Archive for September 2005
Tony called me on Sunday morning. 'Have you seen your website?' I hadn't. It looked like this. I assumed the worst: my domain name had come up for renewal, and someone had bought it. Bensaunders.com was dead.
My first thought was to email my host, but the email wasn't working either. After the hassle I'd had trying to get the site working again recently, I couldn't believe this was happening. I thought of all the thousands of people I'd given my email address to over the last four years. The SOUTH sponsors who'd think I'd done a runner with their cash. And the 30,000+ visitors that come to this site every month. I'd let them all down.
Anyway, relatively normality has returned, and the battered and bruised bensaunders.com (and last year's expedition site, which is still down) is moving to a new home this weekend, thanks to Pete Barr-Watson and his company, Pixelfury.
Once the sites are sitting comfily in their new server, I'm going to throw a bit of a house-warming party, with a minor redesign, a few new articles for the resources section and a daily training diary. Not to mention some slightly more regular blog posts - without you lot being able to comment it feels a bit like I'm talking to myself right now.
Last up, a few links for your perusal…
1) BlueSky MOD - I could see myself living in one of these, maybe on the edge of Dartmoor. Part of what I love about expedition living is the simplicity - life stripped to the bare, minimalist essentials. The idea of a simple, *small*, low-impact home somewhere wild really appeals to me.
2) 'Arctic ice disappearing quickly'. Uh huh.
3) Andy Kirkpatrick's mind-bendingly gnarly photos on Flickr (and indeed Andy Kirkpatrick's excellent website - his articles on gear, clothing and technique are top-notch).
Things might go a bit wonky between now and the beginning of next week. Please do not adjust your set.
{ Filed under Miscellany on September 29th, 2005 | No Comments }
Busy boy at the moment. I finished the London Duathlon on Saturday in 1:47:18, landing me in 67th place (out of 1159 competitors in the 'Challenge' distance and >2,500 overall). I was quite chuffed considering it was my first duathlon (run, bike, run) and the fact that I'd had such a knackering week beforehand. The winner, Jonathan Will, steamed round the (longer than advertised!) course in 1:29:52 and I was amazed how much quicker than me he was in the transitions (changing from running to cycling shoes, putting your helmet on and unracking the bike, and vice versa at T2) - I took 1:36 and 1:27 respectively; he took 49 and 43 seconds.
With a bit of practise at transitions, some rest the week before and some structured speedwork building up to the event (my training has been pretty haphazard of late) I could have knocked a big chunk off my time. Bung in one of these, one of these and some of these, and I'd have been top-ten. (Or so I like to tell myself…) A beautiful day and a brilliantly-run event.
Time is really flying right now. Lots more travelling (in the UK) and speaking this week and some really exciting things going on in the 'next expedition' department…
And yes, the poxy server *still* isn't working properly, but bensaunders.com may have been rescued by the inimitable Pete Barr-Watson. More soon…
{ Filed under Training on September 20th, 2005 | 2 Comments }
This morning: VO2 Max testing at Hertfordshire University (essentially running until you vomit on a treadmill that gets faster/steeper every four minutes, breathing through a gas mask and having blood samples taken from a finger). Despite being a jetlagged, sleep-deprived nervous wreck, I scored a personal best of 63ml/kg/min. Yay!
This evening: cha han and white chocolate cheesecake at Wagamama in Putney (sitting a table away from Josh Lewsey).
Tomorrow morning: the London Duathlon. Run, bike, run (10k, 20k, 5k) in Richmond Park. Actually, I'm going to cycle there and back, so it's more like a bike, run, bike, run, bike. If I can make it out of bed at 7am on Sunday, I'll be joining London Dynamo for their four-hour 'Surrey Hills' ride. After that, sleeeeeep.
(NB - I'm aware the comments, RSS Feed and the SOUTH section of the website are still down. Yes, I'm furious about it, but the hosting is sponsored, and I can only get so pushy with a company that's supported me for four years. I've been assured it'll be up on Monday. If not, the site will be moving to another host.)
{ Filed under Training on September 16th, 2005 | No Comments }
After a fantastic dinner at the Lawrenceville Inn and four hours of sleep on Monday night, I flew in to London, cattle-class, on the BA178 jumbo. We landed just after 9pm and I made my way (luggage in tow) to the bus stops outside to catch the 'RailAir' coach to Reading (in order to catch the sleeper train to Cornwall to speak to two schools the next morning). Someone had crossed 'Reading' off the list of destinations with a black marker pen. Hmm. I went back inside. 'You need the central bus station, mate'. Heathrow Express. Moving walkways. Escalators. Trundle trundle. Central Bus Station. 'Nah boss. Reading goes from terminal two.' Escalator. Trundle. Moving walkway. Strip lighting. Trundle. Terminal Two.
The bus arrived at 11:15pm. I could hardly keep my eyes open. 'Eleven pounds' mumbled the dour-looking driver as I shuffled up the steps. I gave him two ten-pound notes (all I had, from the cash machine inside the terminal). He looked at me like I'd handed him Estonian Krooni, or perhaps Peruvian Nuevos Soles. 'I ain't got change. You'll 'ave to wait.' He wrote '??20′ on my ticket with a felt-tip pen, pocketed both the tenners and glared at me. After taking on more passengers at the next stop, he waddled back to my seat with his bum-bag of change. 'Ticket.' 'I'm sorry, what?' 'Lemme see your ticket.' I was fast losing the will to live. He studied both sides of the ticket (that he had issued me just minutes before) before counting out nine pound coins, as slowly as he possibly could.
Reading Station. More strip lighting. Trundle. Lager louts eating kebabs from polystyrene containers, overflowing with shredded lettuce. Trundle. Ticket machine. 'Out of Order.' Trundle. FastTicket machine. Appears to be working. Return to Truro. '??178.' A hundred and seventy-flippin'-eight pounds?! Must be a joke. I'll buy one on the train. Trundle. Platform Five. Train arrives at some point between midnight and 1am. I heave my luggage onboard, and instantly things change.
The guard calls me 'sir', for starters. 'A hundred and seventy-eight quid?' He smiled and looked over his glasses at me, before pressing a few buttons on his chest-slung ticket machine. 'How does sixty-one sound?' Someone else calls me 'sir' and shows me to my sleeper cabin. Bunk beds. Starched sheets. Hospital corners. Tartan blankets. He asked me if I'd like coffee in the morning, and called me 'sir' again. It was like being transported back to the 1950s and I felt like an excited schoolkid as I peeled back the crisp sheets and climbed into the bottom bunk.
I slept like a log, the schools talks went brilliantly, I caught the 1640-something train back to London this evening (nearly six hours) and, amazingly, I find myself back at my desk with no immediate signs of deep-vein thrombosis. Time for bed.
{ Filed under Miscellany on September 14th, 2005 | No Comments }
After saying I wanted to go sub-two hours, I ran 2:00:06 in the New York Road Runners Club's 18-mile race in Central Park today. I'd forgotten quite how hilly the park was in places, and I had to push hard to get close to two hours.
There were 3,552 finishers - I came 71st overall and 10th in my age group (male 20-29) at an average pace of 6:40 per mile (2:53ish marathon pace). The event was managed superbly (we need more races like this in central London) and there were volunteers giving out ice lollies at the finish. Excellent!
(Update: technical gremlins are still preventing the comments from working - it should be fixed tomorrow…)
{ Filed under Training on September 10th, 2005 | No Comments }
A quick update from New York (along with my apologies that bits of the site, including the SOUTH expedition pages, still aren't working properly yet).
1) Tony and I are running the New York Road Runners Club's 18-mile 'marathon tune-up' in Central Park on Saturday morning. It starts quite early, so hopefully the (glorious!) sun/heat we're enjoying won't be too much of a problem. I don't want to knacker myself out completely, but I'd like to go sub-two hours (and get as close to six-minute miles as possible).
2) I've uploaded some photos of the Vuelta a Espana's prologue stage.
3) We ran past Ellen MacArthur's boat at North Cove Marina yesterday. It's a stunning piece of design/engineering and I hope Ellen gets the weather window she needs.
4) We had dinner with a few of the TED team last night, and ended up ten-pin bowling. I came dead last.
{ Filed under Miscellany on September 8th, 2005 | No Comments }
Well, we're nearly there - after a catastrophic server failure several days ago (I thought we'd lost everything for a while - months and months of blog posts, expedition updates, comments, links, etc etc) the indomitable Adam McPartlan has been working like crazy to resuscitate the site.
I'm in New York at the moment (lots to fill you in on!) and it seems like the comments and 'permalinks' (when you click on the title of each individual post) aren't working yet, but Adam is on the case.
I've got to rush for a meeting now, but rest assured that after a period of enforced blogging cold turkey, I'll be writing a lot more in the near future…
{ Filed under Miscellany on September 7th, 2005 | No Comments }
Ben Saunders is the youngest person to ski solo to the North Pole and holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton.
