This is a growing collection of videos that I find inspiring, beautiful, astounding and amusing in various measures.
The Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc 2011. One day I would love to do this!
Daniel Llabaca’s passion is parkour. He won the 2010 Filmminute competition with a shortened version of this film about parkour, and living for now. “If you’re afraid of falling, you fall because you’re afraid”.
While we’re on the parkour, I love Tim Shieff’s attitude to life, and dealing with fear. For me it’s exactly the same with mountaineering: I wouldn’t fall off this narrow ledge if it was ten centimetres from the floor, so there’s no reason to believe I will if it’s three hundred metres up. “Passion and belief are the two things that can get you where you want to be [in life].”
Squash Falconer is a British paraglider pilot and mountaineer, who just gets out there and does all sorts of stuff. Last month she climbed Everest. She would have flown off, too, but the weather just didn’t play bal. Respect, Squash.
This is a lovely, quirky paragliding film from 2009, made by Kerim Jaspersen and Christian Menn. It won the ‘Icare de la Critique’ award at the 2009 Coupe Icare film festival.
John Silvester is a mountaineer and paraglider pilot from North Wales, who has been flying almost since the very beginnings of the sport. He has climbed and flown extensively in the Himalaya, and this is the trailer for the film he made with Welsh cameraman Alun Hughes, the Birdman of the Karakoram. If you like the trailer, the DVD is sold at XCshop.com.
For anyone thinking of running a marathon, but fearing they can’t do it, then you have to be inspired by this. Watch the documentary (it’s in six parts, this is the first), and put in your entry form immediately. Forty-seven year old Comedian Eddie Izard ran a marathon a day, six days a week for eight weeks last year for BBC Sport Relief. He wasn’t a runner before, and trained for just five weeks. Now THAT, is inspirational. Huge respect, Eddie.