DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - It seems to be the week for videos! A list of just some of his victories below should speak for themselves about what he has accomplished..

2 Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (2006 and 2007)
6 Cro-Magnons
4 Lybia Desert Marathon
3 Marathon des Sables

Check the trailer out here with subtitles!

Marco Olmo is the best ultra-trail runner in the world. He runs for more than 160 km non-stop, twenty hours of race in the desert of Morocco or on Monte Bianco, at 2500 m. high. On the eighth of October he will be sixty years old.
Marco is a legend between runners and worldwide enthusiasts. He is a symbol of passion, strenght and clean sport.
Born into a peasant family of a little township in Italy, when he was twenty he left the country to work in the town’s cement plant. His fate and life have been marked by this choice: still nowadays, notwistanding his sport successes, he defines himself as a “loser”. We will tell the history of a out of line man and athlete, and that of his town and mountains. We’ll follow him during his preparation trainings for his next (and maybe last) race: the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, the hardest in Europe.

Quote from website making the documentary unpassodopolaltro.it.

-Eoinod-

From Eoin Keith:

For the record, the cycling record currently stands at 12:04, and is held collectively by Beth McCluskey, Peter O’Farrell, Paul Mahon and myself. I’ve never heard of anyone else who has managed to cycle the whole WW in one go, and indeed I’ve only heard of one other attempt.
Its good to finally see someone have a good go at taking this record. Its very much there to be broken.
For those hill-runners that don’t know Ryan, he is one of the best mountainbikers in Ireland, and is the current Irish Marathon (long distance) champion. I’m expecting him to set a record that will be extremely hard to beat.

Best of luck Ryan and to Melanie Spath providing support!!

-Aisling-

Image from Rocky2007.

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - Just interesting video on what a day is like when summiting Everest. Crazy to see how many people your sharing the summit with!

-Eoinod-

Kuwait, Kuwait (Team Geared Up) - Just got this in from Nicole of DCU Rockclimbing Club.

“Hi all, just want to let you know about a event being held in the Park Inn Hotel in Smithfield, Dublin on Friday the 17th of October at 8.30pm. It is going to be a talk by American climber Dave Graham….

“Dave Graham is a phenomenon. Exploding onto the scene only a few years ago he pretty much instantly established himself as one of the strongest climbers on the planet with very quick repeats and first ascents of many of the worlds hardest boulder problems and routes. On top of that Dave can talk! His enthusiastic philosophy on life, climbing and everything else is evident in the many climbing films he’s starred in and in his online writings (see his Blog http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/problog/davegraham/ ). His lecture will combine all of the above in a whirlwind hour and a half highly energised performance, focussed on the progression of hard climbing and where it is headed.”

This event is being hosted by DCU Rock Climbing Club and all proceeds from the event will be going to the Irish Mountain Rescue Association (IMRA), which is well worthy of it I think we will all agree!! Tickets will be €20. All the information can be found at http://www.redbrick.dcu.ie/~climbing/?page=talk

It would be really great to get a big turnout as the more tickets sold the more money we raise for the IMRA, so pass the word on to as many people as you know!!

Hope to see lots of you there,

Nicole
DCU Rock Climbing Club”

If anyone is feeling like getting motivated for climbing, the Park Inn Hotel in Dublin is the place to be on the 17th! This guy is psyched!!!!!!

- Neal :) -

We had to swim about 200 to 300 metres to the race start. I got into the water and because it didn’t initially feel too cold I hadn’t realised I hadn’t closed the wetsuit correctly. As the whistle blew for the start I was well back but glad to be out of the madness up front! I caught people quite quickly though and there wasn’t too much pushing and shoving. After about 10 minutes I realised that water was getting into my suit and ponding in the hollows in my back and I was freezing and shivery. I just couldn’t warm up for the rest of the swim and my legs were really stiff and sore. I got through the laps and as I approached the last ten minutes or so I was determined no matter how cold to swim well and get out of the water happy. In tranisiton I got wrapped in foil blankets while I tried to get dressed. I was so cold I set off on the bike with about 4 layers of clothing!!
The bike was three 60k laps and it seemed to go by very slowly. They were hilly and meandered through little villages and country lanes. I just could not wait to get off that bike. I was not enjoying it at all but with 30k to go I suddenly realised that no matter what happened now I was actually gonna get through this! I had been worried about something going wrong with the bike that I couldn’t fix but with 30k to go I reckoned I could run the rest and still make the cut off (I probably couldn’t have, but that’s what I thought at the time!!!)
The next transition was a much quicker affair…threw the bike at someone, changed my shorts, put on my runners, grabbed a gel and my watch! Happy days! Finally running…..

That’s the face I had on leaving transition (trying to put on my watch!)and for the entire run. I felt like I was absolutely flying. I received huge crowd support because I was moving so much quicker than those around me and also wearing my Ireland kit was a good move (don’t anyone tell me the legalities of that, it was a great idea!!!). Crossed the line in 13 hours 12 minutes feeling fantastic! Highlight of the day included meeting Ireland’s Ironman record holder Alan Ryan before and after the event, he had lots of encouragement. He finished 15th in a time of 9:45:47. Well done Alan!!

Cheers for the good wishes and stats over on the IMRA forum. No ill effects the next day so there’s still lots of room for improvement the next time… ;-) Special thanks to “coach bloke” Peter Kern and “bike bloke” Rob Wheelworx!

Race results here.

-Aisling-

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - Eamon Costello sent us his detailed account of climbing Mt Blanc with a guiding company this summer. Eamon’s report makes great reading for anyone thinking of climbing the peak - and closely matches my own experience in 2003 (although a storm took us off the peak 400m from summit).

Twenty past one my alarm goes off. Bolt upright in bed. There is a tremendous rustling as people jump out of bed, root about in their packs and pull on clothes furiously. There is not much talking. I chat briefly to one of my friends he says he didn’t sleep one wink, his breathing felt funny and he had mild headaches. Out from the sleeping annex into the howling wind and into the main eating hall of the Goûter for breakfast of the damned. Confusion. Guide berates me for taking someone else’s tea. I can’t understand what he’s saying. Refuge staff have filled my thermos with litre of sweet tea. Leave our helmets and camelbacks in the Goûter but put headlamps on. I have my overtrousers on for the first time. Also my outer-shell jacket. Guide says just inner gloves for now. Big mistake.

I remember reaching the Gouter Hut on the way down, my gloves being solid block of ice and my poles being frozen up so I couldn’t close them for the rock section. Great memories!

Read Eamon’s full account here.

Must also send a shout out to two other guys I knew who successfully summited last week.

(Image Credit: Eamon Costello)

At last weekend’s Longford marathon Tony broke the 48 hour treadmill record in a time of 45 hours 42 minutes and 18 seconds before running the marathon itself! I’m so full of admiration for someone who continually sets challenge after challenge even though he’s already achieved so much. The existing record appears to have been set with much less integrity than Tony’s successful attempt so he has now set the record straight, so to speak!! Tony’s final total was 405.22km. Check out Planet Ultramarathon too.

Congratulations Tony on a fantastic achievement!! Hope you’re getting lots of rest for the next adventure….;-)

-Aisling-

Image from Tony Mangan. com from the Sunday Tribune.

CHICAGO, UNITED STATES (Team Geared Up) - This photo came down the wire from watershed news.

“The photo of the Bottleneck was taken just after the Serbian fell,” Nicholas Rice, 23, of Hermosa Beach, said in an e-mail early Wednesday from K2 base camp.

The Bottleneck photo shows a line of climbers ascending the couloir at 11:06 a.m. Friday Aug. 1, according to electronic data attached to the file. Click on it for detail.

Amazing to see the detail. You can see the face they (presumably) went out on and fell from on the left.

-Robin.

Big thanks to “coach bloke” Peter Kern and “bike bloke” Rob Cummins for getting me this far! And best of luck to all those taking part!

-Aisling-

I’ve also started keeping a blog about my Ironman experience over at Wheelworx. Image is from the Beast flickr set.

I met up recently with a newly formed team who were getting together to pick the brains of experienced adventure racer Paul Mahon (who was on last year’s winning team!). They had entered for the Beast and over a cup of coffee were getting great advice about night time navigation and “team bonding” from Paul. I just tagged along for fun…(well I also brought cake!) ;-)

The team named Evil Edna is made up of Greg Byrne, Melanie Earwaker, Andreas Kusch and Jason Reid. I hope they do really well in their first non-stop, 24 hour plus adventure challenge! Best of luck!

That photo is last year’s winners Willy Rock, Roisin McDonnell, Eoin Keith and Paul Mahon.

-Aisling-

Image from the Beast website.