The Earthfireice campaign rumbles on…and gathers pace once more. We spent an incredibly wet, windy, cold and very fun (seriously!) day doing interviews for our upcoming documentary with ordinary people on the street, ourselves (it wasn’t pretty - according to Ed i looked like the wild man of borneo with my long hair in total disarray thanks to the gales), and with Saleemul Huq, Group Head for Climate Change at the IIED.org here in London. What a fantastic, interesting guy. Apart from the fact that he was willing to sacrifice part of his bank holiday to come and talk to us (in the rain by the Southbank - cold!!), he just made such lucid succinct points about the whole climate change area. In particular, individuals , governments or business….who should act? His answer: two ways to look at it - either you say the US and China are the biggest emmiters by far, they have to take action, an argument which has some merit; or you can look at it as a collective responsibility issue…every single person on this planet has a carbon footprint, large or small…and so every person has a responsibility for reducing their own footprint in their own way….and if everyone does a bit to reduce, that will bring down china and the US’ naturally anyway. Amen to that.

Just saw today that Lewis Gordon Pugh, adventurer and swimming nut, is going to swim a full one kilometer at the north pole to highlight the fact that there is not ice where there should be…his swim would not have been possible just a few years ago. I completely relate to Lewis, not just because he is raising awareness like us, not just because like us he is highlighting melting polar ice caps, but also because i, like Lewis is about to, went swimming in arctic water….except that my scrawny body lasted all of about 3 seconds in the water, and it was not pretty….watch the youtube video here for the full gorey 60 seconds of drama. All i can atest is that what Lewis is planning on doing is 100% truely mental. Nutter!

By pure chance was watching the BBC tonight when not one but two pieces of TV on the polar bears and the arctic were screened - one which dealt with Svalbard, where Ed and I were a little over a month ago, and where polar bears are struggling to cope with the warming tempaeratures; and the other which talked about this giant 10 mile long sheet of ice which has broken off from the coast and is now floating….alarming more evidence of what we all know is happening. The piece on Svalbard reminded me of the stunning beauty of the frozen wilderness, yet when one of their sleds fell through into a thinner than normal ice, it brought home the very fragile nature of that environment. Let’s hope the melting of the polar ice caps is not accelerating as many experts now fear…

Here is a video of the north pole marathon:

So this is how i looked about 30 seconds after finishing the north pole marathon…..good huh? Maybe i should sport it more often, this frosted look. I am glad to see that my eyes fully ilustrate the pain and knackerdness that i felt….not to mention the cold. But that’s kind of hard to miss with this photo! Very happy that you cant get frost bite in your hair. Just Finished the Marathon

Another day, another report with even more dire predictions about the polar ice and its disappearance….previous studies have indicated that summer ice at the north pole is likely to disappear by 2050. But a new study just released by Peter Wadhams, an oceanographer at Cambridge University, indicates that in fact this thinning process might be taking place much more rapidly than anyone previously thought, and could in fact mean no more summer ice at the north pole within 13 years. That would be truely sad, and a massive loss of a beautiful natural phenomon to the human race.

Our 48 hours at the pole will live with me till I die. I am going to dull my grandchildren into submission with tales of the 2 days that I spent on the frozen drifting temporary ice mass that is the north pole. From the 2.5 hour flight in a soviet plane designed specifically to land on the arctic ice to the first steps on the frozen ocean at the pole, from the marathon itself to the perpetual battle to fight off the coruscating cold, from the helicopter ride to the actual geographic north pole in an old Russian M-8 to the burly bearded vodka-fuelled Russians who ran Camp Barneo as it is known, it was a surreal, unforgettable experience, laden with incredible images.

I write this on the plane home. I am exhausted, content yet still trying to get to grips with exactly what I saw and experienced. I am not sure how much has really sunk in. After 48 hours at the pole, I was very glad to be leaving that harsh landscape – the cold and the lack of sleep were simply too much and made it increasingly harder to appreciate where we were at. One thing is for sure, hot showers and heated bathroom floors that we had in Spitsbergen felt like manner from heaven. It is a relief not to have to worry about the cold, to have continuous feeling in my feet.

Yet, without wanting to get all preachy, if we as a human race let this wondrous breathtaking natural phenomenon disappear in the next 50 years, it will be a travesty, an unforgiveable act of negligence for which we all have to take responsibility.
Some Photos:
Just landed at the Pole
The True Geographic Pole
The View at the Geographic Pole

You’d think in a land where polar bears outnumber local inhabitants, which is home to a quarter of the world’s polar bear population, and where you cant walk outside town without a gun for protection, you’d have a reasonable chance of spotting one. But despite snow mobiling through deserted snow and ice valleys for four hours, we didn’t spot any sign. Lots of rain deer though along the ridges and hilltops. And once more, truly spectacular pristine landscape, icey wildnerness as far as the eye could see. It was a joy to behold and experience. And yet, you can’t ignore it - many of the glaciers are retreating at record paces year on year, the snow melts faster each year, and so on….all around us the signs of global warming scream out at you. The Wilderness of Spitsbergen

It may seem strange after all my moaning about the cold but peer pressure does strange things to you. So it was that yesterday, after a day out on the snow mobiles, Phil (another of the English guys doing the marathon) and I went swimming in the arctic sea completely naked. Outside temperature at the time? about -20C. Probably not the wisest thing I have ever done. Having been exceedingly gung ho about this earlier in the week, various talk about the heart stopping from the shock and the need to know where the town hospital was severely stressing me out. But once Phil went in I had no choice. It was brief, it wasn’t pretty and it sure was the coldest and one of the most excruciating things I have ever done (my hair froze the moment I stepped out) , but I survived. BIG thank you to Katie, Susan, Jon, Nick and Nick who redressed me in a manner befitting a formula one pit stop team (believe me I was paralysed by the cold and unable to do anything for about 3 minutes from the shock – without them I would be in hospital now recoverig from hypothermia). Hopefully the video clip we got of it will persuade a few more people to pledge….i hope……pleeeeease…..after all, if it wasn’t for global warming, that sea would have been ice and such buffoonary would not have been possible!
Before
After

It’s been over 3 months since alcohol has passed Ed and I’s lips. It wasn’t so much for the physical training aspect that we gave it up (though that was definitely part of it), as the fact that we’ve had so much on the go with normal demanding full time jobs, getting the earthfireice campaign up and running and trying to fit in training, that cutting out alcohol helped us focus - it’s amazing how much my productivity at least jumped without alcohol! So it is with much joy and amusement that we were reintroduced into normal life with Russian beer and Mexican tequila at the pole itself. (Yes, there was a Mexican competitor in the race, and yes, he brought to the pole a huge sombrero, his harmonica, and the finest tequila man can buy….as you do – thank you Roberto! Mr Tequila and Sombrero). Not to mention a few celebratory drinks back in the civilisation of Spitsbergen! It feels good to relax again.

One of the best parts of the whole North Pole experience was the other competitors, meeting and getting to know them – an amazing bunch of people who have done many amazing feats in different parts of the world. Learning about some of the stuff that these guys have done has opened up a whole new world to me. Yet for all their feats, and all amazing sights and experiences of the last week, one thing stood out a mile, and is worth highlighting.. While we were doing the plain old marathon, one guy, alone was doing the first ever wheelchair marathon at the pole – up and down the runway, for 26 miles on his own. William Tan does a lot of road marathons, and he is fast – ranked in the top 20 in the world, he normally does the marathon in about 1:50 minutes. But he had failed the Antartica marathon twice, once he timed out, once it was too muddy. But he succeeded here. And how. These particular frozen 26 miles took him 21 hours. It was staggering. Each push advanced him often as little as 5cms, the specially designed wheels not getting traction on the mixture of crushed snow and ice that was the runway. The isolation, solitude and cold must have been immense. He started 6 hours before we started our race. He finished 9 hours after we did. Never have I seen such determination, such will power. It was truly inspirational. William, we salute you.William completing the North Pole Marathon

It was about 3.30am, the sun was shining brightly outside, most of us were huddled in our sleeping bags trying to rest and keep warm (which was hard even with 4 layers of clothing, 5 pairs of socks and 3 hats inside a sleeping bag) when the call came – we’re running the marathon in 30 minutes, get ready. It was all a blurred rush. Before I knew it we had set off and I had not had time to even stretch, let alone put on my snow shoes properly. The first of the ten 4.2km laps was like an exciting novel adventure, winding our way round the Russian camp and the runway, and through the ice dunes that punctuate the flatness of the white, icey north pole landscape. At lap 2, it started to dawn on me that actually these laps take quite a long time, and that really it’s quite cold. It did not help that the tendon in my knee gave way at that point, meaning that for the rest of the race I was in a lot of pain, and that at many points all I could do was hobble and drag my left leg along. By lap 5 or 6, my whole face was frozen - literally – hair, eyelashes, skin: all white with frost and icicles. By lap 7, I had lost all feeling in my feet, but I thought I had just one lap left, only to discover that the race was 10 laps, not 8. The last two laps were simply spent dreaming of the relative warmth of the tents, hot liquid, and a cessation of pain. I stumbled home in 6 hours, once again relieved that the whole thing was over, and a litte frustrated that I had not been able once more to run injury free. Probably because of the slower pace of the race, it did not feel as physically exhausting or demanding as the Sahara, the cold and the pain in my knee had been the real challenges here. But i did it, and never have i enjoyed pot noodles and 5 cups of tea in a row so much.

Exhausted…haven’t slept in 48 hours. Endless daylight wreaks havoc with the sleeping patterns as does extreme cold! Well a short one then… Sean and I survived the marathon. An absolute mission - we have no idea what our exact times were - but we made it. What a relief to put on clean clothes and have a shower. Time to sleep and relax now. Full story tomorrow!

It’s 10.30pm. Just had a huge meal of bread, more bread, soup, pasta and various carbo-energy sachets. Feel quite sick. Trying to pack up, work out what i will need at the pole (will my ipod freeze?) and what i will not. Tomorrow at 10am we get on a 2.5 hour flight for the 1300km flight to the pole, flying in a purpose built (for landing on ice) russian plane. Aparently we even get inflight service…how strange. We had our pre race briefing this evening, and the nerves are are growing. Not sure how i will sleep, but hopefully a lot given that we are most likely to be running tomorrow evening, starting at about 10pm. So sometime between 4am and 6 am on saturday morning, i will - fingers crossed - have completed the run. Hallelujah!

I guess i have to see the beauty of it; after running the sahara in 42C, it feels only right that we have just been for our last pre marathon warm-up (ha!) jog at the blamy temperature of -40C. To say it was bitterly cold and painful would be a little bit of an understatement. The wind just rips into your face and penetrates the endless thermal layers. I guess it is good motviation to keep on moving and running…if you stop for a moment, it becomes very painful! I am scared though. Running with snow shoes (bizarre metal tennis racket like things which your trainers slip into), the cold, the wind all made running 2 kms or so very tiring….how on earth i’m going to manage a whole marathon sometime tomorrow evening or saturday morning is beyond me. Wing and a prayer i guess. After 3 months of not drinking i think the greatest motivation will be that lovely polar beer and vodka waiting for me at the end, as served up by bearded russian scientists at the pole. Splendid!