WWLD?
I mentioned a book called Icetrek a few days ago; there's a great bit where Eric Philips talks about following Jon Muir's sledge for hours (and indeed weeks) at a time, trying to make anagrams out of the word 'Australia' – the sticker on the back of Jon's sledge. About half way through today, Tony decided that he'd like the letters 'WWLD' on the back of my sledge – 'What Would Lance Do?' It probably goes without saying that the Lance in question is six-time Tour de France winner and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong – someone that has inspired us both immensely.
Speaking of Tony, he's very much back in the saddle and was sledge-hauling like a Trojan today. I'm going to hand over to him to tell you how he's getting on…
"I've probably never been lower than the previous few days. I didn't have a clue why i was suddenly so much weaker than Ben. All through the day I would ski along with my stomach doing somersaults; our breaks when we stop to eat an energy bar became more tortuous than the marches themselves as each bite threatened a return appearance. The only way to keep break times down was for me surreptitously not to eat, which doesn't help when you are burning 5000+ calories a day. I could see Ben getting more and more frustrated with our progress, and though he never voiced it, I could see he was thinking about how much easier life would be if he was solo once again.
Usually Ben and I chatter non-stop about any number of bizarre things in the tent, but those nights were filled with an opressive silence as I tried to run through what could be the matter. I began to question whether I had what it takes, mentally and physically, to be equal to this task. Ben was always positive, but I noticed that the times he reached to write in his diary increased by a factor of ten.
The only thing that we could come up with was some kind of stomach bug. Ben recommended that we take a day off and see what the next day would bring.
This morning I had trouble getting down the protein shake and started to feel that familiar sickly feeling welling up. We started out and for the first ten minutes I felt I would let Ben down again, but as I pushed on, I began to feel stronger and stronger. I led for the second hour and as we brought our sledges together for the second break Ben quietly said 'good hauling, sir'. From then on I was flying and by the sixth hour was feeling so good that I began to up the pace beyond the economical 'polar plod' that is physiologically ideal for manhauling. It was stupid, but it felt so good to have power back in my legs again.
Now all that's left for me to do is to take that depot journey and rip it apart. After all, that's what Lance would do."
— Filed under Greenland