Morning Everyone.

Well the big news is that after a month or two of decision making it is now felt that the expedition would benefit greatly from changing sponsorship direction very slightly.  Up until now I have been raising my funds for Sports Relief.  However, we have been through a little bit of soul searching and realised our endeavour could be positioned better with the fantastic Lords Taveners.  This great charity was set up by like-minded individuals in 1950 with a love of cricket and communal pro-activity that gave itself to urgent fundraising aiming a creating a better life for children; particularly those with special needs.  Today the ranks of the Taveners are full of celebrities, musicians, cricket stars and people who feel that they could make a difference.  The unanimous feeling was that so could we.  They have been interested in our endeavours right from the start and have offered support and assistance throughout and the overriding feeling when we met at Lords a few weeks ago was that our impact would create bigger waves if we drew up alongside The Taveners; and now it's official.  www.lordstaveners.org for further information and the bigger story.

It goes without saying that Sport Relief is still of course a wonderful and amazing charity and massive "thank yous" to those friends and supporters of mine that have kindly donated to the cause so far.  Your money will go towards ground-breaking projects set up by Sport Relief and that have huge impact, both in the UK and overseas; so really a huge Thankyou.  However, any further funds raised will now go towards the Lords Taveners and I will be changing my donation pages shortly.

The Christmas season has sneaked up on us again.  I just wish corporate Britain let the world know a little sooner.  I watch the TV, listen to the radio and I didn't even realise Christmas was coming so soon.  No adverts, no Live Aid, no Slade, nothing.  Come on Britain, lets get the decorations out earlier than August next year, please.  Obviously, training will continue although this week I have given myself a bit of slack and I would imagine next week will be the same but it will continue in earnest.  A very Merry Christmas to all my fellow lunatics and anyone that may have stumbled across this blog looking for late night "exercise" websites and all the best for 2009.  Our next serious get together will be a Tenzing Weekend at Kinsey's farm in Herefordshire; building him a brand new shed, building his village a new church, asphalting his Helipad, scrumping his apples, digging him a new swimming pool and going for a run. April's coming everyone and our adventures will be going up several notches.  

A Great Day - Tourist Bashing, Bleeping and a Good Long Net

Morning All.

Last Saturday; no not that one, the one that has literally just gone; saw a significant amount of bods from the Everest Test all together for the first time in a while for a pre-Christmas catch-up, to get some serious promotional activity going on and to have a "beasting" fitness work-out and a net session at the Home of Cricket, Lord's. It was a superb and hugely enjoyable day that I know everyone also really enjoyed. It also allowed myself to meet some of the other guys going on the trip that so far I hadn't been able to which was excellent.

The day kicked off for me by limping into Lord's Car Park on pretty much fumes as the Wife hadn't filled up the car on her last trip out; ......another time. However, I was donned in the venerable whites ready for my initiation into the world of Frozen Mobiles, or something like that. The plan was to hook up with the rest of the Everest group outside Waterloo station; underneath the flimsy looking Ferris Wheel beside the Thames. Wearing whites in the Lord's compound obviously doesn't and didn't cause anyone to raise an eyebrow at all; why would it? The further one walks away from Lord's the more reaction one gets; makes sense really. So, by the time Waterloo station appeared outside the tube window I had caused a significant amount of rib-nudging and "look at that twat"-ing. Only one guy passed verbal comment - "wrong season innit?", he said, smirking as he got off the tube. Hilarious. I was pleased in this case when a little bit of mouth-foam spittle landed on his nose that had jumped from my hung-over mouth, as I let out a sarky guffaw. As I made way through to the main bit of Waterloo, wearing whites, I was on Red Alert for having fingers pointed at me, drinks chucked at me or worse. With this in mind, I hid behind the group of mullet-haired, plate-lickers that were obviously going to wreak carnage of some sort of a Eurostar, lager-frenzied, plastic chair chucking day out. (I seriously thought one guys hair cut was actually illegal now). Anyhow, the thought of walking past these walking adverts for why people move from England wearing what may as well have been an alien costume, was pushing it. I rode up the escalator hiding behind a group of small children.

I found the rest of the Group and we were walked through what exactly a "freeze-mob" was. The idea being we would walk into a suitably illegal or unsuitable place wearing our whites and re-create a catch at short-leg in an imaginary game of cricket. The appeal would go up but we would then freeze; i.e. holding that pose for 3 minutes to the bemusement of the Chinese and Spanish hoards that frequent tourist London. Three times we popped-up, "Guerrilla-like" - Parliament Square, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square; they all got the "freeze-mob" treatment. It was surprisingly brilliant fun and a fantastic way of advertising what we are doing and what we will be doing in April. Short of driving a truck through people's front rooms this sort of activity must be one of the best advertising mediums going. Good on everyone for doing this. I still have "arse-cramps" in the glutes from my various positions but, really, I got away lightly compared with some of the other guys. Have a look at http://www.theeveresttest.com/ for pictures.

We then had a long and very informative meeting, led by Kirt and Wes, who filled us in on what's been happening and we had various short reports form the guys that led the various Tenzing / Hillary activities since we had last met. We were told about the sponsorship arrangements, who was on board, the new medical team that we had now attracted and the fact that we could potentially be changing sponsor. I volunteered to take part in an umpire training weekend over next Valentines day to the relief of the Wife who simply hates being taken out and entertained on such occasions. Done her a real favour there, I think.

We then had the dreaded "Bleep-Test" which at one point was looking like it was being cancelled due to complete and total lack of interest. However, it was not to be and we got going with 20 minutes of up and down shuttle running that is branded under the cosy sounding title "Bleep-Test". It's a schoolboy nightmare basically and is the bottom line in fitness levels and indicates where a person might be with regards to overall stamina and fitness. Disappointingly, I hadn't really nudged any further than the first test I took in the summer - still around 9.3 / 9.5 ish but I will persevere with my fitness regime as I know I am getting better and fitter and I am also losing weight (about 1 stone so far) but it does highlight that with the "silly-season" coming up its going to be worth it to work just as hard, if not harder, to keep the regime going. Cold and frozen mornings aside, I've still got to keep going. With my mate Barnesy also moving to Singapore in the New Year, my commitment has got to be doubled as he may very well not be around all that much to run, circuit train with and basically give my ass a kick. I'll miss the cold, foggy mornings, charging off, scaring the pheasants and deer that think there won't be anyone daft enough to run through the woods at this time in the morning and following Barnesy as he farts in my air gasping face every five minutes.

With the Bleeps over, I then proceeded to get smacked about the St.Johns Wood skyline in a two hour net session. Actually, I really enjoyed having a bat and having a good long bowl for two hours. The Indoor School is just superb and rarely do you find bowler run-lengths able to contain my incendiary, cheetah-like approach to the crease. The wickets also had a little in it for the bowler who likes hitting seam. It was good to see everyone enjoying the cricket and having a knock. There's obviously a bit of talent about and one or two players on the Hillary bench that Tenzing may have to nobble.

The full and tiring day was rounded off at about 7; so we had been at it all day but it was great to meet new friends, learn about the colossal amount of work going on behind the scenes; the high profile people like the Lord's Taverners who are now looking like coming alongside our little trip, and many other facets that go into the mix for a venture like this and that the organisation team have put every ounce they have into it. This trip will be a success.

Again, it seriously instilled in me the fact that this is such a well run venture and that I am hugely proud to be a part of it. April will come round like a rocket and I hope I make the cut on the mountain - there are a few miles to clock up, an auction to organise, money to raise, dry, horrible turkey to eat and lumps crappy, overpriced tat to buy before then though. Good old Woolworth's. Merry Christmas.