Lake District – Deano's World

The Next Seven Years

30/12/202007/08/2023Mark "Deano" Dean

OK , I still don’t have a name for this project yet but I’m working on it. I’ve started putting together a calendar for the next seven years to work out what the challenges will be and what fundraising I will need to do to hit my target for my selected charities and causes.

Below is the itinerary, massively subject to change, that I am putting together. All offers of support, sponsorship and joining in are well received. It includes running further than I have ever done before, sailing stormy seas, climbing mountains on five continents: including three of the seven summits and finally attempting an 8000m peak in the Himalaya. To have a chance of pulling this off I am going to have to lose, in medical terms, shit loads of weight as well as be fitter than I have been since my twenties. I’ll have to manage my own mental demons and my physical weaknesses as well and I actually don’t know which of those will be harder. I will try and do so without losing my sense of purpose or, more importantly, my sense of humour. A Lung ta wouldn’t go amiss either.

So, without further ado here is my next seven years*

Cairngorm & Ben Macdui (Scotland) – January 2024 (Wooden Spoon)
Toubkal (Maroc) – February 2024 (Sheldrick Wildlife Trust)
Kilimanjaro (Tanzania, Africa) – July 2024 (Sheldrick Wildlife Trust)
Titsey Trail 10K (UK) – 2025 (Caring For Animals)
Le Marathon des chateaux du Medoc (France) – 2025 (Sheldrick Wildlife Trust)
The Lewa Marathon (Kenya, Africa) – 2025 (Tusk)
Cumbria Three Peaks (UK) – 2025 (Lighthouse Club & Caring For Animals)
Aconcagua (Argentina, South America) – 2026 (Wooden Spoon)
South Georgia Challenge (South Georgia, Antarctica) – 2027 (Wooden Spoon)
Cho Oyu (Nepal, Asia) – 2028 (Community Action Nepal)

If you are interested in joining me for any of these challenges, which are all self funded, not paid for by fundraising, or in supporting/sponsoring the efforts then please contact me via this website. So, while I am still planning and trying to come up with a bloody name for this great adventure I will leave you with the following:

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain

*absolutely the final draft (bloody covid/putin/money/time)

Everest: Quite Simply Put, Thank You.

13/04/201929/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

I am on my way to Everest as we speak but before I get to the mountain I need to thank all the people and companies that made this incredible experience possible. So, without further ado….

Huge thanks to PAYE Stonework for being both an incredibly supportive and incredibly tolerant employer. Family and rugby have always gone hand in glove and the family approach at the company is one of the reasons I genuinely love my day job. From everyone on the the board, my own team and to the guys and gals at the coal face the level of support has been incredible from all of you. I’ll be back in early May to bore you all to tears with stories about “weavils in biscuits” or failing that I’ll be dead on a mountain and you’ll have to find someone with a similar level of idiocy to replace me. If so do not look in my top drawer. Ever.

Much love to Samurai Sportswear and all the gang up in East Anglia for once again helping me with the next chapter in my life. You make the best sports kit out there and definitely have the best people working for you! Thanks for treating me like one of the family and you can never know how much everything you do is most sincerely appreciated

Dhan’yavāda to the Gurkha Kitchen and their incredible staff for allowing me to host a fantastic fundraising dinner in their restaurant and demonstrating once again why the Nepalese people are renowned for their hospitality!

Help is always appreciated but even more so when it is unsolicited. Thanks to John Fisher School, staff and pupils for supporting me by taking on their own Everest challenge and also donating the proceeds from their “mufty” day to my sponsorship page. It never ceases to amaze me how much John Fisher, a state school, does with regards to the game of rugby and I firmly believe they should get a lot more credit than they do given how many players and coaches they help on their journey.

I would also like to thank Huge Events, Built Visible, Formark Scaffolding, Hugh Anthony, Samurai RFC, Old Mid-Whitgiftian RFC, Wooden Spoon (Surrey), The Mercer Restaurant and Andrew Campbell Safaris for everything they did to help get me to hit my fundraising target and to get a fat broken old bugger like me on Everest.

Cheers to Ollie Phillips for realising when I was drunk enough to agree to do this bloody thing in the first place and then backing that up with a huge amount of help and assistance to actually get me on the plane.

Special thanks to Paul Jordan, Matt Mitchell, Miles Hayward, Graham Allen, Tamara Taylor & Paul Watkins for so much positive encouragement in the early stages when I didn’t think I would be able to complete that bloody Fairfield Horseshoe. You guys dropped me back in the bowl when I felt very much like a fish out of water. In a desert. Being hunted by a very hungry Eagle. I cannot wait to smash this on the mountain with you guys!

My gratitude to Hugh McCardy, Adedoyin Layade, Imogene Anglaret, Rob Anglaret, Zinzan Brooke, Purna Gurung, Matt Kember, Terry Sands, Rose Sands, Sarah Atkinson, Andrew Dean, Tom Street, John Inverdale, Chris Robshaw, Damian Hopley, David McCrae, Sirish Gurung, Joe Marler, Lawrence Dallaglio, Bryan Hodges, Adam “Bomb” Jones, Steve Kember, Mark Butcher, Sam Showering, John Pennycuick and Sophie Kidd all of whom donated prizes, time or expertise to my fundraising events and without whom I seriously doubt that I would have hit my sponsorship target.

I would also like to take time to thank all the individuals who sponsored me: Adrian Paye, Anna Paye, Antony Stagg, Mark Macaskill, Emma Aalders, Mark Aalders, Benjamin Aalders, Will Wilson, David Abercrombie, Alex Richardson, Geoff Griffiths, Alexander Dean, Catherine Dean, Christopher Dean, Marion Cross, Andrew Campbell, Rachel Hattersley, Caren Cummings, Tony Cummings, Alex Boyd, Luke Treharne, Scott Wight, Ben Ellan, Stephanie Ellan, Peter Wilby, Tom Cuff-Burnett, Will Matthews, Mark Coote, Rob Cottrell, Martyn Worsley, Dino Fritz, Mike Robinson, The Gouldstones, Faye Almy, Carla Cox, Matt Higgins, Karrie White, Linda Viner, Martin Harvey, Rick Eling, Rod Palmer, Tim Kerr, Rachael Burford, Daniel Alcon, Andrew Burnett, Kate Kirven, Christine Stobbs, Garry Gordon (Sunshine 7s), Paul Christopher, Darran Sly, Monique Tomiczek, Paul Archer, Dylan James, Paul Martin, Dom Peachey, Jon Hopper, The Clabburns, all those who donated very kindly but anonymously and everyone who donated by text.

I’d also like to thank all the rugby legends who took the time to send me good luck messages – the message from the USA 7s gang was truly epic!

Almost there……..thanks to Sarah, Jules, Amber, Matt & Laurie at Wooden Spoon for doing all the leg work to make sure this expedition and challenge took place.

Last and by no means least I genuinely couldn’t have done any of this without the support of my incredible wife. Buffy has put up with all my shit, all my meltdowns away from the public eye and never batted an eyelid when I told her I was off to Everest to play a game of rugby. She is my rock, my sounding board, my motivator and my inspiration who never fails to make me smile. Plus she cries at almost every remotely sad moment in every single film ever made which is unbelievably cute!

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PS: Buffy in answer to your questions: a) yes I did increase my life insurance premium, why? b) no I will definitely not mention our amazing cats Apollo, Athena, Artemis and Achilles in my blog that would just be stupid! c) I used your toothbrush to do it I hope you don’t mind d) 42 e) buried in the garden f) I have no idea where the 5th cat came from and g) why said cat is called Ares.

PPS: If your name or company has not appeared anywhere above and this makes you feel sad then rejoice! You can rectify this immediately by sponsoring me here

Everest: What A Difference A Month Makes

30/10/201829/12/2020Mark "Deano" Dean

After discovering quite how unfit I was on a team training weekend in the Lake District I decided to get as many miles/hours on a mountain as possible in addition to the usual cardio stuff in the gym. I suspected that there is really no substitute to pulling the boots on and getting out on the hill. I live near the North Downs so a few short treks up Titsey Hill to Botley Hill Farm were a decent boost but, being honest, not nearly challenging enough.

With a certain amount of trepidation I booked a “wedding anniversary” trip to Ambleside to treat my long-suffering wife, Buffy, to a spa break and purely coincidentally to have another crack at the Fairfield Horseshoe.

It started as all trips to the Lake District do when you live in Surrey; a bloody long drive. A stop off in Huntingdon to see a living legend called Mel Thompson helped break up the drive nicely. After a “few” Guinness had been sunk and he gave me some wise words of advice we drove the rest of the way wondering how on earth three people had managed to eat that much cheese. We were somewhere around Manchester when we finally remembered opening a bottle of Port at about 1am that morning.

After checking into the Low Wood Hotel & Spa we prepared for the next day’s walk. I decided to go the other way round (clockwise) the Horseshoe on this trip. This decision was entirely based on my assumption that going up Nab Scar could not be worse than descending Nab Scar. I should probably tell you that my decision-making is often suspect. For example, the previous trip had seen me drinking red wine in the hotel bar with Paul Jordan until 2am, based entirely on the premise that as I was fat and unfit there was no way I could feel worse the next day; I was wrong.

Much to my surprise I actually made a good call for once and the ascent went reasonably well.

For me. Unfortunately Buffy did not speak to me for the rest of the walk.

Fairfield Horseshoe is beautiful. Something I appreciated a whole lot more on the second attempt. The weather was perfect and the recent rain had not been heavy enough to turn the grass areas into a bog, meaning the going was very good. The best part however was the fact that I didn’t feel like I was suffocating with each step. I also didn’t think at any point that I wouldn’t make it round, something that certainly wasn’t the case on my first attempt the previous month.

We made good time along the ridge in near perfect weather watching the RAF running ultra low level training flights up and down the valleys below us. The breathtaking beauty of the Lake District was never more clear to see and it is no wonder it inspired Alfred Wainwright to explore and write so much about her. We made good time along the ridge from Heron Pike to Great Rigg and Buffy and I seemed to be the only people, aside from a lunatic running along carrying his mountain bike, going this way round. The weather closed in slightly as we arrived at Fairfield so we pressed on before sitting to “enjoy” the pack lunch from the hotel at the base of Dove Crag.

With the weather clearing up again nicely we set off on the return leg and started to encounter people coming the other way. There were less people than I expected given that the weather was so good for the time of year but then again it was a Monday in October. We took the stretch from Dove Crag along to High Pike and then down to Low Pike at a leisurely pace taking in the majestic views down to Ambleside and Lake Windermere. Worryingly we bumped into a family of four at Low Pike at around 2pm who were attempting the horseshoe in the opposite direction and who seemed very poorly prepared given the fact they only had two or three hours of sunlight left. It was however reassuring that there are still some people who are worse prepared than I am.

The descent was gentler on the knees going this way and this made the end of the work a great deal more enjoyable than the previous trip. The point of walking in the hills is, at least partially, to enjoy the experience and it is certainly fair to say I enjoyed this trip to Fairfield a lot more than the previous one. We arrived back to the hotel at around 1630 having left the car park at 1045 – a time of approximately five and a half hours was something I was comfortable with and I knew I could have gone faster if I had to.

As I relaxed the following day in the luxury of the Low Wood Spa I was pleased that progress has been made. I knew I was still overweight but recognised that I was at least fitter than I had been after years of sedentary life, injuries, surgery and all the associated self pity that inevitably goes with it. There was certainly some more work needed in the gym and it was vital I got back on the hill as soon as I could spare the time.

To my wife’s “delight” I had already booked a trip to Snowdonia to get some more miles under my belt on Snowdon. I figured that if it was good enough for George Mallory to train there before his trips to the Himalaya & Everest then it was definitely good enough for me.

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