Stage 3

 

It was quite clear following the end of Stage 2 which was run on the Antarctic Mainland that the race was going to hot up during Stage 3. We lined up in a freezing cold blizzard on a small island covered once again in penguin rookeries and the course laid was a 1.3km loop out and back along the shoreline. We started off and the snow was again over 2 foot thick. I trailed Dean for a lap and Paul was in front of him and put 200m on us in the first lap. Dean let me past after the first loop which I found strange as he had said he felt much stronger that morning. It turns out I don’t think he ever felt comfortable with his gear and therefore the running for the whole day as it was colder and wetter than it had otherwise been.

 

After 4 hours of running Paul was still exactly the same distance ahead. The penguins would sometimes wander right onto the course which meant we had to stop for them to move off rather than run them over but once we were into a running groove it was actually a much easier day despite the distance being increased. In the end the stage ended after around 5 hours and Paul was pleased with his win but felt tired as Evgeniy and I had pushed him hard. I lapped Dean 3 times in the end and he didn't really explain why he had let it slip so much. I guess it had been a long year for him or that the conditions didn't suit him out there that day. Team Trifecta spent some time diving around in the snow tackling each other and it did occur to me I might have been better enjoying this race a little more by slowing down and taking in the scenery/ wildlife etc. Nevertheless I enjoyed pushing the limits again.

 

Back to the ship for 10:30 pm where we were told to eat and sleep as the wake up call would be at 0415 for stage 4. The importance of sleep in these races cannot be underestimated. That is the period in which your screaming muscles take a break and start repairing themselves, it recuperates your energy levels and blisters have a chance to die down. It also meant there was no chance for kit to dry out. Racing stages so close to one another is not good for any of us but Paul and I suffered more than most the following morning....

 

Stage 4:

 

3 hours in the thickest snow yet kicked off early in the morning. It is 24 hour daylight here therefore the time of day was irrelevant but we were all extremely tired. Dean, Evgeniy and myself trailed each other for 1 hour 40 passing lots of people repeatedly on the 1km loop. I made the fatal mistake of not eating during that time which was stupid as I knew it would cause me to blow up. In fact I lost the plot and started getting dizzy and seeing stars at around 2 hours. As I came back past the start finish line Mary the Race Director shouted over was I tired today. I could barely respond but tried to keep it covered up. I walked a hundred yards to eat something and then started jogging slowly.  My energy never came back but I did recover slightly. As long as Evgeniy and Dean did not lap me I would be allocated the same distance so I fought to hang on for that last hour.  I managed to do it, putting a lap into Paul at the same time. 3km between him in 1st and me in 2nd Evgeniy 1.5km back in 3rd with 2 stages to go.

 

The End of the Last Desert:

 

And just like that the Antarctic conditions totally erased all chance of us completing the last two stages on day 4. I would like to say that I was annoyed and wanted to race hard over the following two stages. In reality I was going to have to burn myself out completely to hang on to 2nd and would have struggled to make the 3km up on Paul for the overall win. Evgeniy has won much bigger events than this in the past (he won the Gobi March a couple of years ago over a strong field of 150 ish) and Dean, as I have mentioned before, has won plenty of big races including Badwater (the ultimate ultra race 135 miles through Death Valley) and the Atacama Crossing.  I am delighted that it looks like I will take home 2nd place overall against these guys. It means I have also become the youngest person ever to finish this event. It’s all good.

 

There will be an awards ceremony as we come back through the Beagle Channel in a couple of days time.

 

The Rest of the Trip:

 

We spent that afternoon in Paradise Bay cruising around in the zodiacs and walking onshore, our first real rest period since the racing started. I took some great photos but I pressed the black and white button by accident on the camera setting so every sodding photo I have now looks like I was trying to get arty. We then sailed up to Deception Island in the South Shetland Islands 14 hours north overnight. It was so rough that I got to sleep at 1am and was up again at 2 30. It was awful and plenty of people were sick. From then on the weather has not eased off and when we were supposed to be landing ashore yesterday for a 5 hour stage we were in fact caught in 80kmph winds with some scary 10 metre waves coming over the side of the boat.

 

Since then we have been banned from going outside and are left to suffer a 60 hour journey back to South America in horrendous conditions. I boycotted dinner last night as I felt so sick and am now typing this lying sideways on my bunk. No bad thing as it was so rough that all of the dinner for 50 people went onto the floor of the kitchen and one of the chefs cut his arm open. I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Sounds horrific.  It is.

 

Last night we had a celebratory drink up as the seas rose up the side of the boat and over the windows on the 4th deck. Scary stuff. I have learnt that Pisco Sour is disgusting. Frank spent most of the night crying from either NASTY cocktails or laughing too much and Paul our race leader tried to make his way through a bottle of JD literally on his own. In the end Pete B was awarded the yellow jersey for leading everyone through the evening making his own special drinks: LE TURD incl baileys which curdled in coke and a special ingredient that Pete won't release. Great for sea sickness though. 30 hours to go, 2 more nights of fun. No problems.

 

Love to you all back home thanks for all the e mails they have come through sporadically but as always have been a massive lift throughout the event during the low times of which there are always many.

 

Fear and courage need each other.

 

GO HARD AND HANG ON.

Today we got up at 8 30 ate and went back to bed at 9 30. Great times. The only thing we have to do is watch DVD's and we only have 3 sh*t ones. Pete and I sat through alexander yesterday and it temporarily ruined my life until it ended and i remembered where we are going.
 
Around 12, some whales appeared around the front of the boat. Im not going to say too much, instead have a look at Alex's photos in the photo section of the website. I was hanging off the bow with him as a 20m humpback whale and its calf came out of the water to exhale and dive back down and under the boat back and forth for about an hour. We were so close we had to stand back away from it to get any of it in shot. Truly unbelievable experience for which we shut off the engines & drifted for a while.
 
We have literally just seen the first site of land 2 full days and 18  minutes since we left. It looks like an enormous white sail rising 6000 feet straight out of the sea. If where we are headed provides wildlife and scenery like this it will stack up to be some trip.
 
That besides running around in the snow and ice for hours on end day after day. That also begins tomorrow. We are being told 5 hours in the morning on an island and then a possible 2nd stage in the afternoon on the mainland although it is unclear how long that might be. Frankly I can't wait to compete in the third desert in the series of 4 & give it everything. It has been a long year with 1200 miles of racing but what a finale to 2008 this should be. If we are to run 250kms however we will need to do it in 4 days. That breaks down into some painfully tough back to back mileage days but....
 
Fortitudine Vincimus. Through Endurance we Conquer (Shackleton's family moto).

22 hours into the 55 hour jouney.

Shortly after my last blog we finally left the dock. Good things. We arrived back at the ship at around 3pm and were told straight away to make sure we were on board at 6pm for an important announcement which turned out to be that we were leaving straight away. The Russians welded a new plate across the hole in the front of the ship and we haven’t started sinking yet so I guess it worked. Shortly after leaving we had a lifeboat drill which involved us all climbing into the life vessel. There are seatbelts and it is fully enclosed therefore should the seas become really rough the thing can rotate 360 degrees and right itself. Not ideal to end up in one but if we sink but it might help any future book sell.

I spent some time running laps of the enormous dock knowing we’d be out at sea for 3 full days without being able to stretch legs although I tried to stick to the side away from an argentine submarine unloading sailors and testing systems due to having union jack flags sewn into my clothes. The Falklands are due east of here so I just waved and held my hands over the patches.

I have been reliably informed that the passage so far has been calm. That is frightening. The ship is constantly listing from side to side. At lunch I brought some of my carrot soup back up but avoided throwing up on the table. There is a good chance this could happen at any point. 6 of the 30 are bed ridden with sea sickness according to Zac and there are sick bags positioned every few yards throughout the ship. Standing on the top deck all you can see for miles and miles is wide open sea with some huge swell. The 70 metre Russian ice breaker is handling it well but the movement is still significant.

Life aboard revolves around lying in the bed, going up on deck and looking at massive birds and feeling sick. Hully has been asleep for 39 hours non stop and Frank has read two books. He is a very fast and good reader. Yesterday morning Pete stood in front of his laptop next to my bed from 8am to 9 am playing air guitar to 80’s metal. The signs of cracking are there Its all good though. Running begins in just over a days time. Pretty soon we’ll reach ice bergs and start seeing the splitting pack ice created by Antarctic summer.

‘That which we are, we are; the equal temper of heroic hearts made weak by time and fate; but strong in will; to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.’

Well we boarded the ship yesterday evening. Thats where the good news ends. Relatively soon after getting into the cabins we were summoned to the bar area for our briefing. Unfortunately it turns out the ship has a hole in the front from breaking through ice on the previous trip. There´s really no other way to dress this up. If the can´t repair the hole which is below the water line then we may not get there at all & everyone is absolutely prepared for this to be the case. On the other hand it is possible that the repairs will be completed sometime during the night and that we may be able to leave tomorrow on a slightly reduced schedule.

If this is the case then we may be asked to repeat the 24 hour/ 100 mile non stop stage that took place 2 years ago.

Peoples reactions have ranged from depression, anxiety, anger to acceptance that these things are what they are & cannot be prevented. Mary, Alasdair and Zac have been fantastic at keeping us updated from the race management side of things and I have complete faith that if they cannot organise anything to accomodate us around this problem then there really is nothing else that can be done. The initial discussions of running on shore today to begin building the miles towards the 150 mark have dissipated 1. because Alasdair would need to go and mark the course, establish new checkpoints etc and with the onset of leaving constantly looming this may be a worthless exercise. 2. because no one on this trip came to run in South America, we have all done it before, we came to run in Antarctica & if we aren´t going to do that then frankl.y there is no point. I am optomistic, others are not. I would do the 6 day return journey for an hour on the ice. I only hope the Russians manging the ship see it that way as well.

The silver lining to all of this is that Jan the Belgian Hero of a barman declared free bar at 6pm last night & allowed us to make our own drinks, play our own music and generally have a damn good time through the onset of disaster. Its fair to say that a different kind of endurance event was held & some excellent perfomances registered through the following 8 hours. Others didn´t fair so well and there was a substantial amount of mess created particularly when the dishwasher was opened by one racer and around 30 glasses fell out and smashed on the floor. Jan laughed and poured another drink. We love each other and now I love Jan. Its going to be a good trip from that side of things.

Update tomorrow I hope from the middle of the Drake passage. We´ll see.

Its times like these we learn to live again (D Grohl).

Arrived here safely last night after 33 hours travelling. Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, especially the 13.5 hour flight from Paris to Buenos Aires. I was sat in a seat between a French bloke who, with all due respect, stank & an obese latvian naval officer who in broken english during the course of the flight asked me: 1. How to turn the light on for his seat, 2. how to work his tv, 3. where the toilets were & best of all 4. whether we would be being served breakfast. 

Everyone is here now. The most southerly city in the world has a frontier feel to it ringed by the very tip of the Andean mountain chain before it fades into the sea. The locals are friendly & the food is good. Last night I dropped the bags in the room and went to meet the boys down in town. We had a few liveners to celebrate re-convening for yet another adventure. On the way home we stumbled into a nice looking night club, a nice young lady leaning from a window beckoned us but something about her gold lamee night set told us there may be something 'special' about the establishment. This morning no-one could confirm or deny that we are staying next door to a brothel (we are).

It gets dark at 11 here and light at 4. As we sail south on Monday morning this will become midnight and 1am. I can't wait...

I first read South, the story of Shackleton

I had written a long e mail to some of my 'endurance racing buddies' across the world so i thought i would recount as much of it (minus some swearing) to you all as you all. Obviously this was my first triathlon of any sort and therefore I was not expecting miracles but nevertheless i could not have anticipated quite how badly the start might have gone. My birthday present this year was a wetsuit, tried it on in the living room saturday night and it felt a bit tight (like i couldn't breath properly) but I figured id get in the water and it would loosen up. What actually happened was that I got in the water and it felt as though a 30 stone man was sitting on my chest. I queued up for the mass start (everyone in the water at the same time) and had trouble even breathing without swimming. No doubt here that there was a problem. The gun went and 285 people started swimming and i started drowning. I realised after 5 strokes that i was totally out of control and had to breath every STROKE just to keep enough air in my lungs which weren't expanding one bit. I ended up on my back after swallowing a pint of green water and started spewing. Then the girl in the canoe who acts as a rescue boat came over and I couldn't let her see me doing that after 15 yards or she'd have pulled me out of the race. It genuinely looked like I couldn't actually swim. So i unzipped the wetsuit all the way down and started breast stroking it to the first buoy. Just then I hear the gun go for the male vets. Sure enough 15 mins in and ive gone 400m and they're all coming past me. One bloke actually looked at me like 'what are you doing' and i just kept breast stroking and swallowing water as they swam over me. Got to the 800m mark and the women and 1 junior start coming past me. Male seniors with black caps are nowhere apart from one chap who was competing partially disabled swimming breaststroke in front of me as he was unable to swim crawl due to his disability. I honestly thought about pulling out at the end of the first lap after all what kind of idiot spends his birthday like this? Instead i climbed out of the water at the bank by the crowd where we had started, took my wetsuit off and then dived back in. The officials started shouting at me and the crowd started cheering so i gave it the fist pump and swam the last lap in a tri suit. It was FREEZING. Out of 285 finishers I came out of the water 284th with no wetsuit on. When the bloke gave me a hand out he was like 'where's your wetsuit mate?' i just started laughing. 48 minutes in total. It felt like 6 hours. I picked up the bike and head out in the wind and lashing rain for the 92km but I realised that I had made two mistakes. 1. because i had no number belt and i had to have a number on my back for the bike leg i had safety pinned the number over the jersey pocket so i couldn't put the food bag i had in my hand behind me without tearing the number off. I stuffed the two mars bars and salami stick up my shorts pocket but it started rubbing on my crotch and it fell out and i couldn't face stopping so i just rode on anyway. Then i tried to drink out of my aero bottle but i had cut the straw without testing it and i couldn't reach it with my mouth so i ended up chucking it on the side of the road. No food and no drinks bottles. Well aero. I got a bottle of water at 30km and carried on by this time it had stopped raining and i started to pick up a bit. When i got to 70km i was done. Bonked big time. My neck and back were killing and my posterior felt like it was on fire. It was all i could do to get to the transition area in one piece. 3 hours 10. I picked up a load of food and water for the run and started off feeling terrible. Pretty quickly it all hit my system though and I just started feeling 100% better. After 2 of three laps i had a pain on my inside leg so i felt it and i still had my bike gloves stuffed up there from the start of the ride and had forgotten to put them on. 1 39 for the half & I didn't get overtaken once. I loved the run. It felt so good to be so sure of something after all that anguish. Moral of the story, fail to prepare, prepare to fail. Lessons were learned and fast. When you're going through hell, don't stop.

5th October 2008: London to Brighton 100k in the rain. The inaugural London to Brighton race started at 7am in the dark in the middle of a park by the River Thames in Central London in torrential and freezing rain. 210 of us head due South pretty much straight away and made our way out through the streets of south london. I had not had time for my customary morning movements before the race & a quick convenience stop 20 minutes in unfortunately led to the loss of my map. Given that the last 80km of the race were cross country & unmarked this wasn't ideal but thankfully I had reccied this 10 mile part of the course the week before being on my doorstep so getting lost at this point wasn't a problem. Yet. The rain at this point had become incessant and everyone was soaked through. I quite quickly found two other guys who seemed to be moving pretty well (and had maps) therefore i stuck with them. As we moved out of London the whole thing became a farce and the rain was turning every hill into a waterfall. I had road shoes and seemed to be the exception as everyone else was equipped with trail shoes. Ive never owned any but I might have to get some based on this experience as I spent so much time on my backside. The cut offs became harder and harder at each of the 5 x 10 mile checkpoints and I reached 50 miles in 9 hours in 20th place with just 45 minutes to spare and knew that the last 11 miles in 3 hours was gonna be tough as there was a monster climb in that last section. By this time all but 80 of the runners had dropped or been pulled out for missing cut offs. I stuck with my map reader buddies and they kept pulling out the pace and almost dropped me a few times but like a doped up rider on the slopes of Hautacam I just kept on their heals and ended up dragging them over the final summit. The final drop down to the seafront was painful as it got dark and the rain kept coming but & with an hour to cover the last 5 km i knew it would be close. I crept over the line in 11 hours 39 minutes, only one other group behind me finished within the time. Easily the hardest one day race I have done with only 15% finishing inside the 12 hour limit it was utter pain but once again a week later the the legs are strong & the fire burns as strong as ever. As philosopher Will Power would say: 'Pain is temporary, glory lasts forever'