John's Race Blog
Since we got back I have been bowled over by the number of people who have said they logged onto the website every morning to see how we were all getting on?! Those that I have spoken to since seem to know more about what happened during the race than we do!..... the power of the internet!
While we were on the ice the rest of the world seemed a long way away. Up there life becomes very simple, as we developed and honed our routines to make them as efficient as possible. As time went on getting them right meant that we saved time and things became ever more comfortable…. well by Arctic standards anyway!
So what was a day in the life of Polar Horizon like??...... well while we were racing it was something like this……
• Alarm call !!... Well to be precise my mobile phone alarm going off! …. sometime between 5am and 6am depending on how keen we were feeling!....One of the things we did not get round to finding was an alarm clock, so my phone had to do!.... and before anyone asks there was no reception once we left Ottawa let alone at the pole!
• All of us got up and dressed. We all slept in our thermals anyway, but once out of our sleeping bags we put on our fleece layers as well.
• Pack away the sleeping bags – despite the fact they were wet and frozen in places already because the water vapor in our breath and sweat from our bodies had got into the bag we did not want to get them any more damp by covering them with more ice or water vapor when the burners were started.
• Scrape the inside walls of the tent with the saucepans. During the night all the walls of the tent became covered in a thick layer of ice from our breath freezing. We had to scrap that off before we started the burners otherwise when the tent got warm it started raining on us and all our kit!
• Fire up the burners!... at last we could take the chill out of the air!
• Put ‘Bertha’ on to boil containing 5 litres of water from our flasks - for those of you that do not know ‘Big Bertha’ as she was christened was our big (over 20 litre capacity?!) saucepan we took especially to boil our water. Unfortunately she was so efficient the tent got pretty cold when she was on the burners?!
• Emlyn and I went out for a field dump…… while Alex looked after the burners.
• By the time we got back from outside the water would have boiled, so we poured off 3 flasks worth of boiling water ready for breakfast before adding the remains of our cold water and then more ice to the Bertha to make sufficient water for the rest of the day.
• Breakfast! I am afraid this was not very exciting. A choice of either ‘Breakfast mix with fruits’ or a kind of porridge like thing?!... well Alex did not like the latter so he was on the first one all the time… and Em and I used to switch between the two as we felt like it. I found adding hot chocolate to the Breakfast mix was a winner and sugar to the porridge made that better!
• We were all conscious that we needed to drink as much fluid as possible so we made an effort to drink a lot of hot and cold water, hot chocolate and in the boys case coffee as well.
• Alex out for a field dump!
• By the time Al got back Bertha would have boiled for the second time with sufficient water to fill all our 8 flasks and give us all another good drink.
• We all got dressed into our outdoor gear
• I added the either toddy or Go isotonic/electrolyte powder to one flask each – Hot water gets very boring!!.... and the extra energy was useful as well!
• Emlyn rolled up the thernarests while I packed up Bertha and all the cook stuff. Alex got outside the tent and started to clear all the snow off the valences and get the pulks ready for packing.
• Once Emlyn got out of the tent we packed the pulks
• I then swept out the inside of the tent before loading the gun and any other equipment onto the top of my pulk while Al and Em took the tent fly sheet off.
• I secured the flysheet to Emlyns pulk while the boys took down the tent inner
• Once the inner was attached to the top of Al’s pulk we took off our big down jackets, put on our skis and were ready to move!
….. and all of this in about two and a half hours if we were feeling in relaxed mode … or two hours or less if we were in a hurry!!.... normally because we over slept!
So generally we were underway by about 8/8.30am every day, our best day we started at 7.30am and our worst 9.30am. We walked for a set period of time and then had a break. As the race progressed we found that we could walk for longer. In legs 1 and 2 we walked for an hour and a half and then had a 10 minute break. By legs 3 and 4 we pushed it to two hours between breaks.
Generally we walked through until about 7/7.30pm every day before making camp. We then went into our evening routine……
• Al cleared the tent site …. We only had one shovel! …. While Em and I got the tent unpacked.
• All three of us put up the tent inner
• We unloaded all of our gear into the tent inner and then I got into it. With me and the gear inside the tent could not blow away!
• I then started sorting out all our stuff, blew up the thermarests, put the burners and Bertha together, and laid everything out in the right place.
• Al and Emlyn got the fly sheet onto the tent and pegged it out, they then piled snow onto the tent snow valences to hold the tent down and make it wind proof.
• The next priority was to find some wind blown snow (ie fresh water rather than salt water contaminated) that could be used for drinking water, The lads cut blocks out and passed them into me to stack in the tent porch ready to be melted for our water.
• I then re-filled the cooker fuel bottles and then got the burners fired up.
• Bertha was put on to boil containing our one ‘tent’ flask plus any spare water not drunk during the day. Ice was then added to make sure we had at least 6 litres in the pot.
• When Al and Em got in the tent we all got out of our outdoor gear and back into our fleece clothes.
• All of our wet gear was put up into the loft in the tent inner to dry
• By now it was 8/8.15pm when we then had to phone race control to give them our position and update them on how we were getting on. We could then get messages out to you…. Like the Godzilla sighting!!
• Once Bertha boiled we poured 4 flasks worth into flasks ready for dinner and then refilled Bertha with ice
• Dinner!!... so fairly below average soup followed by a re-hydrated main meal where you just add boiling water to a pouch….. stuff like beef casserole, spaghetti bolognaise, cod and potato casserole, wolfish pie, chicken curry, chicken no taste?!, followed by dessert which was adding water to either a packet of de-hydrated apple and custard or mixed fruit and custard. All washed down with loads of hot and/or cold water and probably a mug or two of hot chocolate.
• Once Bertha boiled we filled up all our flasks with hot water ready for the morning
• We then got our sleeping bags out and tried to dry them and all our other gear out in the now warm tent… once Bertha was off the burners. While things were drying we wrote our diaries and chilled out.
• We then packed all the gear away and got ready for bed!.. brushed our teeth and exciting stuff like that…
• Once into our sleeping bags the burners were turned off. – and the temperature dropped very quickly!
• Emlyn generally then quizzed us on some amazing facts from his book Schott’s Original Miscellany
• Sleep.. generally around 11pm.
So that was a kind of normal day for us…… as much as I enjoyed it… at times it definitely started feeling like ‘Ground Hog Day’ ( if you have seen the movie?!) I was really fed-up of blowing up thermarests by the end of the trip!!
There is however no doubt that all the training we did both in the UK and out in Norway was absolutely critical to our success. As daft as it may seem, if you get all of the routines right above and have great attention to detail in doing so, it is amazing just how comfortable you can feel in such an extreme environment once you are tucked up inside the tent? I think we all had immense peace of mind and sense of security built up from our training week with Pat Parsons in Norway. Ultimately we knew we really could get that tent up safely and efficiently no matter what weather conditions were thrown at us….. and once that tent was up, we could get snug for a day or two if everything outside went pear-shaped? As a result we really felt within a comfort zone throughout the race.
Throughout all the training we have done it has been very apparent how important team work was to the success of everything we have achieved. I was under no illusion that we were definitely putting ourselves in harms way by doing this race and that through the highs and lows we would need each other to pull us all through.
Well as things turned out there were certainly some highs and lows along the whole journey of the past 18 months planning and training for all this!!!… let alone when we got on the ice! The three of us….. and indeed the five of us if you include the Blue Tits as well, were really close before we started this adventure. I would never have considered doing this if we were not such a tight group. However that friendship, understanding, patience, trust and sense of fun!! has gone to a whole new level having gone through this adventure.
One classic question people have asked since we got back is ‘Was it a life changing experience?!’ Well I can report that it is certainly not something I will forget!… but in terms of whether I am a different man now having been away for 5 weeks the answer is no…. other than being 2 stone lighter! I guess what it has done is highlight how much, or rather….how little you appreciate the simple things in life like a hot shower! A clean pair of underpants! A great plate of food! Or a cold beer! And more importantly still,….. how important things like family, friends and loved ones are to me.
During the 5 weeks away you have a lot of time to think! The polar race has been such a huge part of all our lives for the last 18 months I have not managed to keep up with everyone I would have like to? …. So I think the focus this summer is going to be keeping the 2 stone off!!… and catching up with everyone! I know Al and Em are going to recant some anecdotes from the trip so I don’t want to steel their thunder or repeat things. But needless to say there are loads of stories to tell?!… so roll a social summer!!…and I will look forward to catching up and telling a few tall tales over a beer with everyone soon!
May ‘07