One Step Beyond

For this episode, the last in Series 1 of One Step Beyond, we flip the script, and allow regular host Tony Fletcher to be interviewed by guest host Paula Lucas about his recent brain hemorrhage - and how lucky he feels to have fallen into the small percentage of people who get to walk away unscathed. Paula asks the questions surely pounding away in the back of your mind (ouch!), like:

• How did the hemorrhage come about?
• Is it true that a hemorrhage manifests as your 'worst headache ever'?
• Is it true that 'your worst headache ever' is like 'your biggest migraine on Motörhead'?
• Is every hemorrhage caused by an aneurysm, and if not, what's the difference
• What is the difference between a subachnaroid hemorrhage and an intracerebral hemorrhage?
• Where does hyponatremia and hypertension fit into this?
• Does there have to be a triggering incident?
• How does it feel to go over 48 hours without caffeine?
• What is an angiogram? And how does it differ from a CT (or Cat) scan?
• And can anyone other than a neurosurgeon pronounce the words "Perimesencephalic non-aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage" without getting tongue-tied?

Actually, a few of those questions were not asked during the interviews, which is why the answers are given above!

Seriously - because this was serious - we ask and we attempt to answer this question: does a healthy and active, even athletic lifestyle invite a hemorrhage, or does it make it more likely we can survive one?

At the end of this Episode, Tony says farewell to One Step Beyond - for now - as he launches The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast and you get to hear the trailer. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or via https://shows.acast.com/the-jamming-fanzine-podcast

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It’s not every 17-year old who gets the chance to interview Paul McCartney for three hours, especially at the point, back in early 1982, that Macca had barely been heard from publicly since the assassination of his former Beatles band mate John Lennon on that tragically book-marked day of December 8, 1980. That 17-year old was your One Step Beyond host, Tony Fletcher, and the story you will hear on this Episode, The Day I Met Macca, ties in to two of his ongoing book projects.

One is The Best of Jamming!: Selections and Stories from the Fanzine That Grew Up 1977-1986, and it comes out on September 23rd in the UK and November 25th in the USA. The Paul McCartney interview referred to in this short story was published at the time in Jamming!, which was started by Fletcher back at school in the late 1970s, and is reprinted verbatim in this new compendium. In fact, if you squint at the logo for this particular episode of One Step Beyond on your phone, you should be able to see Fletcher holding up a reprint of the McCartney interview from the a hot-off-the-presses copy of The Best of Jamming.

The second project is the sequel to Fletcher's memoir Boy About Town, which detailed those formative years growing up in South London in the 1970s, as a kid transformed by punk and new wave. The Day I Met Macca is an edited extract of a full chapter from that sequel, publication date to be determined.

The Best of Jamming! will be launched with its own podcast series, featuring conversations with former contributors and interviewees. Consider this short story a teaser for the upcoming books and the associated podcast.

Oh, and if you were wondering why One Step Beyond failed to publish a new episode this August, it's not because we spent the month on the beach. Rather, your host found himself in Intensive Care - the subject, no doubt, of a future Episode, and another reason this current Episode may feel like a detour from the usual outdoors/travel/health/athletic subject matter.

The Best of Jamming!: Selections and Stories from the Fanzine That Grew Up 1977-1986 is available through all good bookshops or order online from outlets such as:

UK:

UK.Bookshop.org

hive.co.uk

Waterstones.com

Omnibus Press

US:

Bookshop.org

Indiebound.org

Barnesandnoble.com

And yes, if you must, from Amazon.

More information about Boy About Town and Tony's other books here.

Questions/comments/suggestions/free beer? Use this e-mail [email protected], where you can also subscribe to the newsletter.

The One Step Beyond website is here.

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Incidental music is by Noel Fletcher

And your host can be found here:

tonyfletcher.net

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Following on from Episode 31, Running An Ultra, which featured Mike Siudy, co-Race Director of the Manitou's Revenge ultramarathon in the Catskill Mountains, this episode features a round-table discussion with five people who have all themselves completed at least one Manitou's Revenge, and were all involved in this year's event either as competitors or volunteers. Joining host Tony Fletcher are Sheryl Wheeler, one of the great trail runners in the East but as unpretentious as they come, Max Gruner, Alanna Moss and Benno Rawlinson.

The discussion attempts to answer such questions as: What the hell is the attraction of a 54-mile course that has about 16,000ft of elevation? Why do we come back for more? What attributes do you need to take on an ultra-trail events? Is it true good walkers do as well as good runners? How important are poles? Headlamps? What about footwear? What do you do for sustenance when you start at 5am and need to stay fueled for up to 24 hours? And most important of all, who was the Yeti on this year's Manitou's course?

More seriously though - or perhaps not - the idea behind this discussion is to share some of the camaraderie found in what is perceived as a solitary sport, and hopefully attract others to compete in similar events - or just to find their own challenge, and see it through.

Links for this episode:

Manitou's Revenge website

Manitou's Revenge Facebook

Cat's Tail Trail Marathon website

Escarpment Trail Run

Benno Rawlinson web site

Ultra Stories podcast with Sheryl Wheeler

Run To The Hills with Beth Pascall

I'll Have Another podcast with Lindsay Hein

The Running Public podcast on Big Mountain Races: some excellent advice on pre-race routines and nourishment.

Questions/comments/suggestions/free beer? Use this e-mail [email protected], where you can also subscribe to the newsletter.

Or, find One Step Beyond on social media at:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Twitter is OneStepBeyondP1

Incidental music is by Noel Fletcher

And your host can be found here:

tonyfletcher.net

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Have you ever considered upping your outdoor game to take on an ultra marathon? Or do you consider those who willingly subject themselves to something like Manitou’s Revenge - the 54 mile race through, or rather, up and down the Catskill Mountains, and which One Step Beyond's Tony Fletcher just completed for the second time – to be complete lunatics worthy only of an almost morbid fascination?

Either way, this episode is for you. Rather than bore you with his own race account, Tony talks instead with Manitou’s co-director Mike Siudy. They discuss what it takes to run an ultra marathon in terms of being on your feet for up to 24 hours, and what it takes to run an ultra marathon in terms of hosting an event where there are frequently hours between aid stations, weather is unpredictable, some racers will inevitably drop out, and the volunteers can be on the mountains for longer than the runners.

Mike knows of what he hosts: he has competed in six of the eight Manitou’s held since the inaugural event in 2013, and holds the fastest known time for tackling all 35 of the Catskill Mountains 3500ft peaks in one fell swoop, in 2018, 144 miles, in 57 hours and change.  And this from a man who says he hates 100-miler events and prefers hiking to running.

Which brings us to the main point: ultra marathons like this may be appear masochistic from the outside, but they are strategic, varied, beautiful, involve substantial amounts of hiking and above all they are – though not always in the moment – FUN! You will hear Mike and Tony exchange a few laughs about the course, and if you enjoy this episode, you will love the next one, in which five competitors from Manitou’s sit around a Zoom call and reminisce about the highs and lows of a race that takes in over 15,000 ft of climbing – and an additional 1,000 feet of descent.

Links for this episode:

Manitou's Revenge website

Manitou's Revenge Facebook

Cat's Tail Trail Marathon website

Escarpment Trail Run

Mike Siudy's "Catskill 35 Direttissima" (FKT for all 35 x 3500ft peaks)

Charlie Gadol, Race co-director, on the Long Path in support of the NY/NJ Trail Conference

Ultra Sign-Up - for future ultra events

Questions/comments/suggestions/free beer? Use this e-mail [email protected], where you can also subscribe to the newsletter.

Or, find One Step Beyond on social media at:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Twitter is OneStepBeyondP1

Incidental music is by Noel Fletcher

And your host can be found here:

tonyfletcher.net

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, host Tony Fletcher reads another short story from his Round The World, backpacking trip of 2016 with wife and 11-year old son: A Travel Day, set in Morocco. Doing so inspires him to discuss the definition and purpose of travel, to consider how the joy is to be found in the sum of its parts, not in largely mythical grand epiphanies or supposedly magical destinations. “Great travel experiences are often about the moments in between those destinations. They come from the days where you simply aspire to get from A to B, but as you will hear in this story, getting from A to B means going via C with additional detours, distractions, disappointments and, inevitably, delights en route.”

Tony’s recent journey back to the United Kingdom finds him unearthing his mother’s own extensive travel diaries, from shared family camping adventures in the 1970s through to her own frequent journeys to the Middle East. This inspires Tony to discuss the merits of keeping and preserving such diaries, especially when they can unlock memories that may have been closed shut by the passing of time and the onset of dementia. And he offers a few more observations of his own travels this past month, finding previously unexplored beautiful destinations more or less on his birth town’s doorstep.

If you enjoy this episode, and especially if you’d care to hear more like it, please do let me know via e-mail at [email protected], where you can also subscribe to the newsletter.

Or, find One Step Beyond on social media at:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Twitter is OneStepBeyondP1

And your host can be found here:

tonyfletcher.net

Original incidental music in this episode is 'Two Struggling Chicago Musicians' by Noel Fletcher.

Music used in the short story A Travel Day:

Abdoulaye Alhassane Touré - Kurbu, Timala and Maru Kiray

Imdukal'N' El Hussain Safir - Laman

Eric Carlson - Train tunnel, Scott County, Virginia

Giraffe - A Bus Out of Here

Checkpoint 303 - Bus 21, Jerusalem to Bethlehem,

All from the Free Music Archive used under a Creative Commons License

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this second half of our interview with Erin Blankenship, a former professional football player in leagues around the world and the co-founder of Equal Playing Field, we talk more about the initiative’s all-female, full-size pitch, full length football match on top of Mount Kilimanjaro (the highest ever played). We then learn about the challenges and triumphs of its second record-breaking game, the lowest played on earth following a 100km hike down to Jordan’s Dead Sea, 500m below sea level. Erin also talks about how Equal Playing Field supports specific grass roots initiatives for women’s engagement in football all around the world, especially in underserved countries and communities, and concludes by considering the great strides the women’s game has taken in recent years – and the many challenges it still faces. All discussed with considerable humor – Equal Playing Field believes in doing the crazy, after all.

In addition, Tony talks about discovering new outdoors landscapes in his old stomping ground of Yorkshire, after returning from his first international journey since before the pandemic. The joys of new travel adventures can, he figures, be found surprisingly close to home.

Links to stories mentioned in this episode:

Photos from Equal Playing Field’s record-breaking Dead Sead hike and match.

The Guardian on the English FA paying women the same performance pay as men.

The FA History on women’s football in England, including the many years it was “banned”.

The BBC on Lewes FC as the first club team in the UK to pay its female players the same as its males.

KNVB on how Holland’s success in the 2017 WEuros boosted the women’s game in that country.

KNVB on women’s football internationally.

The Guardian from Nov 2018 breaking the story of the sexual, physical and emotional abuse that plagued members of the Afghanistan women’s team.

The Guardian from July 2020 on the life ban subsequently meted out by FIFA on the Afghan football federation’s male president.

The New York Times on the U.S. Women’s Team’s Equal Pay Dispute with U.S. Soccer

And:

Equal Playing Field web site

BeInSports Equal Playing Field documentary about the Kili climb

Equal Playing Field YouTube channel (many short clips about programmes/camps/World Records)

Equal Playing Field Instagram

Equal Playing Field Facebook

Equal Playing Field Twitter

Erin Blankenship Instagram

Laura Youngson Instagram

Ida Sports website

If you enjoy this episode, and especially if you’d care to hear more like it, please do let me know via e-mail at [email protected], where you can also subscribe to the newsletter.

Or, find One Step Beyond on social media at:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Twitter is OneStepBeyondP1

And your host can be found here:

tonyfletcher.net

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever considered arranging an official 90-minute football/soccer match, on a full-size pitch, at 18,746ft/5714 meters above sea level, in the oxygen-starved atmosphere on top of Mt Kilimanjaro? Erin Blankenship did; in 2017, she helped co-ordinate a World Record for the highest altitude match ever played, one in which every participant, from 22 different countries, was female.  

Erin was born in the USA, grew up in Saudi Arabia, played college soccer in the States, professional football in the UK, in competitive leagues in Saudi Arabia, Scandinavia, the US, China, Afghanistan and Jordan, and trained with the US Olympic Team for Modern Pentathlon. For her day job, Erin works for the UN World Food Programme as the Regional Peace and Conflict advisor for the Middle East and North Africa. She is also the co-founder of Equal Playing Field, a “grassroots, non-profit initiative to challenge gender inequality in sport and to promote sports development for girls and women globally, especially in marginalised country contexts,” with an evident focus on football/soccer. Following its initial foray up Kilimanjaro, Equal Playing Field has gone on to set four more world records, including one for the lowest altitude game ever, in the Dead Sea of Jordan, to demonstrate the need for top-to-bottom change in sports gender equality.

In the first half of a two-half conversation (45mins + stoppage time each) Erin discusses with me the challenges she experienced as a female player, the subsequent birth of Equal Playing Field, the logistical challenges of the team climb up Kilimanjaro and the game that followed, and some of the organization’s other achievements, both at World Record and Grass Roots levels. A second half will follow. The show will not go to penalties.

Links for this show:

Equal Playing Field web site

BeInSports Equal Playing Field documentary about the Kili climb

Equal Playing Field YouTube channel (many short clips about programmes/camps/World Records)

Equal Playing Field Instagram

Equal Playing Field Facebook

Equal Playing Field Twitter

Erin Blankenship Instagram

Laura Youngson Instagram

Ida Sports website

If you enjoy this episode, and especially if you’d care to hear more like it, please do let me know via e-mail at [email protected], where you can also subscribe to the newsletter.

Or, find One Step Beyond on social media at:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Twitter is OneStepBeyondP1

And your host can be found here:

tonyfletcher.net

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike Peters is the rare rock star to have an MBE after his name - awarded not for his musical successes with Welsh rock band The Alarm, considerable though they have been, but for his charity work with the Love Hope Strength foundation.

That story starts In 1995 when, on the eve of an American tour, Peters was informed that he had Non Hodgkin's Lymphona, or cancer of the blood cells; deciding to push on through the tour, cloak himself in a fighting attitude, and turn down a bone marrow transplant, Peters' disease appeared to right itself, only to return in 2005 as leukemia. Rather than bemoan his bad luck, Peters instead recognized the enormous good fortune of having quality free cancer care on the National Health Service in a world where there is so much health inequality, and in 2007 he co-founded Love Hope Strength, with the belief that "all people deserve quality care, a marrow donor if needed, and most importantly, hope."

Since then, Peters, with partner James Chippendale, another leukemia survivor, has hosted concerts on top of Mt Everest Base Camp, Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Fuji, established the 'Get On The List' drive at concerts to sign up potential bone marrow donors, and recorded the world's longest song, The Scriptures, to promote bone marrow donor initiatives between Israelis and Palestinians. Money raised has served to fund a mammography machine in Nepal, build a Children’s Cancer Unit in Tanzania, and to fund cancer projects within the UK.

Mike Peters first met One Step Beyond host Tony Fletcher in 1981, after calling him to pitch a copy of the debut single by The Alarm, 'Unsafe Building'. The two built a close friendship in the early 1980s, and Fletcher's first trip to the USA, where he would later move, was as part of the press for The Alarm's April 1986 Spirit of 86 concert at UCLA broadcast live worldwide by MTV. Though they fell out of touch for 25 years, they recently had cause to renew contact, leading to this interview.

Mike, a keen hiker, runner, climber and footballer, is supported in his daily mission by his wife of 30 years, Jules Peters, also a cancer survivor, and the subject of two recent BBC Wales documentaries on her own battles to overcome breast cancer surgery. Together, their positive outlook has enabled them to outrun cancer and raise a family. Mike released a new album as The Alarm, Raw, earlier this spring, and is about to set off on a sponsored walk of Offa's Dyke, which runs down the English-Welsh border. Listeners are invited to join in virtually.

You can find Mike Peters' music at TheAlarm.com

Love Hope Strength can be found at lovehopestrength.org or lovehopestrength.co.uk

The Mike Peters documentary Man In The Camo Jacket can be found at https://maninthecamojacket.com/

Info on the documentary 'Mike and Jules: While We Still Have Time' and 'Jules Peters: My Cancer Journey' can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08ryqrw

The Alarm YouTube channel is at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUxf6WCerflAEhwtniLeaNg

The Alarm on Instagram can be found at https://www.instagram.com/thealarm/

If you enjoy this story, and especially if you’d care to hear more like it, please do let me know via e-mail at [email protected], where you can also subscribe to the newsletter.

Or, find One Step Beyond on social media at:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Twitter is OneStepBeyondP1

And your host can be found here:

tonyfletcher.net

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this episode, we revisit India in the form of another short story I wrote about our travels backpacking round the world, with then wife and then 11-year old son, in 2016, for almost the whole year. It’s set in the hills of Karnataka, and it's called You Do Not Need A Guide.

This story has been on my mind to read for you for a while now, but I’ve been pushed to move it up the timeline because of the covid crisis convulsing India right now. In the intro to this episode, I talk a little about the India I came to know and love that year, however brief the experience, and how much I yearn to go back there.

Referenced in this episode:

Kolkata Calcutta by Finn Reilly with foreword by Tony Fletcher

Arundhati Roy on India’s Covid catastrophe

New York Times Daily podcast: Inside India's Coronavirus Crisis

Honey Valley estate

Music used in this episode

Deep Karnataka by DubRaJah

Night In India by Shamil Evenheim

Little India by Les Cartes Postales

Delaymania by Noel Fletcher

If you enjoy this story, and especially if you’d care to hear more like it, please do let me know via e-mail at [email protected], where you can also subscribe to the newsletter.

Or, find One Step Beyond on social media at:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Twitter is OneStepBeyondP1

And your host can be found here:

tonyfletcher.net

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One Step Beyond is one year old, and to celebrate, we revisit some of our best episodes and catch up with the guests, each of whom was invited to answer four questions about how they coped with this past pandemic year and how they are staying optimistic and motivated moving forwards. A dozen of them responded, sending in their recorded replies from five different continents, and over the course of this episode, you’ll hear from authors, runners, painters, adventurers, film-makers, musicians, skiiers, medical volunteers, zen teachers, walkers, travelers, barefooters, minimalists, entrepreneurs, high school teachers, hikers, vegans and, above all, from people who have taken a step outside their comfort zones to enrich their lives. It's a feast of food for thought.

Thank you to Tim Kelly, Paula Lucas, Ric Dragon, Navalayo Osembo, Bill Hoffman, Zuisei Goddard, Olie Hunter-Smart, Trevor Warman, Adam Fletcher, David Watts Barton and Julie McGuire for taking part in this special episode. Thanks to all the other guests from the past year, and to all of you, the listeners and supporters, for making this such a successful first 25 shows. This episode runs longer than usual, and it was later than usual in landing, but it’s hopefully worth the wait and should be worth its length, too.

People, places and entities featured in this Episode:

Arte Sumapaz

Carla Rhodes article on the Greater Adjutant in the New York Times

Enda Sportswear

Mountain Dog Running

Vanessa Zuisei Goddard

Olie Hunter Smart

The Nomadic Backpacker

David Watts Barton

Julie McGuire on Facebook

For questions or comments, or to subscribe to the newsletter, e-mail [email protected]

Join One Step Beyond on social media at:

Instagram is OneStepBeyondPodcast

Facebook is One Step Beyond with Tony Fletcher

Twitter is OneStepBeyondP1

And your host can be found here:

tonyfletcher.net

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.