Mar 19, 2019
Adventurer and ultra runner Jamie Maddison has run 100s of miles through vast deserts, lived with a nomad in Central Asia, raced on horseback with a crazy herder on the remote old postal roads in Kazakstan, pulled a camel through 100 miles of desert in Uzbekistan and lived with eagle hunters in Mongolia. With fascinating stories about how expeditions can challenge and change you and have a surprisingly lasting effect on mental and physical health.
Jamie stars in the short film “All That’s There” which has its UK Premiere at Four Seasons Film Festival at the BFI Film Forever on Wednesday 20th March. For more info and tickets visit www.fourseasonsfilmfestival.com.
On this episode we explore:
His film ‘All That’s There’ about his ultra marathon in the Saryesik-Atyrau Desert, Kazakhstan
London’s Four Seasons Film Festival where his film is premiering
How he got into exploring
Growing up reading about mountaineers Joe Tasker, Pete Boardman, Joe Simpson, Chris Boddington
Climbing in the Brecon Beacons
Writing for a rock climbing magazine Climber Magazine
Fellow adventurer Matthew Traver
The incredible expedition to Kyrgyzstan
His passion for Russian Soviet history
Deciding to do a big expedition in Central Asia
His nine different expeditions
Living a dual life – working in finance marketing in the city
Balancing city work and expeditioning
Spending 6 months travelling Central Asia
Two months on horseback
Living with a herder in Uzbekistan
How it takes a long time to recover from an expedition
Getting tired of wearing t-shirts that are eight years old
Becoming quite masochistic about life
Finding balance with adventure
The need to explore and see remote regions of the world
Becoming an ultra runner
How ultra running can enable you to see the world in short periods
What is ultra running
Running 70 miles across a desert in 30 hours
The Betpak-Dala ‘desert of missfortune’ in Kazakstan
The mental challenge of running such distances
The physical challenge
The exhuastion and drained feeling lasting for months
Plunging into the river at the finishing line after 70 miles over the desert
The anticlimax of reaching the end goal
How the success means recognising the accomplishment
Being very hard on himself
Enjoyng the journey even if it’s quite painful
The beauty of Kazakstan – deserts, greenland and steppe
How The book The Mountains of Heaven by Sir Charles Howard Berry inspired him
Exploring the old postal roads of Kazakstan
Spending two months of horseback
Not being able to ride a horse!
Buying three horses and pointing them south
Camping in ‘quite-open’ tent getting eaten alive by bugs
Forgetting the bug spray
The gung-ho Kazak herdsmen who made them race horses
Galloping into the setting sun
The underlying sense of worry and lack of food
Riding for 7 hours in 40 degree heat
How this journey really changed him
Not anticipating the effect expeditions would have on him
Finding it very hard to get back into normal life
Levison Wood’s experience of this as talked about on The Big Travel Podcast
The strange experience of spending seven days by a remote river, doing nothing, saying nothing
Studying mindfulnes and meditation to be more aware of the present moment
The expedition to the east of Tajikistan in the Pamirs
One of the best places for expedition cycling
Asking a nomad if they could live with him
Sitting around waiting for the nomad to do something
The 100 mile, seven day run through Uzbekistan
Matching the pace of a camel, walking and running
Unwittingly being taken to a radioactive zone
What’sApp-ing the nomad
Conflicting feelings of giving money to people when travelling
Moral quandrys when confronted with poverty and inequalty
Explorong the flat salt-lakes of the Mangystau area of Kazakstan
Living with eagle hunters in Mongolia
A horseback journey along the Mongolian/China border
A four day bus journey to Ulaanbaatar
Paddling down a frozen river in an inflatable raft
Does he ever wonder why he’s doing this?
The need to live an extraordinary life combined with a nihilistic urge
Growing up into expeditioning and adjusting the role it plays in his life
Pairing his expeditions with a more social world; wife, hopefully kids and doing fewer trips
The one last main desert he wants to explore in Kazakhstan
The Aral Sea disaster when the Soviet Union diverted the rivers to water cotton plants
How his wife wants to just go to nice bars and restaurants and more conventional travel
How there’s no point in being snobby about travel
No shame in going to Ibiza or the Costa del Sol!
Balancing experiencing something unique but in a shorter period of time
Exploring North America or South American
His wife being from Brazil
Plans to explore Alaska and Turkmenistan