What can i say? it was not pretty, it was not gracious, it was certainly athletic and in no way at all did i look like a bloke who had run two extreme marathons. No, when i ran run Battersea Park on Sunday afternoon, 3 miles which represented my first attempt at exercise since the North Pole, i looked like any ordinary unfit person who had not done exercise in a while, had perhaps had a few drinks too many over the weekend, and who really should cut down on their pork life. I spluttered, i coughed, i heaved, i walked, i moaned, i thought to myself ‘why?!?!’, and then i walked some more. How the mighty fall, a mere two months since the marathon in the North Pole (and you can see just how accomplished i was at those here on youtube), and i looked like any ordinary joe. Why cant the human body simply stay fit and keep peak physical shape? hmmm…an error in the design methinks. Bit like the planet perhaps? Hmm..probably best stop the forced analogy there!

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.

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!

Packing for the North Pole is a nightmare. Seriously i have no idea what to take…bar just putting all my warmest clothes in a case and hoping for the best….i mean all these dilemmas…what do i want to have photographed on top of the world? what if it’s just -10C instead of -30C? Should i take a silly costume? Wanted to go for another brisk walk tonight, but chaos rules supreme, what with finishing stuff for work, emailing people, website-ing and the like. Looking forward to getting on that plane tomorrow and leaving the warm lands behind.

I’m trying to be upbeat - really, i am. But it’s just not working for me. I went for another run this evening. The first two miles were great, was really enjoying it, felt good, and so forth…and then it set in, that nagging pain in the knee that has plagued me these last few weeks…and it got worse. So i stopped and walked for four miles. And when i got home and sat down, my kneee really stiffened up. Not good at all. How am i going to get round next weekend? Maybe the cold will just numb the pain. Let’s hope so!! Strange to think that in one week, it will all be over, that which we have worked so hard towards over the last few months…though the campaign itself only really starts post marathons. At this stage i am just focusing on the first heineken beer next sunday evening….sweet…

Well, we survived. And it was fun - what a bizarre experience today at London’s Kriotherapy centre. It was all a little stressful to begin with, arriving therein a rush and having to go through a quick medical as well as ensure there was no sweat or moisture on our body which might result in scalding. All a little unnerving. And we also discovered that Andy from Global Cool is in a lot better physical shape than either me or Ed! And he’s not even in training for anything. Doh. As for the chamber itself, the first minute in there passed by in an adrenalin surge of hopping about and shouting / chanting as we all tried to deal with cold. There was that unsaid nagging suspicion if that we all stopped, stood still and were silent, we might just freeze on the spot. The second minute became progressively more unpleasant as our extremities quickly froze up. Once out, a lovely warm energetic feeling came over us. All in all, very fun, and it did start to focus the mind on the extreme cold we are likely to face in the north pole. The whole thing was filmed by a guy from the press association, so who knows where it may show up.

I trained tonight - hurah! Except….well it wasn’t quite training….i was in my normal everyday clothes, and it was just walking, albeit quickly. But with my knee, that’s all i can manage. Felt good though, much needed, and i dont feel tired…so hey, at least i’ll probably be able to walk round next week! Small comforts. back tomorrow morning for another thoroughly depressing physio session…rest, rest, rest ad infinitum. Strange to think that in 10 days, all this training and angst will be over. Really cant wait!

You’d think preparing for a trip to the North Pole for what is likely to be a once in a life time experience would be exciting, full of anticipation, and lots of mental daydreaming of what the pole might be like. Not a bit of it. In a remarkably familiar pattern to our scientific pre-Saharan preparation, i am feeling stressed, rushed, exhausted and a million miles from any kind of physical or mental preparedness for the arctic. The toll of the last 3 months is catching up with me, i am continuously tired and low on energy, not to mention worried about the condition of my knee. Last minute stresses to ensure our website finally looks decent in the next two days, the charity is set up and finding a freezer to do some training in London have not helped. Still there’s $600 worth of new polar clothing lying in a pile of a corner of my room, and somewhere over the atlantic is a pair of the most ridiculous running shoes i have ever seen - more commonly known as snow shoes and to you and me a piece of metal, round, with a piece of plastic in the middle to put your shoe in. Right. So definitely time to start smiling, get excited, and start the dreaming!

I’m going to be glad when the North Pole is over. Less than two weeks and from a personal preparation point of view things could be better. I feel run down and exhausted; There is much still to do; and having got over my achilles injury, i know have an inflamed knee tendon (apparently another very common running injury according to the physio…great, i’m just ticking them all off) which is very painful when i run and is preventing me from training. All in all, not great. Time to get out the violins me thinks….Still on the bright side, i have a stupid amount of new arctic clothing to be worn, some ridiculous snow shoes are in the post (i’m sorry, how exactly do you run in those??) and it’ll soon be over, and normal life, or rather life, complete with beer and wine and all things fine will return.

Bugger. Bugger. Bugger. Bugger. Bugger. Just when i thought i had got over my achilles - and i have - and another injury strikes. In LA for the weekend [what a f**ked up bizarre place, never been before], and staying near Griffiths Park in the hills of LA. So i thought i would take advantage and go for a 13-15 mile run - all fine except that a gentle incline and decline basically turned into a mammoth uphill followed by downhill followed by uphill….too much for my post marathon knees….after about 10 miles it just all became too painful and i had to stop as i could barely bend my left knee any more. Not cool. and for the last few days i have had serious pain going up and down stairs or even walking. Clearly my body does not like the punishment i have been putting it through recently. Can’t say i blame it.

It’s strange being back in London. You’d think that after a week spent living in a refugee camp, one would be happy to be back with creature comforts. But far from it, the noise, bustle and cold of london have me left me strangely missing Samara and life there, not to mention the wonderful people. It’s hard to focus on the North Pole and the campaign tasks ahead with the warm memories of the last week still lingering. I have not yet started training again, the legs are willing and raring but the body feels a little run down. Hmmm…. -30C…..i think i prefer +42C….

A mercifully quiet day and night. Much lying around carbo-loading to the nines, got the Iridium satellite phone and data connection working, a short warm up run where we ended up with an enourage of local kids who also wanted to warm up and down ith us, and some formalities of registration and the pasta party. Weather forecast is for 30C in the shade (of which there is none) with the possbility of very strong winds and sand storms. Bring it on. I´m very excited now. I feel ready (hopefully that´s not just the carb sachets talking!) and raring to go, inspired by a couple of short videos we were shown today of last year´s run. The nerves have gone, i know i´ll do it, and now i just want to run.

Its the day before the race. My emotions are all over the shop again… yesterday I was top of the world and very confident…today a little pessimistic and unsure that I can pull this off. Small worries keep plaguing my mind. The niggling shin ache seems like an insurmountable hurdle and I keep wondering how its going to react to 42 km of hard core running. The fact that this is my first marathon is doing little to build my confidence… So the only left that I can do is rest and carbo-load to the max. Sean has given me about 15 of those disgusting sachets and an abundance of powedery energy drinks… foul stuff.

Well enough about marathon worries. Hereçs a quick update on the trip so far. We´re in a refugee camp called Smara - in South West Algeria close to the town of Tindouf. Its a fascinating place… barren, dusty and perfect for photos. Its also ridculously easy to get lost in the maze of tents and mud huts here. We´ve been spending our time chilling out, drinking tea (the arabic kind - an art form on which i can write a separate blog) and exploring the town with the village kids.

Our film crew arrived today… after a nightmare mission at customs and having had some of their camera´s confiscated at at Algiers. A separate story which Sean has elaborated on… another set back for the team but not the end of the world and our worries are no firmly all about tomorrow´s marathon. The town is abuzz with excitement though. Our afternoon warm up was awesome. We had a stretching and jogging session with the local Saharawi children training alongside and shouting Maratoni! Maratoni!. A few minutes ago we completed a pre-marathon dinner of pasta with all the runners and now its off to bed for the big day! Hard to believe that at this time tomorrow it will all be over…