Arbitrary life update:

Been putting off writing anything for a while, mainly because not much has happened which is worth writing about after Libya to be honest. Be that as it may, I feel that 2 months without writing anything is pretty poor form on my part, regardless of how few people are interested anyway.

At the moment I am in my last few weeks of term for my 3rd and penultimate year of university, so predictably I am just pushing through with essays, revision, and keeping on top of other bits and bobs before finishing up for the academic year. So in terms of that, the work is going ok and I am keeping on top of the Chinese in general, viewing it as a real investment for the future which I envisage will be predominantely in China.

In terms of training, its been a bit of everything to be honest. I have been climbing quite a lot during my time in sheffield, pretty much exclusively in an indoor bouldering wall down the round from me, much to my shame when the Peak district is just an 8 mile bike ride away. I am just poor at planning for a whole day of something!
So my climbing has been going ok and steadily improving I feel, and also parkour/movement is going ok. I have been a bit of a lone ranger with training after my time in China. I just got used to training almost exclusively by myself and still seem to enjoy it more than with other people, which is something that I need to work on before I become a complete recluse I think.
Been trying to work on slightly more extroverted movements rather than just retreating into drilling precisions and simple movements, so I have been trying to push out a wee bit and do things a little more challenging, albeit still simple stuff overall.
Strength training is good and fun. I have stopped doing certain reps and sets and rest times with things and instead go out to find a playground for example, and concentrate on perhaps doing 40 minutes of dynamic pulling movements in a very free way, just doing any and all kinds of movements I can think of just using the arms for pulling muscles.
Routine kind of looks like this:

MON: Pulling (dynamic), movement, drills
TUE: Squats, deadlifts, climbing/resting/running
WED: Pushing, movement, drills
THUR: Squats, deadlifts, climbing/resting/running
FRI: Pulling (max strength), movements, drills
SAT: Pushing, running/movement/climbing/whatever
SUN: running/climbing/movement/resting

Admittedly, I miss the occassional session at the moment when I am trying to smash a deadline or if life in general gets in the way, but thats what I aim for each week at the moment.

Plan for summer:
20 - 29th June = Nigeria.
Making a bamboo playground for the kids in a village, going out with dad and 3 others, should be full on hectic steez!
20 - 29th July = Iran.
Family holiday to Iran!
5th August - 18th September = CHINA.
Going to see the lady in Shanghai (will have been 6 months) and do something productive. Definately want to hook up with as many people as possible for training and chilling, so anyone in the oriental area, get in touch!

Site of the moment: Always Be Ready

live long and prosper!

Return From Libya

Got back from Libya a few days ago and have had a lot of time to reflect and mull over the whole experience.
January was a mad month to build up to it. I had two weeks in China, then exams for two weeks, and then had to get onto some last bits of decent training for Libya, taking the weight vest for runs through the snow in the Peak District.
Me and my dad set off for London on the 21st to catch the Eurostar and a chartered flight with all the other competitors from Paris to Libya.
We had a day at the camp prepping or equipment (and minds), and the actual event began on the 24th, Tuesday morning at 10am. Everyone was up at 6am to get driven to an inflatable starting point in the middle of the desert. There was about an hour of hanging around and then we were off! The first section was a 15km run to a steep climb up about 1000ft. After that, the terrain was varied throughout with steep sand dunes and rocky paths.

Before starting, I made sure my blood sugar was fairly high to compensate for the 3 days of movement that lay ahead, because if it dropped too low and i ran out of food, that would be game over straight away. Conversely, my blood sugar stayed far too high the entire time, going off the scale of my blood sugar meter at one point. It seems that the high temperatures de-natured my insulin so it was very ineffective. With high blood sugar came dehydration as little water was retained (one symptom of diabetes pre-diagnosis is drinking and peeing a LOT). This was not ideal considering we were in 40 degree C heats in the day, and you can only drink as much water as you can carry between each 25km checkpoint.
Aside from all that, me and my dad were feeling strong for completing the race, and it was fully on our minds to do so. However, at check point 4, 100km in, my insulin pen went missing between setting off from the checkpoint, and stopping 500m down the road to search for it. After a couple of hours of searching and having the entire checkpoint and bags in the vicinity checked and emptied, it was game over. Without insulin I can't eat or get the glucose to the muscles, and with high sugar levels already, it was just not feasible to carry on. We had to drop out and get driven 5 hours to a hospital to find insulin (which was out of date) in order to eat for the rest of the days in camp from dropping out.

Although it is gutting to have had to pull out not from choice, me and my dad are on for doing it next year (without appealing for sponsorship from you lot, don't worry haha). It is something which I know I can do, and will not let a medical condition like diabetes stop it.

Aside from that though, it was an incredible trip and i plumbed new depths of having to 'dig deep' for me. I learnt a lot from it and met some mad people, such as ex French Foreign Legion security guards and someone who had run to Beijing in 150 days!

Thank you SO MUCH for the support, we have raised over £6000 in online and offline donations, so that is flipping awesome, a big two finger salute to the credit crunch.

Peace and love everyone.

Equipment and food for the event. About 10,000 calories.

The day before just taking a stroll outside the camp...

Minutes before the start

The British and Aussie contingent

Taking stock at checkpoint 2 before the push through the night.

Day 2 as dawn is breaking

Chilling having a sandwich

My crack kit supplied by the hospital after my insulin went missing on the race.

'HI', meaning 'your blood sugar is off the charts mate'.

Free, quality Hip Hop!

Illspot.net
Sphere of hip hop
Triple H Mixtapes
Sacred Apparel Mixtapes

Get it in!

A Peak District Beasting

Me and my Dad went for a final training session before the (now 200km) Libyan Challenge whixh takes place in about 10 days.

We decided to go for a trek through the Peak District starting at 9:20pm doing a loop back to my house in Sheffield.

Some Stats and things:

Total Distance: 54 miles
Total Time: 22 hours
Total time awake: 37 hours
Temperature: Below freezing (our liquids all froze to blocks of ice)
Total time not walking: 2 hours altogether for eating
Highlight: Perhaps seeing sheep being herded by a sheep dog and its owner
Low point: Realising the final push was another 6 hours when we thought it would be 3.
Physical effects: Blisters, nausea, unstable knee joints, a few hallucinations, untold joy ;)

2:00am zub zero temp steez.

Please support the Libyan Challenge if you haven't already and can/would like to,
I hope everyone is good, keep in touch

Big Loves,

Audio Truth

Trying to make a little more effort to keep this updated more regularly I think now, but on the flipside don't won't to post just for the sake of it.

Well I get quite a few questions as to what music I used on my Nanjing video, so I thought I would post a bunch of Christian hip hop up for people to hear. The Christian hip hop scene is growing fast, and refreshingly positive and constructive for the most part.
Just a few artists to check out:

Shai Linne
Evangel
muzeONE
Stephen The Levite
Japhia Life
BraillePoems

Some Good websites to dig further:

Holy Culture Download - Online store
Rapzilla - Online Christian Hip Hop Magazine
Sphere of Hip Hop - LOTS of free MP3's, store, podcast.
Wade-O Radio - Podcast with lots of really good interviews of artists
The Syncast - Podcast with a lot of very good music

Peace and blessings,