World Records are all the rage these days, everyone knows about Usain Bolt and what he got up to at the Olympics, but perhaps not as well known is what Mark Beaumont did lately. 

People may have noticed him on the(rather irritating) “I am” advertising campaign by Orange, but if you caught the program “The man who cycled the world” a couple of weeks ago, then you will not only know all about him, but you’ll probably be rather impressed too.

Basically, this guy cycled round the world. He went 18,000 miles in 194 days. He did 100 miles a day and smashed the previous world record. He even has the certifacte to prove it.

To put this into perspective, he did the equivalent of 18 Mount Everests. Not bad I reckon. What impresses me about this guy is that he had some pretty tough times, he got hit by a car and mugged on the same day, and yet from what I’ve seen, he was never tempted to give up.

He has also raised more than £17k for various charities so far, one of which is a Nepal based charity, so we have something in common! Anyway, I salute the man and thought you all should too.

On a separate note, a cricketing legend has ben released by his county today and I thought perhaps we should try to recruit him to play for Team Hillary or Team Tenzing.

The master blaster Ali Brown played a part in two cricket world records. He led from the front as Surrey posted the highest ever team total in a 50 Over game when they hit 496/4 against Gloucestershire last year, but his most astonishing achievement was the 268 he hit against Glamorgan in 2002, from 160 balls.

A legend who probably wishes that Twenty/20 came along 15 years ago!

Here is an extract from Nick Tooveys blog - to read more click here

And so begins what may be a tedious 8 months of healthy living and constant exercise. And sticking true to my Kenny Bania character, I revel in telling everybody that I’m not drinking, not eating skin or sauce on chicken, and talking about the amount of reps I’m doing. I reason that I’m a pest no matter what the situation, so at least health & fitness is a valid topic to annoy people about, and if I didn’t have the motivation, then I wouldn’t go to the gym and end up having to wash myself with a rag on a stick after taking up a Marlon Brando style attitude towards my own body.

 
The first tests of my endurance will be coming soon, in the form of a 10k fun run and a 3 peaks challenge. I’m seriously thinking of starting litigation over this whole ‘fun run’ thing though. Whoever thinks running is, in any of it’s incarnations, a form of ‘fun’ really needs to experience a few of life’s finer points. Such as midget-tossing or strip-bars.

Just been made aware of our first article in the press, a diary piece that puts us in lights with Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps as world record breakers, well they’ve nailed theirs, we’ve still to do ours, but another milestone achieved all the same. Hopefully we’ll not need to take Diego’s route to the record!

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. I must apologise to people for us continually putting in words like Everest, World Record and cricket, it helps our search ranking. On this we’d also like to announce our newest recruit, Cam Clarke of catch22marketing, Cam will be helping us to boost search ranking and increase the interactivity of our main website www.theeveresttest.com which is being built by agency.com at the moment, after which responsibility will fall to Cam! Tomorrow will see us in London for some more photography, some stylised shots in the city which sound exciting.

Making the call is sometimes one of the hardest things to do, and indecision is the last thing when making a run for it. It is no different off the field of play and is something we have recently come to grips with having to change tack with one of our events.

We were planning a pre expedition sports auction fundraising event, with some of our most devoted members spending plenty of time and emotion developing it. However it was apparent that whilst the event was potentially risky, requiring 350 high networth individuals, various prizes, it was also not playing to our strengths. Currently we are unknowns who are attempting something, post event we will, if successful be a strong brand with much to talk about. Having a rejig with a post event exhibition and ashes preview night was an idea with easily more gravitas.

It was a decision we were comfortable with and believed in more and more as time went on discussing it, but it was tough to tell people so committed that we want them to stop, and focus on something else. Fortunately much of the previous work will be saved and the team seem even more enthusiastic.

It has been a while since I blogged which is not to mean that not much has been happening, precisely the opposite in fact, chasing and meeting potential partners at the forefront of the activity, but the paradox of a blog diary, which champions transparency, is that we can’t talk about them until we seal them! We have taken delivery of cricket equipment from Gray Nicolls which is great news! Jules’s office took the delivery so he now has to wade through cricket equipment just to do his day job, which should make good training.

Agency.com is about to start work on the pre-expedition website which hopefully will be live at the end of August, and will feature the winning logo from our recent logo competition. This hasn’t been released yet as it needs to be tweaked by the designers that are creating the website to make sure that the creative identity is spot on from when we launch it! It will lead to a reskin for this blog too!

It would be remiss too not to acknowledge the tragedy on K2 recently in the Himalayas, where 11 climbers lost their lives on the Mountain known as Everest’s sister. A reminder of the power and remoteness of the region and challenges it presents.

Michael Vaughan may have nothing to do with the Everest Test at all but I felt compelled to pay a small tribute to the man who reached the summit of his own Everest in 2005 by reclaiming the Ashes from Australia for the first time in 18 years.

This man is the kind of leader we should all aspire to be, feared by his opponents, respected by his seniors, and adored by his charges. He has given much more to the English game than any other captain before him, and had he opted to continue for a mere four more games then he would have become the longest serving captain we have ever had. Instead he steps down as merely the most successful.

While everyone will talk of 2005 as the pinnacle, 2004 was every bit as good for England followers as we won seven matches in a row, and 10 in 11 while also having eight batsmen register 13 hundreds between them. To quote Will Luke on Cricinfo: “For a team once allergic to winning, England had forgotten how to lose”.

Lest we forget, the man had 18 months out of the side with a career threatening knee injury which would have defeated lesser men, and yet walked back into the team without anyone thinking much of it, for his leadership alone he was worth it. Sadly, that cannot be said anymore, as Andrew Miller says below, but for me the man is an inspiration and I hope to see him back in an England shirt and raising his average back to the heights it reached in 2002.

Below is a extract from Andrew Miller on Cricinfo, to read in full click here.

“The man who’s clapped and cajoled from his familiar position at mid-off this summer is not the same leader who ran rings around Ricky Ponting in 2005, as England moved clear of the chasing pack to become the second-best side in the world. In an emotional address to the media at Loughborough, the pressures that have come with his position came pouring into full view, and Vaughan admitted that, had he not taken this decision, it might well have been taken out of his hands. In the cruel world of sport, heroes can be recast as zeroes with a haste not seen in any other walk of life.

“The grand statements made the record-books - England’s long-awaited victories in West Indies and South Africa, and of course the Ashes - but it was the little moments that made the difference where Vaughan’s captaincy was concerned. His denouncement of a misleadingly comfortable victory at Port Elizabeth in 2004-05, for instance, as “shoddy”, or a memorable fourth-evening session at Headingley in 2004, when out of the dregs of a match destined for a draw, Vaughan caught a whiff of cordite in his nostrils, and ordered his men into a full-frontal assault against New Zealand’s bewildered batsmen. Four wickets followed in 18 balls before the close, and the rout was wrapped up before lunch the following morning.”

Today we received the official backing of the English Cricket Board, a significant moment in taking The Everest Test to another level.

Hugh Morris is a central figure in English cricket and to be able to have someone like him supporting the event certainly makes us a more credible outfit.

He said today: “On behalf of the ECB, I wish you every success on your exciting expedition.”

Along with this we are also in contact with the Cricket Association of Nepal and while things are not as advanced as they are with the ECB, discussions have begun and things are certainly looking very positive on that front.

Secretary of the CAN, Shashi Dutta Pandey said: “Cricket Association of Nepal (CAN) would be very happy to provide necessary support to your team for the promotion of cricket in our country.”

So all in all, things are moving along nicely and hopefully we will hear from Mr. Binaya Raj Pandey, who is President of the CAN, when we do another update will follow.

As someone who follows cricket below the mainstream international arena, Nepal are very much an up and coming nation and have performed well in several Under-19 World Cups, but have always struggled to repeat that success at senior level.

With the recent change in funding regulations at Associate level it is an exciting time for the game at lower levels so do not be surprised if lesser known cricketing nations start to punch above their weight, and perhaps we can help Nepal be one such nation.

If you are interested in finding out more at cricket below the big stage click here.

Inspirational stuff this, enjoy.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

To continue reading please click ‘The Man in the Arena’

The people involved in this event are the real key to it. We have a collection of individuals who are committed to making The Everest Test all it can be and now we can start to learn a little more about those involved.

More and more of us are setting up individual blogs where you will be able to follow the stories of each individual, find out what they are getting up to, the ups and downs involved in fitness training, dieting, giving up smoking and the rest. Perhaps what you will learn most from these is how much each and every person cares about the event and what they are willing to put themselves through in order to make it possible.

So, please take the time to read some of these, I am sure everyone will have their favourites so feel free to pass those on to anyone and everyone you know!

As a little aside, at the time of writing Team Hillary have nine blogs set up, while Team Tenzing have just five. Not that anyone is keeping score or anything…

Blogs below:

HILLARY

http://alaneverest.blogspot.com/

http://milesnathan.blogspot.com/

http://russelldebeer.blogspot.com/

http://bjeverest.blogspot.com/

http://chrissymeverest.blogspot.com/

http://gleneverest.blogspot.com/

http://kirtblogging.blogspot.com/

http://jamopeterson.blogspot.com/

http://juleseveresttest.blogspot.com/

TENZING

http://boozerinnepal.blogspot.com/

http://tooveseverest.blogspot.com/

http://watersoneverest.blogspot.com/

http://gateverest.blogspot.com/

http://jrvhill.blogspot.com/

TREKTATORS

http://jamiezooby.blogspot.com/