Penguins – 4 and lots more when we’re at sea

Seasickness – holding off, which is good

HEALTH WARNING – VOMIT WILL BE EXTENSIVELY DISCUSSED BELOW…

12 Hours on the ice yesterday, at King George Island, and a very much a day of two parts. First four hours spent trotting along, covered 2.5 laps of the 13k figure eight circuit; but then caught up with Kate and had the pleasure of accompanying her at a steady walk for the next 2.5 laps over the last 8 hours. Fair to say that after two days of solid seasickness and an inability to keep anything down at all, she wasn’t in a particularly happy place, and she must have wretched at least 50 times on the course with nothing in her stomach to come out. In that state, there seemed to be a pretty real chance of her either being unable to finish or being taken off the course, so I thought it might be best to stick with her and make sure she got through the day. As it happened, that probably knocked me from 5^th to 24^th on the day, but all it really did was emphasise that getting both of us to the finish line is far more important than any individual placing.

It is very hard to describe the simple beauty of the Antarctic; the water is beyond crystal clear, for example; the only way you can tell there is even water beneath you is the refraction of the stones on the beach. The enormous blocks of snow and ice have luminous blue lines running through them from ice that was highly compacted decades if not centuries before. The penguins are as amusing as one would imagine, especially when a couple of them sit on a tiny little iceberg, looking as if they must have woken up after a hard night drinking and have no idea where on earth they are…

Since we got back to the ship last night, Kate has eaten and drunk a little, slept well, and looks a lot stronger than any point yesterday. Should mean that we can run independently when we get out next, but we’ll take it as it comes. After 12 hours of fantastic weather yesterday, we seem to be paying for it today though – we could get into Deception Island on the ship, but with 50knot winds we couldn’t get off the boat for the 9-10 hours we were due to put in. We’re sailing off to another location now, so there’s a chance we still get an hour or two of running today, but it’s no bad thing for us as Kate should be up to running her own race when we next land.

The weather is intensely changeable here, kit gets changed every hour of half hour, as the winds pick up or fade. It’s a little odd to see so many competitors so frequently on the course, and the routes are only going to get shorter than the original 13km, so we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other from here. The pretty horrific sunburn – despite factor 50 – means that most people already look like weatherworn old timers. Some of the girls are quite chuffed that their sunburnt lips mean no collagen implants will be required….

Right. Time for another cup of tea. Probably won’t blog again until after we’ve had another run, but please don’t let that stop you emailing or adding comments – especially for Kate – she’s doing incredibly well and is clearly pushing on through the toughest conditions of anyone out here.

Q: What's black and white and red all over?
A: A penguin with sunburn

.. and you can thank my little brother and his explicit request for more penguin jokes for the following installments...

46 hours after leaving the flat in London we and our luggage arrived safely in the Ushaia, the southernmost town... IN THE WORLD. Not sure it really lives up to the capital letters, but very picturesque. It sits on the edge of a large bay, the bay coming off a large tidal river. All are surrounded by forested foothills that turn into reasonably high but very steep and snow covered mountains. The town is made up of lots of basic steel framed and breezeblock homes with corrugated tin roofs, some painted a lurid blue or fuchsia but most left taupe or grey. Zero to five degrees most of the time, occasional cold gusts of wind cutting through the place, snowing overnight. All feels like a small town in northern Scandiwegia somewhere. Very friendly, very welcoming locals, which make the signage about 'Ushaia, capital de malvinas' and the rather odd procession of 30 or so 40-50 year old locals with Argentinian and Malvinas flags and slogans seem... anachronistic...

Q: What's black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white and ...?
A: A penguin rolling down a hill

We've recovered from the jet lag, caught up on sleep, and getting a little carb loading in. Odd that we still have a couple of days on a boat before we start running. But if we -do- have constant seasickness to deal with then we won't be eating much, so important to eat well while we can. Bit of a shame that we need to wait until after the race to fully exploit red wine costing the same as a coke here. Something to look forward to after the race...

Q: How do penguins order their whisky?
A: On the rocks

Bags have been emptied across the hotel room floor and kit checked and re-checked. And yes, Cousin Mick, we do indeed have water bottles. We've also learned that Colin(Suckling) is a Hawks fan (and Sandy supports Kilda...) so that must surely give us victorious Swannies some sort of advantage over them come the race? We've discovered that there are three other couples running, (and we don't think any others have completed the Last Desert before) so given that Team JDRF will automatically win the team race it might be nice to be the first "couple" ever to finish the Last Desert...

Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: A penguin

That last joke definitely one for Duncan. Don't know when we'll next be able to blog, so thanks in advance for any and all blog comments and emails: they're really appreciated however brief. Especially the ones that reference (a) polar bears (Nicole pays us in champagne for every reference) or (b) sports scores - West Ham v Tottenham / Man Utd / Chelsea? Giants v Green Bay (any and all Dallas / Philadelphia / Redskins losses also welcome)? Scotland v Tonga? Australia v Italy / Wales?

Q: Why aren't we allowed chocolate bars during the race?
A: Because in the Antarctic it's illegal to p-p-p-pick up a penguin

For those still reading: Training has progressed nicely.  Acclimatisation has been taken care of as the cold, wet, dark mornings have reached 5 degC.  This has taught me that shorts probably aren't a viable option in the Antarctic.  Training volume has alternated between weeks of 80km and 120km.  Decent enough, but not really ideal - I'd have liked a week or two of 160km. That said, long runs have been faster than before Gobi - a 55k in 4h45 last weekend and a 60k in 5h30 a week or so before that - which is presumably a good sign.  That's taught me that a flat course might suit me best.  One can but hope...

Q: Why is there no point packing books for the boat trip to the race?
A: Because there will be penguins everywhere you look

Wow.  Still reading?  Must be family...  Three weeks left until we start running, so if we were marathoners we'd be tapering, but we're not, so we aren't.  Probably two more weeks of 80k, shifting the distribution of the distance to more back-to-back long-ish runs from lots of shorter two-a-days.  Hopefully starts to mimic the race a little, and allows for some off days to allow for a little extra sleep and healing time.  And to allow for shopping.  It turns out that the kit list is slightly different from the last few deserts...

Q: Why do you see so few penguins in the UK?
A: Because they're afraid of Wales

You really shouldn't still be reading.  Maybe one more post in a fortnight, then off we go.  One small tip for those joining us on the boat: bring lots of empty ziplock bags - far more than you think you will need for any reasonable purpose.  If/when you get seasick -without- ziplock bags, then the room stinks and, worse, you need to stagger around and empty out whatever you've thrown up into.  With ziplocks you can seal the used bags and collect them to throw out later in one go.  Far more pleasant, I'm sure you'll agree...

Q: What music will you hear in the Antarctic more than any other?
A: Sole.  Penguins love sole. 

Two weeks of training since the last post: a gentle 60km recovery week, then 100km this past week.  

Minor adaptations to the training schedule: extending the long run out to 30k, and introducing some interval training to my morning commute.  The latter has seen me play around with the Chrissie Wellington "Tri Harder" run sessions (http://audiofuel.co.uk/running-music/run-faster-chrissie-wellington, available on iTunes) and build out to a pyramid containing intervals stepping from 2 up to 6min intervals of 'faster footstrikes' (targetting either 175 or 180 footsteps per minute, in time with the BPM of the music and the guidance being given by Chrissie).  Because it focuses on increasing cadence I can still usefully complete the sessions during the commute; normal track intervals focus on covering a known distance in a set time and that wouldn't really work.  In any case, it's certainly shaved a minute or two off the normal steady state 6am trudge.

Chrissie's an ironman legend - winning four times in Hawaii, once with a torn pectoral and once after a big bike crash, and has the women's course record.  Her recent biography "Life Without Limits" is a fun and very easy read for anyone who fancies following an intelligent athlete with a life beyond sport.  Or who fancies following an International Developmental Aid specialist who happens to be a world champion triathlete.

Meanwhile it's starting to get darker and colder in the mornings.  Marking it down as as acclimatisation and staying in shorts and a t-shirt.  For now.

Another training week of 80km, only this time a bit more variety: a 15km longer run and a couple of shorter runs in barefoot shoes (New Balance MR00s).  Adding the longer runs is a pretty obvious step.  The runs in the Antarctic look like being the 'cover as much ground as you can in the next eight hours' type.  That's different to the other deserts, and implies that getting used to spending a fair wedge of time on feet might be a smart thing to do.  I'lll keep on extending the long runs until I get back out to the odd very very gentle 55-65km run.  Their benefit might be as much psychological as physical but they certainly seemed to help me through a hundred miler earlier this year.

The minimal shoe thing is a little less obvious.  I'm not that fast but I guess I'm a relatively biomechanically efficient runner since I don't have any (recurring or otherwise) injuries after a fair few miles through my legs... But that's efficient when running a lot of road and hardly any trail.  I learned in the Gobi that I am downright poor when running on technical terrain. Partly because I have a long stride (which makes it harder to adjust to what I'm about to tread on), and partly because I have a low cadence (which makes it harder to pitter-patter around rocks and uneven ground).  So the minimal shoes and a conscious attempt to increase the cadence and shorten the stride a little bit might, maybe, help.  It might also help build up some strength in my ankles and feet which would be handy as well.  Going "barefoot" has certainly helped me avoid running on my heels (at all) as it is immediately jarringly painful to do so; for all the other benefits, I'll just have to wait and see...

A beautiful Olympic fortnight here in London.  Loved the track and field and was incredibly lucky to be in the stadium to see some of the most awesome running while in the middle of the loudest and most positive crowd I can imagine. In a crowd that must have been 80% British, every athlete was cheered and no-one (not even the French or Americans) was boo-ed (even ironically).  Kate was especially proud when, as the second leg runner of the Australian 4x100m team entered the track and walked down towards where we were sitting, he was greeted by a Brit filling the void and yelling in a booming and proud voice the traditional greeting of "AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE...!".  

It is unclear whether Kate remained proud as she realised it was me doing the shouting.  But the Brits in the crowd all yelled "OI OI OI", (me: "AUSSIE!", crowd: "OI", me: "AUSSIE!", crowd: "OI", me: "... AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE!", crowd: "OI OI OI!") and I like to feel we did our part in lifting the Aussies to 7th.  Out of eight.  And the 8th was disqualified.  But still...

Hopefully there's an inspirational DVD available to take and watch on endless loops on the boat...

I'm so happy with my strap line, Scot of the Antarctic, that I'm going to keep it on all my posts.   One of the keys to running a long way is being happy in your own company for extended periods; as you can tell, I occasionally find myself -hilarious-.  Which is a genetic trait, passed down through generations of my family...

Made a gentle start to training.  Took a month(ish) off after Gobi, and thought it wise to start back slowly.  So far have reached the dizzying heights of running my commute in both directions, so a fortnight with 70 and 80 km covered respectively.  No long runs yet, but an interval session yesterday of 12x (800m at 16kph + 1min recovery), which is good to have under the belt even if I'm not intending on doing too much pace work.  

Great to be in London throughout the Olympics.  Jogging in past the Triathlon route, along parts of the marathon route, through streets emptied by a fear of overdrowding.  Perfect.  Don't know whether it will serve as motivation or just an annoying tune I can't get out of my head, but watched the gold medal performances from Ennis, Rutherford and Farah at Hyde Park - the last was accompanied by a group singing the following, very loudly, to the tune of Duran Duran's "Gold":

"MO
Always believe in your MO-OH
You've got the power to MO
You're indestructible
Always believe it
You are MO"

This week will undoubtedly be properly disrupted by the Olympics - very lucky to get tickets for some track sessions at the end of the week - so might use that as an excuse to try a long(ish) run on Sunday after a relatively light week....

Well, there's only one Scot in the competitor list so far, so I'm laying claim to the blog title before anyone else does... 

With family ties to Dundee, considering taking Scott and Shackleton's joint expedition of 1901 - 1904 (in RRS Discovery, built and now docked in Dundee) as inspiration, rather than the more famous trip to the pole of 1912. The former trip determined that the Antarctic was an independent continent and relocated the magnetic south pole, but perhaps most importantly for my purposes and in stark contrast with the latter expedition: nobody died... 

On which happy note, time to start thinking about training and kit. Just back from China and the Gobi March, starting to realise that the kit that works in 30-40 deg C and sand and rock might not be appropriate for 0 deg C and snow and ice. Any recommendations of kit that worked well from those that have been out to the Antarctic are warmly welcomed; as are any tips on how to use London's limited training facilities to prepare for the terrain..?