Breaking it in

Two 5 mile walks in the country in my new shoes, and some pain today! That's why we are breaking them in now, so no pain in April! I watched Troy over christmas, I was ill, and so it is apt that the only place I'm getting any issues is my achilles, my left one at the base. When it is rested it is fine so just teething problems I am sure. I love my boots though, really comfortable up until that point. A few days rest and I'll have another break-in session!

Feet

Where to start, I've learnt so much!

Well I got my feet tested towards the beginning of December as I am having issues with my IT Band that requires me to roll on a foam roller. Was told I had a normal gait, found this odd as this wasn't the case when rowing... got retested somewhere else for the cost of £40, running on computer linked gel pads, here I was told I needed mid support for high arches, which made more sense. Took the other shoes back and got some funky blue ones, for pronation, in at £100. Went running, the right foot now feels great, the left a bit awkward. Am finally getting fitted for walking boots, oh yes, these feel good, but then at home not so sure so head back in, get some time spent with a dancer, she knows a bit about feet, we find that my right foot pronates, but not the left, hence all the original confusion. So what I need is the original running shoe for the left and the current for the right, don't think so, so the alternative is some insoles that set my heel properly, at £35. Job done, oh I forget, walking shoes, £140. The cost of feet: £315

The 80's influence on today's New Zealand culture

Got really 'amped' by a new tune I heard on the radio yesterday... Admittedly I thought it was a girl singing 'Hey you're playing with my derriere, the moment i wake I'm gunning for you' and was dissapointed to find out it was in fact 'Hey you're playing with my delerium'. However that dissapointment was soon shelved when it was announced that the band's name was 'Ladyhawke' of 1980's film fame epicness and my first encounter with Michelle Pfeiffer:

When visiting youtube to scope it out further I was impressed that the 80's theme ran further than the name, and similarity with Pfeiffer, initially with the video for 'My Delerium', but this had nothing on 'Back of the Van' (see video below) which can only be described as some 'Europe', of Final Countdown fame, meets 'Sam Fox'... Which in some eyes is genius, others a disaster; I'm in the former bunch of campers.

A bigger question could be why am I blogging about this? Well I was shocked to find that this re-engineered 80's soundwave that is taking over DAB and analogue all over this country is in fact like Sir Ed a Kiwi...
So here is 'My Delerium':

Buying tights at £39.99

If the thought of going shopping for tights was bad enough then to find out that the starting price was basically £40 really took the biscuit. You see even though I had to wear lycra throughout rowing, especially tights in the winter and the England rugby team bound around in theirs nowadays it is, for a guy who grew up in the surf styled county of cornwall, still something of a bizzare concept, a fully grown man, who is engaging in a 'manly' sport to be wearing tights.

I finally got my head around it whilst rowing. Being on a river for hours in freezing temperatures at 6 in the morning you take every bit of help you can get. Tight shorts and tight tops I got; providing you are in shape they make you feel you can take on the world, but it took a while for the tights thing to be accepted.

Since uni I have lost them, and not hurried to replace them. Even now I wasn't in a rush until Monday night. On Monday I joined Kiwi's aerobic session around battersea park, lap followed by fartlek followed by another lap and so on, halfway into the second lap my calves and hamstrings were crying in pain, lactic acid burning and the cold temperature whispering in their ears, neigh begging them to seize up. I managed to get through it without them doing so, just, but they've been tight ever since, and in short it was enough said. So I can now welcome a pair of £39.99 underarmour tights into my wardrobe, to go with all the tight tech tops from rowing!

Missing a big day

What was I doing when the first black president got elected? Made it through a crazy crazy day at work and stayed up really late to get a sponsorship deck done for a big big big blue chip brand we're meeting tomorrow about Everest. But still got time to say well done to Martin Luther King and everyone else who struggled with oppression and fought against the tide for their dreams.
Believe. Make it happen. Well done.

Time to drop the hammer; keeping my room tidy

Some big web thinking coming from Binky

Had a great meeting last night with Tenzing kiwi Chris Beale aka Blinky who has been studiously working away on a google earth plug for the website. Basically this will mean people will be able to track our journey in the Himalayas using google earth and will see simulated views that we are seeing. We will also be able to post images and text to the route as well so we really can be tracked!



This is was a great meeting and showed Kirt and I that the passion for the trip is running really deep.

Every scene leads to the next

What is the critical reason for why this scene exists? What does it add to the entire story? How does it form its own drama of beginning middle and end, and how does this generate anticipation in the audience for the next scene? If it does this and all it's sister scenes do likewise then when connected together will they create a story that drives from outset relentlessly to the obligatory scene which the audience has been promised but doesn't yet know what it will be!

These are the many questions I am posing myself as I piece together the story of our exepedition to be conveyed in film. The story is taking care of itself, bringing this to life in a compelling manner for its future audience does not.

Being a strategic planner is pretty similar to film director, understanding the subject matter, the audience, what the key reason for the communication existing is and working with your creatively skilled team to pull it off executionally.

Anyway the picture shows my day, post it notes arranged and rearranged providing a platform for writing a detailed word document for a meeting on Wednesday with out film crew ahead of our first major shoot on Saturday.

An inspiration

So we all need dreams and inspirations. For me Michael Mann has always been one since I saw Collateral, just something so asthetically pleasing, I then scoped his back catelogue, Last of the Mohicans, Heat, Ali the list is long, and since then the underrated Miami Vice. When doing some more researching on him I found this Ad he shot for Nike last year, uses the Last of the Mohicans theme tune.

Why I love this in particular is that I actually used this tune when doing the Audio Visual for the British Horseracing Awards Horse of the Year Award in 2006, it is pure gold for sport.

Documentary or feature? The formula is the same.

I was a keen observer of adventurefest this evening at the Vue in Leicester Square. A collection of adventure documentaries I was then in clue finding mode! Using my phone light to make sure I was making legible notes in the cinema on both Sharkman and Big Swell I must have looked a little weird... But I am getting used to that. 

It was only when sat at my desk this evening and started typing up my notes that I realised that documentaries are the same protagonist antagonist battle as your favourite action flicks, The Departed or whatever takes your fancy. The better of the two, or more flowing and engaging to quantify this was Sharkman, and it also manifested the quality of each act being a microcosm of the whole, inevitably the challenge facing the protagonist. This I truly learnt when studying Mackendrick briefly at the London Film School.

As I continue to compile my notes, more to come from next week's films I am more and more confident that I will be able to direct this documentary to a high standard, and indeed it is something that I am relishing! 

Making sense of the FTSE drop

I'm not going to claim to be an expert but this can't be good news. In our own project world I guess it just makes the credit crunch seem even more real, will everyone still make it to the start line for the Everest Test. Will we be able to get a sponsor? We are about to have a big push for a sponsor in a coupple of weeks. I am just relieved that we don't rely on needing a sponsor for the trip to happen!

Lewis hopes to fail

Lewis Gordon Pugh has set off on his Kayak to the North Pole, he hopes to fail! If he manages to Kayak then we really are in trouble and this year it is predicted that the North Pole could for a short while be free from ice! Lewis you will remember swam 1km in the North Pole in just trunks and goggles! His mental preparation has been meditating and listening to music... He hopes that this will show to the public what is really happening in the Arctic, this video is pretty inspiring.

Everest cricket photos in London

Think Jonny Wilkinson in a Hackett catalogue, and well sorry you'll be dissapointed, potentenially!!! George had us in suits playing cricket in the rain by City Hall in front of Tower Bridge, we got quite some support as well! Really looking to seeing the finished article!
P.s. I did have the shirt!

Photo Shoot

Seriously embarrassing photo shoot Kirt and I just had to do. George put us on this spinning disk and proceeded to take 24 photos as we rotate, a bit Matrix like, and will no doubt have us looking very uncool. Hopefully he'll use photoshop to its maximum! Some of things we go through pursuing a world record on Everest.

Twitter

I am up to speed on Twitter now - I'll be using this to keep up to speed on an ongoing basis as to what we're doing in the organisation of the trip! http://twitter.com/garethwesley

Where's my name gone

Quick little rant - someone has taken garethwesley.blogspot.com and done nothing with it! What a complete lack of respect for those people called gareth wesley who may want to use it!

Anyway that is that finished. I'm off to have some photos done this evening, for the press pack and so on. Should be fun, never had this done before!