Back in Cyberspace – update 1.0

You may have noticed that I have been away-from-my-blog, off Facebook  – a thumbs-up giver and comment-maker rather than a poster of posts; a tweet-reader rather than a twitter’er.

In fact I have been rather anti-social about social media.

I have had my reasons. Thankfully those reasons no longer apply. Armed with my towel, I am ready to resume hitchhiking the galaxy!

If you have read Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you will understand what this means. If you haven’t here’s a brilliant 28 minute podcast by the BBC R4 Bookclub.

 

To recap what I’ve been up to since 2012.

• I did not end up running the Marathon des Sables. Five months before the race, I went for a 4hr training run followed by a delicious black squid Paella (I haven’t been able to eat it since). Hours later, I was on my way to hospital in an ambulance writhing in pain – appendicitis.

I was barely well enough 4 months later to go to the desert to work as a ‘Commissaire du Bivouac’ for the race…

Highlights of the experience include –

1. Flare demonstration: setting off a red parachute rocket flare (which we never get to play with on Survival At Sea courses), while standing on top of a Landrover in front of 1,500 people
2. Joining famous French ultra-runner Laurence Klein and race director Patrick Bauer in his’ Ecureuil’ helicopter to fly over the course on what happened to be my birthday.
3. Mapping out a runway with Giles “Avion” for the Cessna to land in a wadi (salt flat).
4. Getting left behind.

One morning my driver stopped his truck and walked up a small jebel (hill) in search of mobile phone reception. He wanted to order bread for his family. As the convoy pulled away, my radio went out of range. I soaked up the silence of the desert and realised that what attracted me to the MdS was the appeal of SILENCE.

After working for the event for 2 years, the race became a job rather than a calling. I moved on, sadly without running the course.

During my stint with the MdS UK, I designed and wrote content for 3 websites, 1 Facebook account, 2 Twitter accounts and organised 2 conferences for 300 people.

The idea for first MdS UK EXPO arrived after I entered the race.

I need help!  I thought to myself. I need professional help. I need advice from lots of professionals and I can’t be alone in thinking this.

The professionals were keen to help and the event sold out in advance!

For many runners, the freeze-dried lunch sponsored by Fuizion Freeze Dried Food, was their first freeze-dried meal EVER. (Fuizion is by far the market leader, so what a great way to start!)

I was thrilled when Dr. Mike Stroud, OBE agreed to speak.

And ecstatic when I also managed to book Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

Although to this day, I have no idea why Sir Ran held up this sign to the photographer after his talk, whether he wrote it himself or one of the attendees wrote it…

Perhaps the answer…

‘Yes…!’

‘Is…!’

‘Yes…!!!…?’

‘Forty-two,’ said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.