David Grier

David Grier is a celebrity chef by trade, a proud father of four and an extreme athlete by passion. David Grier was born on the 16th of January 1960 into a Cape wine farming family in South Africa, and with this base he never lost his roots for the love of the outdoors. With food, wine and adventure close to his heart, David set out to take all of his passions to the extreme, and explore the limits of the human mind and body.

After he studied management at hotel school, David Grier set out into the industry and became one of the countries youngest hotel managers at the age of 21. Two years later David started his first, of a string of successful restaurants, and has an international television cooking series on the way.

David Grier is always pushing his adventure side as well. Summiting Mt Kilimanjaro, running the Comrades Marathon, the 2 Oceans Marathon, the Puffer Ultra Marathon, and the “Le Grand Raid” - the worlds hardest single stage mountain race, 128km.

David has finished writing his book, Courage and Rice, a photographic journal of his adventure along the Great Wall of China.

Motivational Speaking

To run some 4000 km along the Great Wall of China, over a period of four months. Starting in the Gobi desert at temperatures of + 40 and ending at the Bohai Sea at temperatures of - 22 is no mean feat. It took years of planning, training and gaining knowledge on China and the areas they would be covering, the project became a business. As they ran through china so they honed their skills, started to understand the conditions and system within they were operating using their expertise gained to exploit the situations. Planning was essential, but so was flexibility within this frame work, as hurdles were popping up on a daily basis and they had to overcome them in order to move on. The journey was undertaken by two of them, a small team within a bigger team. This became more and more important to the success of the project the longer it carried on.  The growth of the team, within the team, the harnessing of the different members expertise became crucial to their success. Decisions that had to be made on the run, as well as the understanding of the group dynamics that they had, 4 different cultures, 4 different languages and never having been together before the run started. The growth of the members of the team along the way, the personal courage shown, the determination and sacrifices that members gave in order for them to succeed. How important it was for them to change and evolve along the way.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, “I will try again tomorrow”

In October 2008, David Grier returned from running the ‘Smile of Africa’, completing almost 4000 km around the coastline of southern Africa, from Namibia to Mozambique.

David Grier experienced an overwhelming account of this beautiful land of ours and has felt the hope that the people feel in our country.

‘Hope in Thyme’

This is an inspirational 60 minute account of David Grier’s journey around the coast of South Africa… a journey running a smile around the foot of the African Continent, which he dubbed ‘Miles for Smiles’.  As the run began to unfold, the whole journey became a personal search and a continued strive to find the answers to questions that David suspects is on the mind of many a South African, “What does the future hold for us?  Is there hope in the future of this country?”

“We have undergone such massive change over the past 15 years and in order to carry on with this process, there must be a reward.  To me, that reward is hope and the knowledge that this country is going to be a better place.”

“I will never forget the day that I ran over the bridge across the Orange River from Namibia back into South Africa, at the start of this run… The pride that I felt… carrying my country flag across that bridge!  But there was a feeling of uncertainty in me, a feeling of fear in a way, as I did not know what lay ahead of me.  What was going to be the result of this mammoth journey and what were the lessons going to be?  Deep inside there was this strong feeling of hope for the future that has been kindled by deep-rooted positivity and love for all that this country stands for and the massive change that it has undergone”.

‘Miles for Smiles’

Concurrently, this middle-aged father and his running partner, Braam Malherbe, raised money and created invaluable publicity for Operation Smile, a non-profit volunteer medical organisation that provides free reconstructive surgery to children and young adults suffering from facial deformities such as cleft lips and palates.
This epic endurance test, sponsored by pharmaceutical company Cipla Medpro, formed part of the Miles for Smiles Challenge, an annual event in which extreme sportsmen and women help raise money for needy youngsters

‘Burnt Vanilla’

A journey across Madagascar

In March 2010 David returned from a four month solo adventure, creating another world first, where he paddled 500km from Africa to Madagascar across the Mozambique channel and then ran the entire length of the island from south to north a distance of 2700km, an adventure that has by far been his most grueling event to date.

During the channel crossing he was hit by tropical storms, a twister and tailed by sharks. After 11 days of paddling 500km he finally reached the coast of Madagascar. The run began at the southern tip of the island with temperatures reaching 40 degrees by early morning. As he ran up the island, the monsoon rains moved in, flooded river crossings became a daily challenge, only to be hit with Bilhatzia twice, Dengi fever and then came the jungles filled with blood sucking leeches. Finally down with swamp fever, struggling to run he crawled out of the centre of the island and headed the last 500km weighing only 69kg after loosing 20kg from illness. The final push to the northern tip ended being a mammoth 34 hour push through the day and night in a cyclone, being washed away by a river, no food and without sleep he finally made it and in the end covered a distance of 2700km

Overview of talk Burn Vanilla
   
Each journey that one embarks on is so different, so unpredictable, littered with lessons. Ultimately each journey will always etch a scar of life as it passes. As I fought the twisting path of this journey, a path that has sent me on so many unplanned detours. If I look back at the different stages and how everything has panned out, they are far apart from the original course. Circumstance has been the biggest single hurdle that I have had to overcome and ultimately had the biggest effect and impact on this challenge. But sitting back and reflecting, is it not circumstance that is ultimately the biggest hurdle that we all have to face, deal with and ultimately need to have the ability to adapt to. How one handles the circumstance that you find yourself in I feel ultimately has the biggest bearing on the final outcome of life, your interpretation and ability to react in the correct way to the circumstance, that decision will ultimately have the biggest influence on your life.