Racist Running Statistics by Stevie Sartorially Sozzaled Haston

So, Pissed as a parrot, whose Mrs Parrot, has just pissed off with the Priatic Pompiers of Perpignan, I did some perusing of some perplexing physical philosophies. Needless to say you could perhaps interpret them in a different way, according to your particular prejudices or state of inebriation. As a prelude to this complex task I took a six pack of Ceres Strong Ale Export Alc. 7.7%, taken post work where none of my brilliant and totally practical ideas where taken note of. This delightful Danish brew taken prophylactically and to excess seems to speed and aid any mental task. On arriving home I ignored my normal methods of relaxation ie. www. Swedish Fetish Nurses Against Nuclear Disarmament, and did some surfing of other stuff. So I looked up the entries to a race I had entered and noted the numbers per nationality. These facts gave me some grave and enlightening information which may surprise and stun sober members of a more rational, non racial, and non-rotten minded member of Mankind.

Out of 500 entries to a one of the greatest trail races in the world which takes place in stunning mountain scenery, there are only 4 Brits! Brits are supposedly a great mountaineering nation with a great Fell running culture! The race takes place an Easy Jet flight away, cost half a pint of Bitter,  plus tax! Contrast this with our Nipponese nibble footed Fell fellows. 13 Japenese will travel not across the channel, but across Asia and Europe. Naturally the home nation Italy, will raise 208 runners, but France its neighbor and our traditional enemysends 114, ‘a bakers hundredweight’to our 4.  Our American cousins are sending across the pond, and not the channel 14, Canada British till only a few years ago and still across the pond manages 9, more than double the Brits, interesting again. Spain 48, tiny Portugal 6, Slovenia 1, Luxembourg 1, San Marino, who I previously thought of as a race of Sheep, are also sending 1. And least but not least, if I include myself as Gozotan and not French we get a few fantastic facts. Gozo with a population of 30,000 are also sending 1. Thus proving that Gozo, a tiny sea level island with no mountains is the greatest sporting nation in the cosmos. Long live the Gozotans we are good runners, brilliant drinkers and world famous for accurate statistics. Previously to this inquiry into world sporting endeavor I had thought of the Gozatans primarily as champions of cigarette smoking and wild and worrying hand gestures. Just goes to show how wrong you can be and the power of really strong ale.

Avalanche Non Awareness, by Stevie Haston

Hi Guys, I got some nasty mail and had a few angry conversations with a few guides and people who work in the snow industry about my Avalanche blog. So to spread a bit more light, and give those guys a few more spitting fits here’s some more. Avalanche Bleeper’s don’t stop you being in an avalanche, it’s simple. Not entering avalanche areas will stop you being in avalanches, duh! You can either choose to be extremely conservative about your acceptance of risk, or be at risk to a greater or lesser extent. The Swiss ski Guides a few years ago decided to become much more careful about what they skied, and in consequence have had fewer accidents. They did this by not skiing loaded slopes above 30 degrees, this is my basic interpretation, please confirm it or disagree. Depending where you live, or what language you speak, it might be hard to get the information. I like powder and slopes above 30 degrees, so for me this is no solution, I would have to stay at home.

I thought I’d share a few facts to help you stay at home or venture out. If you are buried under snow your chances of survival are a lot less after 10 mins, and drop off significantly there after. To be found in snow debris, is almost impossibility without a bleeper. To dig two meters and retrieve a body in 10mins in anything but powder snow is asking for too much from one person. Brain damage is very evident after 14 mins, if you live that long. So first you must ski to the approximate location, if this is in a couloir bear in mind it might be stripped down to bear ice or rocks. Then you must locate the unfortunate and dig a very big hole. The hole is by necessity bigger than you think and will take time, possibly way too long. Many fatalities in avalanches are from broken necks and other severe trauma, you don’t just gently die a peaceful death. I am a fit man who knows how to dig, having worked on many building sites in my time, so I decided to do an experiment. I went to an avalanche, there are lots here to choose from, and we have had so called Spring avalanches from November. I assumed I knew where my partner was and decided to dig a hole to a depth of two meters. It took me twenty mins by myself. This was in hard snow with a very good shovel, a shovel that a few years ago was known as a Pisteur shovel and you are unlikely to be carrying one like this. The avalanche I was in a few days ago was windblown powder, and powder at altitude, so you would expect the digging to have been easy, but you are wrong. I travelled about 300 meters in the avalanche and by the time I stopped the snow was compacted and very heavy, it would have been easier to dig than my experimental hole, but still very difficult.

So you must have time get to the area, find the person with a bleeper, have a good shovel and dig a big hole, the victim then might need first aid, or flying out for major hospitalization. So you need a phone and a wilderness first aid competence, you need to know where you are. Bleeper’s shovels and probes are required by law in Off Piste skiing, but phones etc are not, why? And where do these requirements and regulations stop, most off the people I have seen recently with guides are poor skiers with no knowledge of how to help themselves in the mountains. So if the guide is taken out what happens. Anyway a bit to think about for you all. We live in a society that doesn’t think, and tries to make risky things safe, so really it should ban you from slippery surfaces in showers or make you wear a harness. And isn’t smoking still legal? Or maybe none of us should be born because, assuredly we will die. Good luck.

Three books by Stevie Haston

Joss is the title of the book written by Keith Richardson about the eternal Joss Naylor. For those of you who don’t know Joss, particularly American Ultra runners, the man could be summed up as, a Lake District sheep farmer who ran prodigious distances. Of course he was much more than that, he was a legend, to many fell runners he was the man who optimized living and working among the fells. Anyway a nice coffee table sized book with lovely photos of Lake District landscape.

Wild Trails to Far Horizons by Mike Cudahy, is another must read running nerds book, probably hard to find and out of print. Again non Brits will probably not know his name, but Mr Cudahy was instrumental in stretching the boundaries of what was thought possible in long distance trail. One day a running mag might write some of the history of our sport without too much preference for one country or another, but of course that would be too hard and require them to read the above two books. This book is probably a better read than Joss but both suffer a great deal, don’t get me wrong, they are very interesting, but if you’re not a nerd they will appear long. It’s very hard to write about running in an interesting way that’s why I hesitate in recommending them but I obviously enjoyed them both, but I had no wish to be entertained, I simply wished to be informed and reminded of how great these two men were. So for me the books are very good.

King of the World by David Remnick is a great book by a great writer about a great subject. It’s not about running, it’s about boxing, it’s about Cassius and it’s about Ali, two of the innumerable sides of one man who was heavy weight champion of the world. Ali transcended sport and boxing, and became something else, he became a symbol for freedom. I can’t recommend this book enough, I just wish it was about running or climbing, but there you go, our sports are just not like boxing or are they? If you read the book, you will understand that boxing is generally fixed, a bit like climbing I think. The best boxers come from a limited part of the population who don’t have much to lose and something to fight against. Climbing used to be a rich man’s sport but was taken over by the workers, it is now back to being the province of the dilatants and myth builders. An interesting case might be running, a sport natural to all humans but now often done by IT workers in America and not sheep farmers. Anyway no real point here perhaps a mag could make a point or at least provide me with something worth reading.

Ali for me is most famous for saying, ‘I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong’ not for saying anything about boxing. He was drafted into an illegal war and refused to go, good on him, shame on America.

Malta bouldering Comp, by Stevie Haston

Off to Malta at the end of the month to support their first Bouldering comp and give a slide show...
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=280707348840

Gasherbrun II, winter ascent, by Stevie Haston

Moro, Urubko and Richards all submitted, well done. Gash 2 is thought of as an easy summit but nothing is easy in the Himalayan winter. Winter ascents used to be the preserve of hard ‘Poles’ and so it is pleasing to see lads from three different countries teaming up.

More news on http://www.planetmountain.com/

An Ordinary Run, by Stevie Haston



my roommate

 Yesterday was fairly ordinary. An ordinary day in a boring week, or a boring day in an ordinary week, I don’t know or care. So just before dinner I put my shoes on and went out into the dark fog. I was just going out for my very mundane ‘there and back’ little run, my filler in run, ‘my better do something run’. And you know what, it was great! As soon as I was out of the flat, watching my breath blow out like a small horse in the chilly air, I knew it was going to be good. Within a few breaths and paces I was doing what I call slow ‘breath of fire’ breathing. Breath of fire, from Kundalini Yoga, I find hard, but occasional, when running or doing Denivelé, it really clicks. Anyway its uphill for 400 meters, round past a frozen river, then the cable car station, then the woods and pillowed slow on chalets and hillocks. It was dark and cold and crunchy underfoot, I kept my eyes peeled for the two foxes who live up that road, but didn’t see them. Mostly I concentrated on my breathing and felt prime. Wow if it was this easy all the time, my god, it was really running, not jogging. So at the turn around I normally concentrate on even slow safe pace, and instead I just flew home. 10 mn faster than normal, nice. 3 plates of cabbage soup later, my legs felt worked. It was a very nice ordinary run, and I stayed awake thinking about simple, lovely things, in a bemused, full kinda way. You don’t know what you got, till it’s gone, and it goes because you don’t look after it, and cherish it. Be warned. Look after the little but great things in life, like ‘breath of fire’, you are never as happy as the child playing.

La Thuile bouldering Comp, by Stevie Haston

Local Bouldering comp took place recently with route setting by Alberto Gnerro. Typical climbing wall meeting/gathering which was enjoyed by many. Nice to see Alberto Gnerro a master climber in attendance. Alberto was one of the strongest guys I’ve ever seen and was a 9a climber. Alberto did the fist 9a in Italy with a route called Ground Zero at Toit de Sarre, a route that is total power endurance. Anyway photos of the comp at Grivels website.





Alberto Gnerro
(c) Lorenzo Belfrond