Category : Training
Since finding my love for flight, I’ve explored as many facets of this incredible mode of transport from the perspective of paragliding as possible. Free flight, paramotoring, speed flying, speed riding, and mini-wing mountain descents. I love all forms of this sport but this year, I came back to the reason I started flying in
7th February 2021 update: The general advice in the below article is even more relevant than before. The incredibly sad situation resulting from a rescue attempt in the lake district (where a rescuer trying to reach a two campers in a storm has fallen, suffering life changing injuries), should serve a message that to engage
The end of winter 2017-18 presented the perfect opportunity to fly some incredibly marginal and storm conditions with the 11m speed wing. On the world’s highest mountains, the conditions for flying are rarely perfect, so in training for the Riding Giants expedition we took to the stormy skies via the path rarely travelled. I say
I love sequels. I really love writing them. I haven’t yet found any reason to write a sequel to my book, but I definitely want to write a sequel to my last blog: Why I Love to Run. It was, well, a blog about running, why I love it and how simple it is to
If you had asked me a two years ago whether I liked to run, I would have probably remarked that running is the activity you only do when you’re being chased. I did adventure running for two years in the build up to climbing Everest in 2012, but I still retain the ‘being chased’ quip.
Waking up early on a crisp April morning, we headed to Mungrisdale. The weather was calm, the wind was good. There were 4 Wainwrights to tick off and a flight of Bannerdale Crags’ easterly ridge, awaiting us through the unusual calm of a crisp spring morning. But would the weather hold for the 4 hour
Almost six years ago, I stood on the lofty shoulders of the worlds tallest giant. That giant is Everest, which unlike your average run of the mill giant, offers no gentle lift to the top. As anyone who followed that expedition will recall, things for the most part went without a hitch. I had a micro-disaster
As a trained physiologist specialising in the effects of low oxygen and cold environments, a very recent article published by Bloomberg focusing on a relatively modern technique to dramatically cut down time spent on big mountains piqued my interest: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-01/alpenglow-expeditions-controversial-mountain-climbing-method The hypothesis is simple; pre-acclimatise in an altitude tent/chamber at home, allowing you to partake
Over the past few months, I have been busy working on a project which is essentially the follow up to my Everest expedition back in 2012. I’ve been making progress in a number of areas, but I wanted to share a story of one area (the leading concept of my project) which has suffered a
Techniques and Strategies for Mental Coping. There are many areas of PST (Psychological Skills Training) used by psychologists in both medical and clinical settings, however my area of focus for this article is in Mental Coping. I’m sure everyone has heard of and can relate to the term ‘time flies when you’re having fun’. You
© Matthew Thornton
