The Grey NATO – 290 – The Fan Dance
Published on Thu, 27 Jun 2024 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis
This episode covered Jason's recent trip to Wales, where he participated in a grueling hiking event called the Fan Dance, which involved climbing two mountain peaks while carrying a heavy pack. He describes the challenges of the event, the training leading up to it, and running into fellow listeners and other acquaintances during the hike. After the Fan Dance, Jason and his wife explored other areas of Wales and spent time in England before returning home. The episode also featured a discussion of classic rock music, including recommending live performances on YouTube and the YouTube channel "Rick Beato" which analyzes songs and musical recordings.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Graynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 290 and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, James Stacy. Welcome back. Good to be back in the seat here with you. Yeah. Thanks. |
| James Stacy | Great to have you back. Great to hear your voice. I'm really excited to hear all about your, uh, exciting trip up and over a mountain in, uh, in, uh, in the UK and, uh, and everything else that I'm sure you got up to, but, uh, maybe we should probably kick it off with a little bit of an update from wind up Chicago, right? Which, uh, we're now like three weeks away. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's coming up. I think last year it was the weekend following this, if I'm not mistaken, it feels like it's earlier in July than it was last time around. But, uh, yeah, we're, we're, we're excited. We're doing something a little bit different this year with, um, rather than like an evening beer meetup on the Saturday night of the show, we're doing kind of a brunch meet and greet in the morning on the Sunday of the show. Um, from 10 until 11 with, with a little bit of kind of light breakfasty sort of food and some coffee. Um, and a very short presentation, let's call it more of a meet and greet and just sort of a hangout than anything else. Um, there'll be some swag and, and as citizen is kindly, uh, sponsoring this little event for with us. Um, they're also offering some swag and a nice giveaway, a watch to give away. So you won't want to miss that. And then that will go from 10 until 11. And then from 11 until 12, the doors will be open for early access to all of the. the watch brand booths and things that are, that are part of a windup. So you'll get a kind of a preview of the show. I mean, many people will have gone on Saturday, but if you've been there, you know how packed it gets. So it is kind of a nice luxury to be able to get an hour just among the vendors themselves before the throngs come in. So that should be great. And we have an RSVP link that we're going to put in the show notes. They do need people to sign up for that because there will be a limited of headcount that'll fit in that space. So we'll throw that link in the show notes. We'll also put it in Slack for those who, uh, who are on our Slack and, uh, get people signed up for that. It should be fun. |
| James Stacy | Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this. It's it's, I think we've sorted out kind of a, a sweet offering here. I know it just sounds like a breakfast and some time of the show, but if you've been the past years, Saturday is packed. Like Jason mentioned, Sunday is very busy, but has more, more of a relaxed vibe. Yeah. It seems like the Sundays when you're kind of catching up with some of the other people you saw at the show yesterday, that sort of thing. And I think this gives us a good opportunity to both connect with the folks from Citizen, who of course have gotten us there in the past. It's been a really good partnership for the show and they're very easy to work with. But on top of that, it gives you an hour at the show where you could do a lap and maybe have a closer conversation with somebody from the brand than you might if you were waiting in line, got to the front and knew people were waiting behind you. So that could be kind of valuable. I think it's going to be a really fun event. We got a little bit of food, some coffee, that sort of thing. And then we'll have the whole day to hang out at the show as well. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Always fun to see, you know, some familiar faces and some brands. I know, you know, Giant Mouse will be there and our friends from, from Zodiac and of course Citizen. I think we'll be seeing Ward. I think we'll be seeing, yeah, Mike Pearson with Christopher Ward this year, which would be kind of fun. |
| James Stacy | Yeah. Oris will be there, obviously, Oak and Oscar. Yeah. I mean, you make new friends every time, but you also see people that you haven't seen in a little bit, maybe since last year, that sort of thing. It's a, it's a rare treat for us. So definitely pumped for that. Check it out in the show notes for the RSVP link. And like Jason said, it'll also be in the Slack for the crew and certainly we'll do our best with that. But I would say maybe don't, don't wait until the day before to hit that RSVP link. |
| Jason Heaton | And we did have our meeting late last week with Citizen to kind of firm up some details and the folks from Windup and And you had just come in from cutting the grass. You were at the cottage, I believe. I could almost smell the freshly mown grass when you joined our Zoom call then. How was your weekend? |
| James Stacy | I dipped away to the cottage for the weekend. We needed to do some work on the last remaining unrenovated bedroom just because the Canada Day weekend is coming up. So we're recording this on the 25th on the Tuesday. And then, of course, this coming weekend includes a holiday Monday here in Canada. So most of my family will go to the cottage. for that. It's one of my favorite kind of weekends of the year. These ones where we get the majority of my family in one spot and we're at the lake. And it's been a pretty stressful season at the day job. You know, one of my colleagues, Danny, moved over to Teddy. And so that's made a real change on kind of how my summer looks as far as free time and workload and that sort of thing. So hoping Monday works out and can be offline. But yeah, that's about all I've got going on. Literally, since we recorded the last episode with Zach, you have flown back and all I've done is worked. But yeah, I don't really have a ton to share. I haven't been, I haven't been doing much beyond, um, you know, just the day job and, and kind of keeping life going. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And as I mentioned, I think the last time we recorded the episode 288, it's just, for some reason it seems like summer, which is the season when you feel like things should slow down a bit, um, tend to kind of ramp up and get kind of crazy, um, in terms of plans, everybody wants to fit something in or have an event or do something. So. Some, some good, some, you know, it does, but it does add some extra work of course. |
| James Stacy | Yeah. I'm deeply in like a phase of like, I'd rather do nothing. Yeah. Yeah. I would love a break from all of it, but you're right. I don't, I don't know what I was thinking as I, you know, I spent the last eight months dreaming about this summer and, uh, and it looks like I'm going to blink and it'll all, all, all I will have achieved is a bunch of, um, you know, work. Yeah. Sometimes that's the way things go. It's not a complaint as much as a lament, maybe. Yeah. But you do have a cool event coming up with Topper Jewelers, do you not? |
| Jason Heaton | I do, yeah. I'm getting back on a plane here in just a couple of days. We're recording this on a Tuesday. I fly out there Saturday morning and then that evening, this is the 29th of June, Topper has... They do an annual... They call it Dive Night and it kind of focuses on all things dives, diving and dive watches and um, kind of a good opportunity for them to showcase, uh, the brands that they carry. Um, they, they've got, of course, Blancpain and Seiko and Omega among many others. Yeah. So they invited me to come out and kind of do a short talk about dive watches and some of my own experiences diving with watches. And, uh, and then I think what's really gonna be fun, um, they, they do like a trivia night sort of thing where, where you use an app on your phone and everybody gets to kind of answer questions and then they're giving away some prizes for this and it's all going to be focused on diving and dive watches, this trivia. And I contributed a couple of questions to that and it looks just like a blast. Oh, that's awesome. So that's going to be great. I'll bring, I'm bringing my dive kit along. So most of my gear, um, and I'll have that set up, uh, in the space as well. If people want to kind of check out some dive gear. Um, and, uh, I'm not just dragging it along for that. I'm actually going to, um, to go diving down in Monterey the next day with, uh, with my friend, Kevin, who, lives out there and I dove with him in Monterey last year as well. So I'm really looking forward to that. We're going to go down to point Lobos, uh, which is just a stunning area, um, with some good diving. And so it's gorgeous doing that on Sunday and then, then fly home Monday and back, back here in the chair for, for Tuesday's recording. So yeah, it should be, it should be a fun time. I hope to see some TGNers out there. I know a few are already planning to come, so that should be fun. And, uh, we'll, we'll also throw a link in the show notes to RSVP for that event. I'm not sure if there's limited headcount, but I did just check and that link is still live and available. So nice. Um, realizing that this episode goes up on a Thursday and the event is Saturday evening, uh, like with windup, uh, don't delay if you want to sign up for that. So check it out. |
| James Stacy | Very cool. Yeah. I wish I could be there. I think that's a, that's rad that they do these sorts of events and I hope that people do show up and, you know, kind of, kind of show up for, uh, for the crew and for you and I'm sure it'll be a great night. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And actually, you know, it makes me think we should, uh, we should consider doing some kind of a trivia thing at some point too. I don't know when it would be at a live event or even part of a show or whatever, but, uh, yeah, it could be, it could be kind of a fun thing. I, I, I do like, um, the concept of like that sort of pub trivia competition. I think it, I think it'd be a lot of fun. |
| James Stacy | Yeah. We should keep that in mind if we ever do like a bar night again, which I'm sure we will in the future. We're actually working on one possibly for, um, the Toronto Timepiece Show. That could be kind of fun. If we had a big enough setup where you could do bar trivia, that might be an option. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes there's too many people. Sometimes there's not a good enough sound system. Sometimes half the bar isn't people that are there to be bothered by questions about dive watches ringing out. They just want to listen to some tunes and have a cold beer. But yeah, I think that's a fun idea if we could sort out a way to do it or maybe invite some, like a bunch of friends on and do like a trivia episode or something like that. Yeah. All right, Rad, what have you got on the wrist for your triumphant return for episode 290? |
| Jason Heaton | I actually pulled out my Arkin Instrumentum, which is a watch I haven't worn in a while, but I was wearing my Arkin cap when I did the fan dance last week in Wales and got to have a beer with Ken Lamb, founder and owner of Arkin Watches. And it was really fun to see Ken over there in Wales. |
| James Stacy | He's always a... Yeah, shout out Ken. |
| Jason Heaton | just a blast to hang out with. And, and he came to cheer me on at the end of the fan dance. And then we ended up going for a beer afterwards. I'll get into that in a little bit, but, uh, yeah, I pulled out the, the instrumentum and, uh, it's, it's kind of a, kind of a great summer watch because it's so light and comfy and on that bracelet with the expanding clasp, uh, works really well for these kinds of what we're having kind of muggy buggy days here. So. Yeah, that's what I've got on. |
| James Stacy | Very nice. Yeah. And how about you? I've actually been wearing my Alterum quite a bit, but currently on my wrist is my P39, my Pelagos 39, and I swapped it over. I had it on the rubber, which I talked about on a previous episode, and then just recently I swapped it over to the Erica's. Good luck. I had just a flat gray, no stripe, 21 mil strap made for this, and then I've also used it on the Longines, Houdinki Ellie is 21 millimeters as is the Mido, Houdinki Ellie, both of which watches some of my favorite watches from last year. Yeah. This is just the most comfortable way to wear a watch. Yeah, yeah. It's super casual. I would say it's even more casual than a standard NATO where you have the fold over and there's a bit of a format to how it's worn. I think of it a bit like you might have a pair of... Maybe I'm going too far in the weeds here, but you might have a pair of chinos that you cuff a certain way and others that you just wear the way they fall. Yeah. That's kind of the way that I see it. Like these, these really do just kind of wear like, um, I, you know, I've said it in the past, it's a bit like sweat pants for your watch. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Those Erica's are great. And I, I keep meaning to order one. Um, I know that she makes a kind of a, I don't know how to describe it, like an open-ended one, um, that you could use with the, the FXT with the FXT, um, which is super smart. |
| James Stacy | Yeah. So I might have to go that route. I'll need one of those for, uh, for a different watch in the future for sure. Oh yeah. Good call. Right. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacy | All right. Well, look, that's risk check out of the way. Let's get into the main topic for the day, which is basically download from your trip. Obviously, the core of this trip will be your experience running the fan dance. But why don't you give people the full layout? Not like you did with the last kind of UK adventure. And and, you know, I've obviously I've got a handful of questions I can pepper in as we move through the through the kind of trip as as it went. |
| Jason Heaton | You know, I look I've been talking about this since January when I signed up for it. So it's probably not a big secret to those who've I've been following the show regularly for the past six months. Um, but I was just in the UK for about a week, maybe a little longer, um, with kind of the main focus to take part in, in an event called the fan dance. And that was on Sunday the 16th and the fan dance gets its name from a mountain peak in the Brecon beacons in South Wales called Penny fan. And, uh, kind of the lore around it is that, that this was, um, or still is actually the traditional route. Um, used by the UK special forces, uh, for, uh, kind of a physical aspect of physical fitness, uh, selection process, um, where they have to do a timed March carrying 45 pounds in a pack up and over penny fan summit down the other side. Um, uh, run along a trail for, for a few miles and then turn around and come back and do it all over again on the way back. So, um, it, it became kind of one of these popular masochistic civilian events, not unlike, I suppose, you know, tough mudder or ultra marathons and that sort of stuff. And, and since visiting Wales back in 2019 when Ghoshani and I hiked up to the top of penny fan, it always kind of stuck in my brain. Like I want to come back and do this. And so, uh, needing some kind of a new physical challenge back at the kind of the turn of the new year, I decided to sign up for it and did a lot of training as I've talked about a lot of running and ski hill repeats with backpacks on and that sort of stuff. Um, so yeah, it was on Sunday the 16th and uh, Gushani and I went a few days early, you know, trying to kind of acclimate to the time zone and the, the weather and kind of get the lay of the land. One day we, the day early we drove out and kind of timed the drive to the start and all of that kind of stuff. And, uh, um, you know, the first few days over there were, were quite relaxing, uh, other than the, um, the rather stressful driving, which I'll get into a little bit later, but we, we found an Airbnb cottage in the Brecon beacons, this charming, very old, cottage with a little walled garden, um, very adjacent to some, some really nice hiking. We did some kind of light hiking and just relaxed. I packed my bag, kind of got prepped for the event. And then, uh, that Sunday got up early and went and did the fan dance. And so the way the fan dance is run is it's, it's actually overseen by X special forces guys, like guys that were in the British SAS, et cetera. And, and they do a really efficient job as you might expect putting this thing together. So, The, the, the, if you want to call it a race or, or a, you know, hill climb sort of thing, they, they started at the traditional starting point of the, the SAS challenge. And it's at this red phone box at an outdoor education center called story arms. And they, they run a number of different categories for the fan dance. So they do these load bearing categories where you can, they weigh your pack and it's, there's a 25 pound category, a 35 pound category. Um, and then they call one the lodestone, which is 45 pounds. And then they have master's divisions for each of those. And then they have another category called clean fatigue, which, um, there is no weight requirement. You can kind of go as, as you like. Um, and actually that's the one I signed up for because I was a little like unsure early on, like, I'm not gonna be able to pull this off, et cetera. And then I kind of tweaked my knee along the way during training. And I thought, okay, I'm not going to commit to carrying the full weight. Um, but in the end, I ended up when I, when I weighed my pack after I had all of my supplies and extra clothing and first aid kit and food and water and everything else, my pack ended up being over 25 pounds anyway. And whereas when I, when they set us off in the clean fatigue group, like most of the others were in like running shoes and shorts and like a little hydration pack. So, um, in retrospect, I either should have gone a lot lighter or just, you know, ponied up and, and filled my pack and kind of gone for the load bearing category. But, um, I was, I was there just kind of as my own, my own personal challenge. I wasn't out to kind of win a category or anything like that. So sure. It was, uh, it was challenging. I will say that, that it was, I don't want to say it was easier than I thought it would be, but it was definitely, I felt, I felt confident in my training. And I think by the time I finished, I thought I could have done that faster. Um, my goal, not knowing how it would be was to finish in under five hours. Um, and I did it in four 46. So I was very happy with that. But I had some gas in the tank when I finished, which made me think I probably could have run some sections a little more, climbed a little faster, you know, but I think I was kind of concerned overall with, with kind of redlining and burning out too early. So I paced myself a little bit more. |
| James Stacy | I remember when I, when I trained, cause I trained crazy hard for Baker, not, not unlike what you did. I had several months. I was already in pretty decent shape at the time. And I definitely remember, cause those of you who've been listening for a long time will remember I did Baker twice. Yeah, we did it once and we got to the bottom of the Roman step and turned away our team. You're on a you're on a line team, so you only move as fast as your slowest person. Yeah, and I remember I was on a team with two got two firemen from Arizona that were definitely ready to run the entire thing, which I was too. We're just so pumped incredible weather had worked on our fitness. We're ready to go. And then we had another party that had clearly never been on a steep incline, let alone on snow or the rest of it. And just they were not in any way trained for it or ready for the task. And that cost us the outing. And I remember I wrote Mountain Madness. I was pretty upset. I wrote Mountain Madness, had somebody else edit the email and then sent it. And they're like, you know what? Yeah, you make a couple of good points. you're welcome to come back on this other trip that's going to two guided trips. So worst case, you can be shuffled from one rope team to another and you'll have a better chance of getting to the top unless the weather's terrible, right? And baker anything can happen. You know, yeah, it's not it's not that gnarly of a hill. I think it's a great one to go for, but I remember doing it the second time getting to the top, just feeling like maybe the best I've ever felt physically in my life. I just felt really strong, really fast. and then we got most of the way down and then, as soon as we were off the glacier, we didn't have to be on the rope anymore. Yeah, and you could like you're in a huge valley, so you can see the tents down the hill. Yeah, and I was just like I got I have way too much energy. I have to run and I just ran all the way back and slid like, you know, glissade and that sort of thing back down to the camp. But I remember when we were on our walk out the next day, feeling really good had obviously gotten to the top we were crossing with people who were going up and down in a day. And I was like, Oh, I, that's what I probably more, more where my level of training was. I didn't need three days. Oh yeah. Like there were, we definitely cross paths with people with skis on their back who were like starting at three in the morning, hitting the top skiing all the way down and they were home for dinner. Oh sure. Yeah. What I probably should have done is just turned around and done Rainier cause I was already in the shape for it. And I just didn't. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, I mean that's kind of how I feel now. I feel like I trained, you know, really well for this. And I had the fitness for it. And now I feel very empowered. I'm feeling a bit beat up, uh, in, in some respects, but on the other hand, my fitness feels really good. And I'm like, what should I do? Like I really should capitalize on this or at least maintain so that if I want to do something this winter or next year or something, I can just kind of keep at it. And one of the thoughts that was, um, you know, years ago, many years ago, actually I climbed Long's peak, which is a 14,000 foot peak out in Colorado and did that over two days with, with a couple of friends and we, we camped at a high camp at like 10,000 feet and I got, you know, altitude sick and we ran out of water and it was pretty, it was a good accomplishment, but it was pretty miserable on the way down. And I thought, and like, like you mentioned with Baker, there were people that do it in a single push, like in one day, kind of going light and fast. And I'm thinking that, you know, maybe I'll do that again. And that, that could be kind of a fun challenge. I don't think it'll be this summer, but it's kind of stuck in my brain. |
| James Stacy | In terms of the... I mean, if you pick a date, give me a chance to catch up with you in terms of fitness. I'd also, if you'd rather try something new, let's go do Whitney. See if we can get a ticket for next year. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Whitney's been on my list for a long time. |
| Unknown | In California? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or Shasta or something. |
| James Stacy | I'd need six months. Yeah. Right. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Shasta for sure. Yeah. Getting back to the fan dance, another thing that was fun about it was that there were two TGNers that had signed on to do this as well. One was our buddy Felix who, you know, he submitted a few questions while running in the Alps. Um, Felix is kind of a big ultra runner fitness guy. And then another listener of ours and subscriber Phil, um, who lives in bath in England and he, he does a lot of kind of trail running and ultra ultra runs and things like that. And so they both signed up and absolutely crushed their categories. You know, I can sit here and talk about how fit I was and how good I felt and how difficult it was. But, uh, the reality is I think Phil did it in, less than three hours, um, running, um, pretty much the whole thing. And then Felix won his category. Um, he was in the 25 pound category and he ran a good part of it and he finished in just over four hours. So, um, great to see those guys and, uh, and you know, congrats to them. They, they, they really crushed it. So that was great. But you know, as I, as I like to say, fitness is a very personal journey and, and I think everybody that signs up for this has their own goal. There was a, a three hour, time cutoff for the turnaround spot, um, which is about seven miles in. So you go up over two peaks, you go up over the first peak, which is called corn do, and it's kind of a twin peak to penny fan. And it's a little disheartening cause you're going straight up from the, from the very beginning for like two miles directly uphill at a pretty steep angle. And, and you get to the, you don't see penny fan as you're going up and, You get to the summit of Corindu, which is like this rocky switchback all the way to the top. And then you look across and there's penny fan and you go down through the saddle and then back up a little bit higher and you get to the top of penny fan and they've got awesome checkpoints along the way where they're kind of taking your number and kind of making sure that you're staying on course. Um, and then from there you go down this very steep. Rocky descent. That's almost like all fours kind of scrambling this section that's called Jacob's ladder. And that's the one that everybody talks about and kind of dreads the most. And then once you're down off of that, it's, it's kind of a long slog that goes gradually downhill in this sort of rocky, muddy gully strewn section called the Roman road. And that's where you kind of make up your time and do a fair bit of running. And, and then you get to the turnaround spot and, and if you haven't made it in three hours, they, they kind of pull you from, from the event. But I, I did that and sure, whatever it was, you know, two, two hours or whatever, and, uh, and made the turnaround and then headed back and then And then on the way back, of course you have to go up Jacob's ladder. And I think that's the, the really grueling bit because it is just, just endless. I mean it is just endless. And you know, you're just, it's almost like you've seen carnage along the way. There's like people sort of resting and lying on the ground and sitting and you know, breathing hard and agony and whatever. And so then you go back up over the top of penny fan and then down the other side and uh, and back to the finish. So, um, you know, I kind of was taking this event in sections because they had checkpoints along the way. And so I was, I was using my Garmin to kind of track the different segments and sort of just hitting the lap button every time I had passed one of the checkpoints and kind of recognizing how long it took me on the way out versus the way back and how much time I had left to beat my kind of projected time and that sort of stuff. And, um, I did have my AirPods in and I had a playlist that I'd put together and, and just was kind of in my zone the whole time and, and quite enjoyed it. I will say that, Anybody that spent any time going up and down mountains will know going down is a lot harder than going up. I mean, going up is, yep, is all heart and lungs and you can train really well for that. And I did, I did just that and I felt really good cardiovascularly, but man, going down is such a killer on not only the thighs, but where I felt it was in my toes. And I'm, I'm sitting here right now in, in Birkenstock sandals with both of my big toes, like wrapped in gauze because they just took such a beating that they just turned black from smashing into the front of my boots over and over again. And I guess I would have a different footwear strategy if I were to do this again, which I'm not ruling out. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's made it very hard for me to wear closed toe closed toed shoes for the past week or so. I'm sure. |
| James Stacy | Yeah, man. I remember between the back in Vancouver, like between the running and then the hiking, as soon as hiking season was in. Yeah. I always had one or two black toes. There's nothing to do about it. Yeah. Every, every hike, you're going to do something to your feet. It just happens. Right. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. And it was really the only casualty. I mean, I felt my legs were sore, you know, the following couple of days, but, but nothing like my toes. And then after all of this, uh, Dushani and I kind of, after that first night after the fan dance, I was feeling, Oh, I feel pretty good. And then we hopped in the car and moved on to this part of Wales called the Gower Peninsula, um, which is a beautiful area with, with just miles and miles of gorgeous beaches and a nice coastal walk that you can just do some, some nice hiking on. And so we did some hiking, but man, we did this like six mile hike kind of onto the beach and up into the hills and along the coast. And on the way back, I mean, when you're hiking, like your feet or running or anything, your feet just swell up as you're going. And man, by the time we were walking back to, to our car, um, my, my feet had like literally just filled up my boots and I was just, uh, Just an agony. So I've been, I've been kind of battling that. Dogs are barking. Yeah, exactly. But, uh, but yeah, it was a good, it was a good way to recover, um, despite that to kind of go somewhere else. But, but it was also fun to see, um, back to the fan dance, you know, not only were, were Phil and Felix, um, there and I, you know, encountered them along the trail as well. Um, and, and celebrated with them at the end. Um, But, uh, as I mentioned, Ken Lamb, uh, showed up, he had told me that he was coming and there he was right at the finish. When I came across the finish line, of course, Kashani was there and she was with, with Ken also near the kind of the turnaround spot during the event. I looked up as I was crossing this stream in this gully, splashing across these rocks. And I heard my name called and I look across and there's a guy with a camera on this like slope. taking a picture of me and says, Hey, Jason, I looked up and it was, uh, it was, it was our buddy Riley who, um, I've seen so many different places. Now he's living in the UK. He's a member of the member member of the air force. And he's been stationed over there for a while. And Riley and his wife and their, their new baby were there. They had hiked in from the turnaround spot where they parked. Wow. And, uh, and he had his camera and he was taking pictures. And then, uh, I encountered them on the, on the run back. Um, they were hiking out to their car and, and then they were at the finish as well. So it was, it was just, it was kind of a fun, you know, fun to see these folks and, and to get that support and just see a friendly face along the way when I was in my own sort of private pain cave to look up and see a friendly face. So thanks to all those guys for, for coming out. That was really a, that was really great. And then, um, at the end, uh, Felix and his partner and, um, and Ken and Ghoshani and I went for a celebratory beer at a, at a pub nearby. Fantastic. Which was great. Kind of my first proper Guinness in over six months. You know, I'd been on the wagon for six months and decided I would celebrate with a full strength Guinness, which was great. It was fun. |
| James Stacy | I like it. Yeah. So after all this, after all the training, the rest of it, you feel like this was worth the time and the effort, it scratched whatever itch or whatever it was you wanted to get out of it, you found rewarding? |
| Jason Heaton | It really did. Yeah. I mean, it kind of ticked all the boxes for me. it was, I, it, it validated kind of the effort I've put in and the, in the training. Um, you know, I just, it felt like I was taking part in something that, that has a, it's a quirky event. I still don't know how to describe it to people. People call it a race. People call it a, I don't know, March or a hill climb or whatever. I still don't know how to describe it, um, without going into the full explanation, but yeah, it was just quirky enough and different enough. I'm not much for, you know, I used to do a lot of kind of running, you know, running races and mountain bike races and that kind of stuff when I was younger. But like, I, I'm kind of over that stuff. I want to seek out these sort of weird oddball things, whether it's bagging a peak or some kind of event like this. And in talking to Phil, um, who ran it, uh, he was telling me that while he was training for the fan dance, uh, on a previous time, he, it kind of hooked him on ultra running and trail running. And so he's taken that up as a, fairly serious, uh, sort of hobby of his. And I can see how that would happen. And I've been shopping for some trail running shoes and I'm thinking about entering some local stuff here and kind of getting into that. So I can see how this would lead to, to other kind of fun, quirky, uh, endurance endeavors. |
| James Stacy | Yeah. What do you know? You climbing up a slippery slope becomes a slippery slope. That was actually pretty hard to say, if I'm honest. Yeah. Right. Right. We'll see if that even worked out in the recording. Yeah. Well, that's great, man. I'm super happy for you. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, thanks. And then, you know, our time in, in the Gower Peninsula, we stayed in this little community called Southgate. We rented a small, what's called a shepherd's hut, which is literally like, as it describes, it's like a little hut with, with a bed and a tiny little wood stove in the corner and a electric kettle. And that's about it. And, and then the toilet is out sort of separate in a separate little structure with a beautiful view, just right up the road from like this private little Cove with a beach. And this gorgeous coastal walk I described and we were there for a couple of nights. And then, and then we drove back to, to England for our flight home out of Heathrow. And we were needing a place to stay closer to London, uh, the night before. And my buddy, Paul Andrews, who designed the covers for both of my novels, um, he goes by modern thrills and he started kind of a fun little, um, t-shirt design business. You can, you can order from him there. Uh, he lives in Marlowe, which is just down the road from Henley on Thames, which is where, you know, I was not long ago visiting Bremont. Um, and he offered to put us up in, uh, his flat right there in Marlowe. And it's just a charming old building. And we went out for a little pub dinner that night and I finally got to meet Paul in person, which was fun. So thanks Paul, if you're listening for, for putting us up and it was great to finally meet him. And, uh, then we flew home the next day. That's a full trip. But I have to mention the driving because that the driving, you know, if there was any stressful aspect of this whole trip, um, we rented this, um, like Nissan, I think it's called a cash guy or cash guy. It's a, it's a bunch of letter Q's in the, in the name. We don't get it in the U S. Okay. |
| James Stacy | It's similar to the kicks, which I think you guys get. |
| Jason Heaton | It's a, it's like a four door little hatchback SUV sort of thing. And, um, obviously right hand drive being in the UK, uh, I got a six speed stick shift. and a comfortable car and everything. But, uh, you know, and I've driven in the UK, obviously drove that old Land Rover when we were in Scotland and then on a previous trip to Wales, we actually had a Jaguar. Um, and you know, it, it's okay. I'm not, I'm not averse to driving on the left side, but the combination of driving on the left side with the really narrow country lanes that they get there. And then the, the, the bane of my existence there was the roundabouts and look, roundabouts are wonderful invention, but, for the life of me, I could not figure out which lane to be in. And I'm sure I'll get a lot of listener feedback and slack and private messages and things, but like these, some of these roundabouts get quite big where they're like four lanes wide as you're going through them. And I could never quite figure out which of those lanes to be in. So I'd get honked at or I'd end up taking the wrong exit. And it was, it was just, just could never wait. You know, never was fast enough getting to our next location where I could just get out of the car and leave it behind. I was just, you know, And when we finally returned that rental car to Enterprise at the airport, I was so relieved that nothing had happened to it or we didn't, it didn't kill us off. But yeah, other than that, it was, it was a good, good, pretty stress-free trip. Really fun. |
| James Stacy | I'm glad you should have called upon our, uh, our natural UK driving coach, Henry. See if he could draw you some diagrams or something. Knowing him though, he could probably, you know, do the whole thing sideways. So might, might not be the best tip for a rental car. Although, to be fair, they always say the fastest car in the world is a rental car that you have insurance on. Well, man, that sounds like an incredible... I mean, you seem to... You and Ghoshani really seem to find your space in that part of the world. Yeah. It just seems to work for you guys, which I really like. |
| Jason Heaton | We've had some good UK trips, and I will admit, I think I have a bit of a knack for finding good Airbnb locations. It seems like you do, yeah. these little cottages and things that are kind of out of the way. Always come with really, you know, pleasant owners and, and just nice little out of the way locations. |
| James Stacy | So yeah, it all, all added up to a really a great trip. Nice. And, and beyond the, uh, I'm just curious out of just because you were in that part of the world beyond the Guinness, did you have like a great glass of Scotch or anything, or you haven't gotten that far off the wagon? |
| Jason Heaton | I did. I had two whiskeys while I was there. Um, one was, um, So there's a, there's a distillery in Wales called Penderin and we visited it back in 2019 and funny, you know, we, I'd never heard of Penderin back then. And we were like, Oh, this is amazing. Welsh whiskey. And, and we brought a couple of bottles home and then found that you can actually buy it at liquor stores here in the U S. Um, so Penderin's all over Wales and it seemed a very fitting thing to have. So I, I did have that at a pub that where we had dinner, um, in Southgate when we were down in the Gower peninsula had had one of those with, with dinner. And then when we were back in England, having dinner with Paul at a, at a pub in Marlowe, um, I had an Obon 14, 14 Obon. So nice after, after dinner. So yeah, it was good. And, and, you know, look, I, I've kind of said recently, and we've talked about it, there are some really good non-alcoholic beers available. And I, I will admit having the, that Guinness after the fan dance to celebrate, you know, it seemed fitting, but, didn't have that sort of impact that I thought it would. I, you know, like, Oh, finally, like a real beer, like this is, this is going to feel momentous. And it didn't, cause I've been having such good NA beers for, for the past six months, but whiskey, you can't duplicate. And it was really special to have like a good, you know, uh, the, the Pandaren and then the, and then the Oban just like, it's just something you can just savor. So that was, that was really rewarding. |
| James Stacy | It's funny, like even, even without a huge push and, and not drinking for several months, like you did, I feel like I'm getting to that point as well. We're like the non alcoholic stuff absolutely replaces my interest in drinking like heavy IPAs. Yeah, that make me sleepy and you know, I have the same number of calories as a sandwich. Yeah, and then and then now, if I want to have something genuinely special, yeah, I'd rather just occasionally buy a great bottle of whiskey and have that, especially in scenarios where you get to share it right. So I definitely I think I understand where you're where you're landing with that and even there's even a huge delta within the N a world. Yeah. Like I highly suggest anyone at this point, especially if you're, if you're really into beer, I think just exploring it is kind of fun. Even if you end up not liking the majority of it. Yeah. Do you guys have partake there? You must, it doesn't ring a bell. No. So partake is interesting because it's only barely tastes like beer. It's essentially like a La Croix that has a beer flavor, but it's also 10 calories. Oh yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Is this like the hops and whereas like even seltzer kind of thing? |
| James Stacy | No, this is that's a different thing that tastes even less like beer, hop water or some of the some of those sort of options. But the this stuff still tastes very beery, especially again. And I harp on this a lot. It has to be crazy cold. Okay. All of this does, especially but I feel like especially the N.A. Stuff has to be. But the partakes great because there's almost no carbs in it and almost no calories. And you can just you can drink like thirty of them. Otherwise, I mean the best one I've come across is that athletic brewery. Yeah, IPA, the I think it's called run well and it's it's great, but I mean even that is sixty or seventy calories with a bunch of carbs. So yeah, I think it's kind of fun like to explore what's what's available in your area and then and then just like the nice thing is I'm sure it's exactly the same in the States. but you can ship this stuff pretty easily. Oh, yeah. So you don't have to buy from what your local shop maybe carries or what's available at the grocery store or whatever. Yeah. So, I mean, Sarah has had some good luck with all sorts of sort of alcohol adjacent cocktails and canned sodas and things like that, that have more of a medicinal taste rather than tasting like Sprite or Coke or whatever. And so I think there's a lot of variety out there that helps kind of helps you kind of remap like where where you would put your alcohol rather than just having it in in most drinks on an evening or something like that. It's nice. Yeah. Yeah. Look, man, that was a killer trip. Obviously, I think there's probably a ton more. I would like to see a huge like I would love to see all the photos. Yeah. If you maybe maybe throw those in slack will of course include one or two of them in the show notes. Yeah. But I figure at this point, probably just jump into Final Notes and keep this in a nice tight episode. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I think we kind of have a theme for Final Notes, actually. |
| Unknown | Classic rock. |
| Jason Heaton | Kind of in a classic rock mode. And this all came about, I think, yesterday. We were kind of going back and forth in a text message exchange. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You go first, because you were the one that kind of kicked it off. |
| James Stacy | Mine is actually a YouTube video that I came across. It was Saturday evening at my cottage this past weekend. I was finally, like, relaxed. the world was quiet around me. It was pretty late at night. It might even have been like midnight and I was doing my normal, which is I have a window open on YouTube on my laptop and I have some usually some music or or maybe like somebody playing call of duty or war zone. Like I have a stream going of some sort and then I'm just kind of cruising and looking at old lenses and EDC stuff on the other window. My ADHD knows no bounds and I'm going through my normal rabbit hole of like interesting covers and live performances. These are the things that I really enjoy, and I was I was doing some Tame Impala and some Josie and some Arctic monkeys was kind of the zone I was in at the time, and then I got served a live recording from one thousand nine hundred and seventy seven by the Eagles. The interesting thing about this and a quick aside, which I think maybe some people roughly my age will find interesting. I am not an Eagles fan, At least not traditionally. Obviously, growing up, I knew Hotel California and maybe Take It Easy. Yeah. And by the time I got into classic rock, I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, that sort of thing. I had bought a guitar. I was learning songs by all these bands I liked. I was listening to a lot of classic rock. I kind of moved out of my like pop punk phase. And the Eagles, of course, are on every time the radio wants to play classic rock. The Eagles have to be in the twenty bands that they're considering. So the music was always around, but it was never one where I went like, Oh, I want to listen to the whole album of this or of that. And it's so much interesting to me because at the time I also, as I got into university, I was obsessed with one author who hates the Eagles. So Chuck Klosterman, one of the most notable pop culture writers of certainly of like my generation. And I would read anything he wrote, even about things I don't care about. I knew a lot about various MTV reality shows because he wrote dissertations about them. I knew a lot about American football for a little while because he wrote about a lot about American football and base and basketball and that sort of thing, but the other obviously like his core was like pop culture sort of things and he had this thing that the eagles were like the most overrated band ever. I on the other hand just kind of absorbed that and said like that eagles don't really matter to me and moved on and over time over the especially like to say the last five years, I really find that I enjoy their music more than I realized I did. Yeah, and this recording is from 1977. I think it's the exact same one that's on their forum recording with like the live album. That's very well known. Yeah, but if you ever aren't sure about a band find a great live recording by that band and it gives you an entirely different vibe on on what they're about and this this recording is take it to the limit, which is one of their most basic well known songs. and it is simply incredible. Every single one of them is in their absolute peak. None of them look angry at each other. Obviously, the Eagles had a lot of turmoil in the years after they're kind of in the 70s and into the 80s. And so this is 1977 and it's taken to the limit. I'm sitting there in a pretty good mood, the world's quiet, nobody's texting me, nothing, and then you just get the start of this song comes on and I look over and it's all red and you can actually the whole concert is online, so you can listen to everything from that evening. But this song, especially everybody is just perfect and there's even like little moments that are captured by the camera. Joe Walsh, who I find endlessly entertaining, you know, is making weird faces at the camera throughout the yeah, the recording. It's great. I cannot suggest this enough. I don't even know if you have to like the Eagles. It helps if you don't hate take it to the limit. Yeah, It was never one of my favorites, but now it is, and I've been humming it for three or four days, and it'll be in the show notes, and I'm sure I will have played some of it in the last few minutes while we were chatting here. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, this is great. I enjoyed that too. |
| James Stacy | Do you feel any way strongly about the Eagles, one way or another? |
| Jason Heaton | I'm with you. They were kind of, along with bands like Boston and stuff, I just didn't care much for them. There were a couple of songs I liked. I love Boston. |
| James Stacy | Oh, really? Okay. One of my first guitar songs, More Than a Feeling. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, it was kind of more of an indifference, more than like a hatred or, you know, dislike. |
| James Stacy | Oh, I think indifference is exactly where I would land on, on the, on the. |
| Jason Heaton | But this was great. And, and it, there is a certain buzz of nostalgia when I, when I hear songs like this and, and this was a great video and you're, you're so right about looking at kind of live recordings of, of some of the great bands. And, you know, I think of like Fleetwood Mac is another great one to go down rabbit hole with or, um, or Neil Young. Have you ever seen any of his concerts on YouTube? Absolutely, man. |
| James Stacy | The guy can just noodle on a guitar for like half an hour and he's just... Well, I also think this is like the... In my mind, this is the depth that YouTube offers that TV never could have, is the ability to have every live recording. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James Stacy | So if you love a band, even the bad ones from an iPhone, but I'm a huge Frank Ocean nerd, and some of his best performances were captured on somebody's two thousand and eleven iphone or whatever cell phone yeah and then put online there's there's a clip of him doing and then it blends into one of his songs and it's just fantastic and i think like without it's one of those things were like i grew up at a time and as did you jason and lots of our audience did we're like youtube wasn't around yeah so To be able to find this, it meant that you found it on LimeWire or Kaza or BitTorrent or your uncle had a VHS that he taped that was taped from a friend's tape, and that's Pink Floyd 1975 at wherever, and you're like, this is the coolest, and now it's just all there. It takes no time. I can sit for hours and watch live concerts, sometimes from bands I don't even feel that much about, and you have these moments and there's something about live music that if you're in the right headspace, it's just as good, you know, nearly 50 years later. Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, and, and something else, man. And after you kind of sent me that, which was sort of, sort of disembodied, man, we weren't really even chatting about it. I think you just sent me this link and said, check this out. It's awesome. And I was like, Oh, okay. The Eagles, you know? So I watched it and then I was like, that just led to a whole classic rock, uh, rabbit hole. And then I suggested back, I was curious if you knew who, um, Rick Beato, uh, is, and Rick is, Look, he's no secret to probably most of our listeners. The guy's got, you know, millions of followers. Brand new to me though. Awesome. On, on YouTube. And the guy's, he's a real music authority. I don't even, I haven't really looked into his actual background if he was in a band or anything like that, but he, he just speaks so intelligently and passionately about music and, and his whole channel is breakdowns of songs, um, analysis of albums. And then he has a lot of great guests on. I think I first learned of him, Cause I was watching, he did like an hour long interview with Stuart Copeland, the drummer for the police. And, and it's just great. And then that led to Andy Summers, the guitarist for the police. And then pretty soon you just, he's, he's had everyone on and he knows so much about music, way more than my depth of knowledge, but it's, I just love listening to him. And, and so the one I sent you was his analysis of, he does this series of what makes this song great. And, and the song he was analyzing in this particular one was limelight by rush. Cause we were, you and I were going back and forth about rush after you sent me that Eagles clip and, and Tom Sawyer, you know, arguably their most well-known hit, um, was on my, my fan dance playlist. I was listening to that probably while I was going up Jacob's ladder, uh, for the second time. Um, but yeah, you should just check it out. He, he breaks down limelight in way more detail than I could even, uh, you know, kind of discern, um, or understand, but, but I just like his passion and his kind of take on music. So, even if you're not a Rush fan or don't like Limelight, which is such a tremendous song anyway, um, just check out Rick Beato and the guy's got 4.26 million subscribers. So I'm sure a lot of you already do subscribe or follow him, but, uh, yeah, it's good stuff if you're, if you're a music nerd. |
| James Stacy | Yeah. I mean, like, I think this sort of thing, like music commentary can be really boring and dry or kind of like lost in the weeds. And I went through and watched a couple of, Rick Beato's videos, and I just think he does a really nice job of keeping it feeling conversational and friendly and informative. And I think you can look into obviously like Song Exploder and Dissect and these kind of podcasts that break down. I know I talked about Dissect in the past because they did a whole series on Frank Ocean's first two albums, and I think they were excellent. And then you get into something like this and you think like he does this in video, millions and millions of views. It's just a really like the workload, the like consideration, the conversation, all of it comes from clearly being really, really good and knowledgeable. So yeah, I highly recommend these. It was an instant subscribe. I think I made it five minutes into the first video you linked me and then just started cruising for other songs that I liked. |
| Unknown | Yeah, yeah. |
| James Stacy | But yeah, Limelight's a winner. I'm a Tom Sawyer boy. I think most people are. It's that drum beat, right? Yeah. But Limelight's pretty fun. I mean, Rush has some incredible songs. Yeah. Yeah. Good Canadian band. Great Canadian band. It's true. It's true. All right. That was fun. And unpredictable, you know, classic rock inspired ending to the show. And I think one of the very few shows where you and I said, let's try and do this in an hour. Yeah. And here we are. We're going to do it in an hour. That's pretty good. Yeah. Look at us growing up. Well, hey, as always, thank you so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to The Show Notes and get in the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly, maybe even grab yourself a new TGN signed NATO, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the free music archive. |
| Jason Heaton | And we leave you with this quote from Seneca who said, we suffer more in imagination than in reality. |