Physical Impacts

Alex training - tyre pulling in Cornwall!

667 Pints of Guinness!!

That’s roughly how much “fuel” we could well require if we are walking for 14 days. Some polar explorers have found that they have burnt as much as 10,000 calories a day. To put that into perspective, a 9 stone man will burn 1,600 calories a day when doing day to day activities, or, to put it in food terms a Mars bar has 230 calories, a pint of Guinness, 210, or the mother of all calorific meals - a super-sized Big Mac meal contains 1,411 calories....that means we could eat 7 Big Mac meals A DAY and not see any detrimental impact on our bodies! BRILLIANT!

Walking to the Pole could possibly cause our bodies to change dramatically. On this page we hope to explain a little more about what we are having to do, & what could potentially happen.

Joking aside, providing enough energy for our bodies is a big issue. We will be burning a huge amount of “fuel”, not only through lugging our pulks, which could weigh as much as 150kg’s, but also in an attempt to keep warm. Scientific research has suggested that the maximum calorific intake the body can ingest is close to 7,000 calories a day, that means that if we burn energy at the rate that some previous polar explorers have, our bodies could have to find 3,000 calories from somewhere, that somewhere is our fat reserves!

Currently we are training hard to build up our aerobic fitness, our upper body strength, and our core stability, but one thing we are going to have to look at is maintaining or even building up our fat reserves. Having spoken with previous competitors we have found that some individuals have lost as much as 2.5 stone in weight in just 2 weeks whilst making their way to the Pole. Though this sounds like a fantastic way to lose those “love handles” it is quite dangerous in a Polar environment when maintaining core heat is an incredibly important thing.

The bottom line? When you see the Polar Horizon boys, make sure you feed them! (Al has a penchant for chocolate apparently!)

The cold is another element that we are going to have to deal with. The body is not designed to deal with temperatures approaching -50 degrees. There are 2 key risks in these kind of conditions - frostbite & hypothermia.

Frostbite, as pictured on one unfortunate gentleman’s hands to the left, can occur very quickly and can require the amputation of limbs.

Frostbite is basically the freezing of the underlying tissue of the body and can start to develop within seconds. The earliest sign of of frostbite is when the skin turns waxy white, this is termed as “frostnip”. Exposed for longer it will turn to frostbite. The problem with frostbite comes when the limb is thawed. When circulation returns to the affected part it will become red, blistered, severely swollen, and INCREDIBLY painful. Severe frostbite can take months to heal, and we’ve all heard the story of a Mr Fiennes taking to his fingers with a fret saw as he got bored with the recovery process!

Frost bite - Makes your hands the same size as John’s!!

We will be given all the equipment to prevent ever coming across frostbite, but there are a few “procedures” that we are going to have to perfect in order to reduce the risk of succumbing to frostbite. One such “procedure” is relieving ourselves whilst on the ice. Exposing bare buttocks for seconds could become incredibly uncomfortable. Forgetting to do ones fly up could also lead to a particularly painful scenario, and god forbid, a lack of fertility in the team (some people actually believe that allowing Henney to pro-create is a bad thing in the first place - it could be a blessing!).

The other main risk to our bodies is hypothermia. This is when the core body temperature falls below the normal 36.5-37 degree temperature range, and normally occurs when the body temperature drops below 35 degrees. The symptoms are similar to having too much to drink (...all those Guinness!?). If left untreated, then the individual will become comatose, and die. Again, for the team to be impacted by hypothermia, something will have had to have gone seriously wrong. We will have personal locator beacons which will allow the Polar Race support team to locate us if something untoward occurs in a very short space of time.

Well, there you go a brief overview of why the team will be fat before they leave, come back with oversized hands, & why you’re probably going to be sent photo’s of the 3 of them in one sleeping bag in an effort to maintain body heat (John apparently is going to be in the middle!!)

Want to read more of the team’s articles on what there going to go through? look below!

Ahhhh isn’t he sweet!!!

In short, he might look like it, but you’d be a fool to try and cuddle him! The Polar Bear is widely described as the deadliest of all types of bear. More dangerous......

Click here to read about the Polar Bear risks! >>