Manhauling

I was looking through my diary "scribbles" from Greenland the other evening and this is what I saw... it reminds me that it is going to be a hard slog! If you can't read the writing, it reads: "I must promise to read the preceding notes if I ever do the South Pole! I only have myself to blame! (at times today was so sick of pulking, vowed this week was last ever time I'd do it)"

Training hard has a unique difficulty

We are now getting a lot more organised for the expedition, and are feeling really strong in our training. The tyre dragging has progressed to being comfortable dragging for 7+ hours one day and doing it again, the day after, without being overly fatigued. However the problem with increased training and fitness, is that we are a bit too lean for an Antarctic expedition! The challenge now is to gain weight in the next 6 weeks, despite 20+hr training weeks. I guess that means supplementing my recently improved diet with some fattening products (need to gain fat not muscle) - so roll on the donuts and chocolate! Looking at my scales on Sunday I reckon I need to put on c5kg minumum (ie. almost 1 stone).

update

Ok - we have really progressed things with the expedition organisation now, and we are very grateful to our main sponsor, Propinvest.

Important parts of kit have been arriving, website is up and running at www.britishsouthpole.com, and training has been ramped up.

We recently returned from a week in the Swiss Alps, where we trekked climbed from Chamonix to Zermatt. This involved up to 10hrs a day of trekking over 3000m mountain passes with heavy packs on our backs. This has given our fitness a boost and we are now getting up early and dragging tyres round Hyde Park .