Fun and sun in France - someone's gotta do it...
Julian Chorier on photo duty
What a day! Here I am in the bar of the Hotel Florens, Jonathan Wyatt to my left, checking his mail, Thomas Lorblanchet to my right sharing a joke. The UK team are in bed (Anna, Andy and Ricky) after a long day of product testing, seminars, photoshoots, runs and focus groups – oh and some pretty good food and lively social discussion.
For those reading this and wondering what it is like to be in the company of such lofty elite runners, well its kinda normal. All of the Salomon ‘family’ (product, R&D, marketing, community managers and racers) are a pretty humble lot. If I was to list out the honours achieved by this congregation of trail running ‘royalty’
Kilian, fast guy, nice guy!
I could be here quite a while, BUT you wouldn’t know about, as everyone just rolls their sleeves up – Advance Week is a great leveller! For me today was all about photoshoots and focus groups, interspersed with the odd sneaky look over the shoulder of Jono Wyatt and Kilian Jornet at prototype shoes which wont see the light of day until 2011 and 2012 (I have some images and footage on my HD that new Salomon Marketing boss Gregory would probably like to remain there – so you will have to wait and see!)
Photoshoot, the Gripmaster gets his hands stuck...
In a focus group this evening we were also party to the future – the SLAB project, and beyond. Rene and Patrick (the boffins behind Salomon’s racing and shoe R&D) put their babies out there for all of the congregation to see – we saw shoes that for sure will never see the light of day, it must be nice to be part of history for some of the racers, but to be part of the future? That’s satisfying.
Prototype alert!
Anyway, its almost midnight and it’s only the Community Managers that are still here, beavering away and spreading the word in their respective peer groups, and we have another action packed day tomorrow, so I better get some rest. Bonne nuit!
