Night of Adventure
Couple of months ago, full time adventurer Alastair Humphreys put out a request for folks with interesting stories and bit of personality to speak at a talk over in Edinburgh entitled a "Night of Adventure". Alastair ran the Marathon des Sables the same year as me and I felt I knew someone that fitted the bill perfectly …our own Manny Gorman ! A series of emails, text messages and a game of hokey cokey later and he agreed to speak.
The format is an adventure in itself – 11 speakers each with only 20 slides …which auto rotate after only 20 seconds. Those who were at the Glasgow talk last Thursday will have had a sneak preview of Manny’s 6 minute condensed version on the 70 day Corbett Run.
Last year’s speakers included Dr Andrew Murray (who ran from Scotland to the Sahara), Jamie Andrew (mountaineer who despite losing both hands and feet after getting caught in a storm in the Alps has gone on to complete many adventures), Scott Napier (who cycled 14,000 miles from Deadhorse, Alaksa to Ushuaia, Argentina in a record 125 days) …you get the idea. This year was equally as impressive with talks covering diverse adventure from skateboarding across Australia, micro adventures around the UK, big sea based crossings, long runs across Europe and obviously running the Corbetts in 70 days.
Comic moment before things started was when Al mentioned that he has moved the order of speakers and that the warm up for Manny was none other than Mark Beaumont (aye …the Scottish guy who cycled round the world before cycling the Americas with ascents of Mt Mckinley & Aconcagua …before rowing to the north pole etc …). Was fun to see the colour drain from Manny as he mumbled something about the pub.
As you would expect, Manny did great. Fluent without be over confident and the audience chuckled at the funny bits, gasps at the views, ahhhd at the photo of the Bambi and applauded loud at the end. Manny seemed to enjoy himself as well !
Where will the Gorman world tour turn up next …
On a more serious note, the reason Al puts these talks on is to raise money for the Hope and Homes Charity. They do incredibly humbling work and well worth supporting with whatever you can …
One way which should appeal is choosing a wee summer adventure – have a look at:
Cheers
Graham K
Ps – heard Ken Loach is considering a movie deal based oan the Corbett run as well …maybe even a sequel with a plot based around a new Munro record ?
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