Archive for September 2004
I was scribbling a to-do list in my diary for tomorrow when I shifted my gaze up an inch or so to the big fat '1' at the top of the page. No way. It can't be three quarters of the way through this year already.
I keep telling everyone the same thing, but it's true - it still feels like I got home (from my last expedition) yesterday. My grand plans for a huge summer holiday (a fortnight on a beach somewhere, a few paperbacks, no mobile phone) never materialised and in many ways life feels every bit as stressful as it was during the buildup to my departure in February. Tony and I spent all day at a desk yesterday, frantically preparing a talk I was due to deliver at a conference that evening; we got back here way past midnight, Tony crashed on the sofa and I was up early(ish) again today to drive to a speaking engagement with Nationwide in Northampton. Busy boy.
As well as the next expedition (October 2005 to February 2006) and piles of speaking work, there's a rather exciting business venture that should kick off next spring. Part of me can't wait, but part of me can't help thinking there's simply no way everything I want to do will fit into the next twelve months. In a bid to try and squeeze everything in, I'm hiring someone to help me organise my diary, I've bought a book (inspired by the 43 Folders blog) and I've discovered the Best Invention Ever. A little widget called an RSS Reader (the technical term is aggregator, which sounds oddly agricultural). What on earth is an RSS Reader? The best way I can explain it is that it surfs the net for you. I'm currently using the excellent (and free) FeedReader. Those that know me well will appreciate that this alone will free up at least three hours a day…
{ Filed under Miscellany on September 30th, 2004 | No Comments }
…wrote George Leigh Mallory, 'is not taking adventure'.
I was saddened, but not at all surprised to wake up bleary-eyed to BBC's Breakfast News this morning and hear that more and more British schools are avoiding taking pupils on outdoor activities for fear of being sued.
Elsewhere, the NOAA's Arctic Ocean webcam shows that it's getting pretty dark and wintery on the icy Arctic wastes. Either that or it's sunk…
{ Filed under Random thoughts and reflection on September 29th, 2004 | 1 Comment }
This is cool - there's an interview with Sir Wally Herbert in October's Geographical magazine:
'I might now even argue that reaching 70 and discovering there is so much left to do is as gratifying as any of the ambitions that crowded my youth.'
I don't know if space flight is on Sir Wally's to-do list, but today Sir Richard Branson launched Virgin Galactic and took a, er, giant leap towards making commercial space flight a reality.
The £110,000 ticket might be a little out of my reach, but I'm sure they'll need someone to push the trolley down the aisle, no?
{ Filed under Inspiration and motivation on September 28th, 2004 | No Comments }
April 2003. I was killing time, waiting for a flight from the Russian ice station 'Borneo' back to Longyearbyen, drinking instant coffee with 'Mashutka' condensed milk (see pic - you really can find anything on Google these days) . I was chatting with a good friend of mine, Nicolas Mingasson - an old polar hand and someone who has been involved with the logistics of more expeditions than you can shake a stick at. I still crease up at his definition of a 'polar expert' - someone that has done 'less than two, or more than twenty expeditions'. In my opinion, you could safely exchange the word 'expert' for 'explorer', a word that really makes my toes curl.
I'm often introduced as 'an explorer', but I can't stand the word. It conjures up all the wrong images - pith helmets, monied Edwardian gentry (what-ho!), jolly good chaps (leaning on club fender, brandy snifter in hand) recounting stories of far-flung derring-do… It's like being in the Army and calling yourself a 'warrior'; you might secretly hope that's how you go down in the history books, but don't get it printed on your flippin' business cards.
Anyhow, I found a great (albeit rather dated) interview with Sir Ranulph Fiennes t'other day ( he discovered a lost city, so he surely qualifies for the title Explorer). Ran has been a huge source of inspiration to me and I was lucky enough to spend a day with him running on Dartmoor last year. But there was one bit that surprised me:
"I'm not planning polar expeditions because they've all been done: every single one of them has been done. There are only two poles and… the only ones left are gimmicky: you have to go by camel or motorbike or [something] to be first. So the genuine firsts - supported and unsupported - are all now done."
I'm not so sure. Those of you following my expedition this spring, Serco TransArctic, will know that the goal of a solo and unsupported ski crossing of the Arctic Ocean is still up for grabs. There's a whopping great 'unfinished' expedition down South as well. More of that later.
{ Filed under Inspiration and motivation on September 26th, 2004 | 2 Comments }
I'm itching to start telling you all about the next expedition, but things are still hanging in the balance and a meeting I thought was happening tomorrow has been postponed by a fortnight. Until then it's probably prudent to keep things (kind of) under wraps, so it'll be a few more days of waffle, claptrap and nonsense from me, I'm afraid.
In some ways it's hugely stressful being kept on tenterhooks, but in others it's strangely relieving - there ain't much I can do for a fortnight except lots of training, a reasonable dollop of speaking work (I'm speaking at a dinner for BP tonight), drinking too much coffee and tinkering with this website (you might have noticed a few changes - I'm most proud of the archives section).
On On!
{ Filed under Random thoughts and reflection on September 23rd, 2004 | No Comments }
I went for what should have been a gentle spin on my road bike this evening. All was going smoothly until I spotted two guys riding tempo a few hundred metres in front of me. The next hour or so was a bit of a blur, but it involved quads awash with lactic acid, hills climbed out of the saddle at several mph more than my usual training pace, white-knuckle 40mph descents, a max heart rate of 187bpm (!) and the exquisite, burning pain that only pushing a big gear into the wind can produce.
I came home utterly knackered but with my faith in this crazy sport renewed.
And then I found out that yet another of my bike-racing heroes, Tyler Hamilton, appears to have failed two doping tests.
'To be a cyclist is to be a student of pain….at cycling's core lies pain, hard and bitter as the pit inside a juicy peach. It doesn't matter if you're sprinting for an Olympic medal, a town sign, a trailhead, or the rest stop with the homemade brownies. If you never confront pain, you're missing the essence of the sport. Without pain, there's no adversity. Without adversity, no challenge. Without challenge, no improvement. No improvement, no sense of accomplishment and no deep-down joy. Might as well be playing Tiddly-Winks.'
Scott Martin
{ Filed under Cycling on September 21st, 2004 | 2 Comments }
Well, not exactly, but I've started writing a resources section (hence the extra tab in the navigation bar above - if it looks wonky, try clicking 'refresh'). My plan is to build up a vaguely useful (if you're into spending long periods of time in cold places) repository of expedition hints, tips, information, links, articles and book titles. So far I've written down a few of my thoughts on sponsorship, but there's plenty more to come.
Meanwhile, Tony and I are furiously rejigging next year's expedition budget for a couple of key meetings this week. My stress levels are rising again, my grand plans for a nice relaxing summer holiday after three months on the ice this spring never materialised and (not for the first time) I'm wondering if I wouldn't be better off with a normal job…
{ Filed under Miscellany on September 20th, 2004 | 4 Comments }
- I’ve been writing a few articles for this site over the weekend (on expedition planning, raising sponsorship, etc.) - I’ll upload them in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, watching the trailer for Alien vs. Predator last night, I noted with interest that a supposedly scientific expedition to Antarctica appears to have been issued with machine guns and throwing stars. You never can be too careful around those penguins.
…it ain't training. I did a few laps of Richmond Park on my tri bike this morning and came home soaked to the skin. You've gotta love English weather.
On a completely different tack, I spoke to 150 or so of Whitgift School's sixth form pupils yesterday (I'm not sure what the American equivalent is, but they were around 16 years old). As you'd expect from a top public school (again, for US readers, public actually means private in this instance) the pupils were pretty switched on and my talk elicited a good ten minutes' worth of questions. Two things struck me - firstly, I received a spontaneous round of applause when they heard I'd been on TV (but silence during the bit I talk about finally standing at the North Pole). Secondly, no less than three questions were about how much money I'd made from my expeditions.
The youth of today, eh?!
{ Filed under Random thoughts and reflection on September 18th, 2004 | 5 Comments }
Ben Saunders is the youngest person to ski solo to the North Pole and holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton.
