterday:

An intrepid young explorer from Dublin will soon attempt to become the youngest person ever to climb one of the highest mountains in the world……Sean McSharry from Stillorgan, Co Dublin, is the godson of Ian McKeever, who received worldwide acclaim when he climbed each of the continents’ highest peaks in the fastest possible time.

On April 24, Sean flies to Africa in the hope of becoming the youngest person to ever climb the snow-capped Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania — the highest mountain in Africa at a height of 5,898 metres.

The youngest person on record to ever reach the summit was Ryan J. Eckert, a 12-year-old American boy living in Nigeria who reached the top at age 12 with his father and older brother on August 16, 2005.

While not the most technical or difficult of the Seven Summits, I know of more than a few friends who have suffered from the altitude on this mountain meaning this is a cool ambition.
What’s most impressive is the Sean’s dedication to training (at the age of 10! - I wish I was this dedicated at that age :):

For the past three months Ian has put Sean through his paces in a rigorous training programme, which involves him changing his diet and eating lots of green vegetables, increasing his iron content and cutting out sweets. “They call me the broccoli kid in school,” said Sean.

Sean himself has now shaved almost 10 minutes off his climbing times on Camaderry hill in Glendalough, the training ground, which McKeever believes holds the key to his ultimate success or failure.

This just proves that you don’t need to have access to the highest, and best, facilities to reach the top of your sport, they’re using Camaderry Hill as the training ground. Put in enough dedication and effort (along with the best possible training methods supplied by physios and sports scientists) and it’s possible to peform very well on the world stage!

Here’s the link to Google Maps new terrrain feature as we mentioned previously on TGU.
- Neal :) -

DUBLIN, IRELAND(Geared Up Blog) - Rock and Run are selling the Rab Summit Storm for £125 as opposed to £250. I’m very very tempted. And it was available still in all sizes except small/black with is unusual for this sort of a deal. It’s fully waterproof as well so would probably be more suited to Ireland than most down jackets.

FLINTSHIRE, NORTH WALES (Team Geared Up) - Today www.climbing.com report that Frenchman, François Bon, has made a speed-flying descent of the south face of Aconcagua. Bon, already with a descent of the Eiger by the west and north faces, as well as Mont Blanc already under his belt is one of this sports leading activists.

Bon summited Aconcagua, 22,841-foot, after an 11-day approach in early-winter conditions. Skiing off the snowfields on top, he descended the 9,000-foot south face in 4 minutes 50 seconds. “With the altitude it goes so fast!” Bon said. “I fell from the sky along the walls.”

Don’t confuse this with paragliding! With wings half the size of regular paragliding canopies, speed-flyers hit speeds of 50 mph or more during their descents; Check the video below to see his 2007 descent of the Eiger:

*Dave A*

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Ok, so this is part III (see part I Gran Paradiso and part II Castor). This should get you in the mood for the Summer that’s not far away!

We left off in Gressoney la Trinite near the Swiss-Italian border having climbed a great route on Castor. Back in our little hire car, we sped off without a plan - all we knew was were were going towards the French border with the potential of a spur of the moment bivvi on the Dome du Gouter on Mont Blanc. While Rallying down the valley bends flicking through all our insurance documentation and trying to get the hire company on the phone to find out if we were covered to travel out of Italy into Chamonix we managed to get flagged down by some Carabiners (ok, so that’s what we called them - Police) with machine guns pointed at us for speeding. We’d been tailed all the way down the valley by an undercover police car who duly pulled in beside us and the driver went for a smoke in the police jeep. uh oh. After a bit of me talking in English, him talking in Italian and some very stern looks we drove off ticket-less, and yes - I stalled the car.

Deciding that we couldn’t cross the border and the Italian route on Mont Blanc would require an earlier start than we had (with no maps!) we headed for Cervino on the south side of the Matterhorn. This is a view of the summit block of the Matterhorn from our hotel window :-)

With a plan to ski for a day in the Zermatt summer ski area and then climb the easy 4000er Breithorn and ski off the summit the next day we headed up the cable car and hired skis in the mid-station.

The icy blue lakes below due to the glacial run-off were incredible. The Cervino valley is visible in the background.

We checked into the Refugio Guide de Cervino with a spectacular back porch view!

After a quality morning on the slopes getting back into the technique (which shut at 2pm in the summer) we sat out in the sun in deck chairs with some beers, a great meal and a book. Hours of bliss!

We hit bed very early ready for something like a 4am start. Our plan was to break trail and be first on the summit for the day. This was the view out the window lying in bed.

Waking to a cracker of a morning, we set off into the sunrise with a view like this to gaze at as we puffed our way up to the top of the glaciated ski slopes and onto the flats beneath the summit slope.

This is the Matterhorn imposing itself on us, from two angles.

Here’s the skis on Eoin’s pack. Our bags were very heavy with skis and descent boots in them! (nobody would hire us ski-mountaineering boots - they didn’t understand we wanted to ski off the summit :-)

And not before long… we we the only people on the summit…! Which is extremely rare on Breithorn due to the height of the Swiss Cable Car.

And here’s the view looking towards Castor (our previous route).. spectacular!

And… here’s the Matterhorn! We’re a bit higher than earlier now! This is the direction we would ski off - straight over than and curving around the summit to the left down to the glacier below.

It was extremely icy - I took a good tumble with my iceaxe on my back keeping me nice and straight :-) flipping me head over heels - but Eoin got down gracefully! What a great experience!

As a great final surprise back at the hut we managed to get right in under the weekly beer delivery!

What a fantastic 2 days - (note: TGU Blogger Alx summited Breithorn in 2005 and I had done it in 2004).

So that wrapped up an unreal trip to Italy! I wish I was back there right now! Bring on the summer!

-Robin.

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Tom Creaney and James Osborn work together in the Clothing Supply Chain for Tesco Stores Limited. Based at their largest distribution centre in the uk the pair struck up a friendship on a charity expedition in the Scottish Highlands back in 2006 where they bagged 5 Monroes in 36 hours for the charity ‘Whizzkids’. Between the pair of them they have over 25 years mountaineering and climbing experience and it was following this that they
found out it was both their life long ambition to climb ‘Everest’.

‘From loosing the map at 6000 ft, having no tea bags whilst stuck in the snow, being chased through valleys by raging bulls; forgetting the gas and having cold dinners all week, compass breaking… The list goes on! There really isn’t much misfortune that the pair haven’t endured, James even survived a 15 ft fall from an ice wall in 2004.’

Later this year in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care the pair are joining the Jagged Globe expedition in the Himalayas with the same team as Ranaulph Fiennes. Eoin O’D wrote about Ranaulphs 2008 Everest Expedition back in November. Setting off after the Fiennes party returns, the pair will be attempting some tough Ice Climbs on Everest over a period of 6 weeks.

One of the things that I find interesting is to see the personal equipment that a high altitude climber uses and I asked James to add some of the kit he’s bringing to our Gear Profiles. You can check their gear out right here and note that I share the same Patagonia shell layer, while Eoin has the same Crux AK47 Pack. Also interesting to spot the Spantik boots are on someones wishlist too.

Good luck the the lads - we’ll try and track them here and go see how much they’ve raised (£23k! 100% for Charity) on their expedition website www.coldfeat.co.uk. You can also see James profile on TGU.

-Robin.

(Image Credit: Tom & James on Helvellyn last weekend.)

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - “We can’t make your drinks” said the email…

Really appreciate the invite, we are heading out to climb Aconcagua tomorrow and back the middle of jan. –Ian

Damn - I’m jelous! The 2008 Irish Everest Expedition are off to South America on a training climb. In preparation for Everest they will climb 3 other mountains on 3 different continents, all in order to build a much need primary school in the Ugandan village of Kitandwe.

In the Spring of 2008 a small Irish team will take on Mt Everest. If either one of them reaches the summit they will become the youngest Irish male to reach the highest point on earth.

Bear Grylls you better watch out!

Follow their progress on Everest2008.ie. Lads - we’ll have a pint in your honour!

-Robin-