A blog post by all 3 of us! We’re experimenting.
Aysha: So it turns out meeting a top director in the business of adventure media isn’t as hard as you would think. I sent Paul Diffley an email, he replied and after several months of not much contact I asked him if he was serious about working with us. He said maybe, offered us a camera to use and suggested we met at ShAFF. Which was why we went. I’d never heard of ShAFF (Sheffield Adventure Film Festival) before.
Over the hills to Sheffield
Mike: Its my first ride in the 4×4. Well done Aysha, for finding that beast. Big, spacious, comfortable. And, its great to have the team on a road trip. It was hard work getting into Sheffield because most of the roads into the center were closed for the (cancelled) half marathon.
Aysha: It’s the first time I’ve really spent time with Mike. I’m normally shy round people but we’re going to spend 5 months together which makes being shy a waste of time. We arrived in Sheffield almost an hour early and were stumped to discover all roads to our destination were blocked off. With Mike’s great navigation, we found a car park, after 45 minutes! Emma bounced out the car to help me park and then remembered she needed to pee and went into a weird cross-legged position, which still makes me giggle when I think about it, I wish I had a photo for you to see.
Emma: Yes, I did take on a Tina Turner like posture for some time due to pee-need. We all have these problems! I loved seeing our team come together for the first time and I think we all really compliment each other. Our truck ‘Cleo’ is the coolest thing ever, I love her dearly.
Paul Diffley’s talk on making films
Mike: I learnt lots of really good stuff from his lecture, like the rule of thirds and the 5 shot rule – take 5 different shots: establishing wide/mid shot; close up of hands; close up of face; point of view/over the shoulder shot; and a creative shot. How to set up interviews and where to stand when interviewing people.
Aysha: The biggest message, for me, was the importance of sound.
Emma: I felt completely out of my depth with all the technical talk. I’m very glad I have the excuse of running for not doing too much filming!
Meeting Paul Diffley 
Aysha: I walked up to Paul, to introduce us all, expecting him to brush us off. Instead, he gave a friendly smile and said, “I’ve got a camera for you”. Which was a huge relief and delightful. Not everyone takes you seriously when you say you’re organizing a trip across Africa and you want to film it.
Mike: It was amazing to meet the Hot Ache’s guy and ace that he has lent us a camera for the training run on the Cotswold way. Just need to get some good footage now. I’m looking forward to getting to grips with filming.
Emma: Very scared of having a camera pointed in my face!
The running films
Mike: It was really cool to see the running movies, especially the one about the South African guy running in Namibia (The Penguin Runner). Seeing some of the terrain we will be going through and getting to speak to the guy who filmed it.
Aysha: The running films made me realise that we need to stick to one story: either its all about Emma, or our adventures as a team, or the people we meet along the way. But I don’t think it can be all three in one film.
Emma: I loved all of the films but ‘The Runners’ has inspired me to try and get people to chat to me (and a camera) when I go out for runs.
Favourite Films: The Runners a surprisingly intimate meeting with individuals who run; The Penguin Runner one very entertaining man running across Namibia unassisted; In the High Country a beautiful cinematic film.
Aysha: There weren’t a lot of stalls to browse but this one was flippin’ brilliant. Emma’s been needing new shoes since January but not buying any, as she couldn’t afford them. We agreed to go halves on a pair, which then caused her agonizing pain in her foot after 5 miles. This hugely alarmed me (I still can’t run, I really don’t want to take her place). And we can’t afford to buy shoe after shoe until we find a pair that don’t hurt her feet. I’ve been arguing with her to go to a specialist shoe shop so I was dead pleased that Colin, in the photo, is a podiatrist. He talked through the problem with Emma, explaining lots of stuff and advising her what type of shoe to buy. We bought the pretty shoes in the facebook photo for the absolute bargain of £40!
Random Thoughts 
Mike: It was really good to hear Aysha talk about the run and I’m learning lots from her.
Aysha: We work well together as a team. The fourth team member should probably be as chilled as Mike.
Emma: We are so lucky to have such great support from so many awesome people. Feet that have been in tights and boots don’t smell nice, sorry Colin.
every other day while there. This was massively helped by having my mum there running too. She has never been a runner but has recently, in her fifties, taken up the sport. She is an absolute inspiration to me and should be to everybody. Its hard enough to convince myself to run some days and I’ve been running for years. My mum has never had any interest in running, so if she has the will power and motivation to put on her trainers and go out running in the sweaty, smoggy, streets of taiwan, there is no way I can be lazy and
So, on Wednesday we had our first team meeting, in which the main topic was the practice run (along with a million other things). This was our first meeting that Mike has attended so there was lots to update him on. We have probably completely overloaded him with information and tasks for him to get started on but he’s a good’un so I have no doubt he’ll get stuck in. Aysha was particularly quiet for most of the meeting, this might have something to do with the snot running down her face and her lack of voice! (this is why she isn’t in the picture!) Bless her. And I did a cracking job of supplying health snacks.
I have gained a new running partner who is super keen for trail running which is great for me. He knows lots of places to run that I don’t know and also works shifts meaning we can run together in the week. I have managed a couple of long runs but not as many as I had hoped. I’m not too concerned about this as there is still plenty of time, and I do worry about overloading my knees too early. I have also had my only run in the snow this year, it was so pretty. What a shame the winter has been so mild!
slotting in training around other things. I turned 30 so there has been lots of celebrations to squeeze training around. At the beginning of the month I spent a few days in Scotland doing more winter mountaineering so there was no running then and at the end of the month I went out to Taiwan to visit my brother. I can’t complain as these are all things that I want to be doing. I am eager to start building up my mileage but I need to remember that its still at least six months before I leave.
Head over Heels 2014 