Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer, Motivational Speaker

Dudley and Stan

Aside from sponsoring mile 59 of SOUTH, Anton Uhl has written me into one of his cartoon strips, and sent me this this evening. A bit of background: "Dudley and Stan are two penguins who live in Antarctica in a hotel they made of the two hulls left there by Shackleton in 1916. Dudley has an aversion to cold and is currently on vacation in the Caribbean".

{ Filed under Miscellany on August 20th, 2006 | 3 Comments }

Hey, it is

I have flat feet. I still remember my mum taking me to see the doctor about it when I was a kid. "You'll never be a runner" he joked. This year I ran my sixth marathon in 2:55, a time good enough to guarantee me automatic entry into most races.

Sam Thompson is going a touch further. He's running 50 marathons in 50 days in all 50 American states, to raise funds and awareness for Hurricane Katrina victims (you can donate through the link above). Right now, he's cranked out 48 marathon-distance runs in 47 consecutive days, after throwing in a double-marathon for good measure.

CNN's medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta says Thompson's "pushing his body past what it was built to do" and that "there's a really good chance that he will suffer irreversible damage".

Sam's response?

"Most people have said and continue to say that it is not humanly possible to do 50 marathons in 50 days. It's just fun to show people that hey, it is. The human body is capable of a lot."

{ Filed under Inspiration and motivation on August 19th, 2006 | 4 Comments }

Red-eye

Sat in a lounge, waiting for the jetBlue red-eye back to New York after a grand total of 23 hours, 45 minutes in Salt Lake City. Two memories stand out: a 6am sunrise run out of town, up past the University, and bumping into what seemed like the entire Hilleberg family on their stand at the Outdoor Retailer show. They're a wonderful bunch, and judging by their hangovers, they approach their partying with the same gusto as they do their tent-making.

Elsewhere, Nic Askew's been sprucing up his website, Monday9am.tv and has opened up his video archives. This week's vid is an interview with yours truly, filmed last December.

{ Filed under Miscellany on August 14th, 2006 | 3 Comments }

Hot Air

Tony's beaten me to writing about it, but we're in New York at the moment. Judging by today's news, it seems we timed our departure (we flew yesterday) pretty well, although our journey here wasn't entirely without incident. It started well (we blagged an upgrade and waltzed through the 'Fast Track' with a cheeky grin) but when it was time to land at JFK, it seems our pilot was a little surprised to see a plane trundling along our landing runway and only saved the day by gunning the throttle and climbing steeply, split-seconds before we touched down. Blimey.

We've had a string of exciting meetings with a string of wonderful people in a string of amazing venues (the roof of Soho House yesterday, the uber-cool Core Club today). The irony of discussing the way expeditions strip away the layers of pretence and artifice - the 'aftershave and hot air', as John Ridgway used to put it - while sitting by a rooftop pool surrounded by New York's strutting and preening Beautiful People did not escape me.

Off to the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City tomorrow night. More soon…

{ Filed under Random thoughts and reflection, SOUTH on August 10th, 2006 | 1 Comment }