Frozen chaps

Jun 28 2009 by Ian Robson, Sunday Sun

ADVENTURERS Ben Fogle and James Cracknell are ready for another challenge after rowing across the Atlantic four years ago.

This time, it’s harder, bigger, and more difficult . . . a race to the South Pole.

And it all started with the Great North Run, where the pair started their training for the extreme event, where they expected temperatures down to -50C.

The run from Newcastle to South Shields, South Tyneside, may have been simple in comparison – and certainly warmer – but it was an essential part of their preparation.

It was the first step in a journey that ended with a ski-race of 480 miles, while pulling a 150lb sled, negotiating crevasses in the ice, and dealing with frost-bite and severe physical exhaustion in one of the world’s most hostile environments.

Ben explained how the project got off the ground.

He said: “It’s about four years since we had rowed the Atlantic together. We got to know each other pretty well and we’ve since become very good friends.

“Originally, there was no specific plan to do another big challenge, another big adventure together. We’d both heard about this race to the South Pole, independently, and we met up for a coffee.

“We thought, well, if we were going to do it with anyone, why not team up to do it together?” He said the training involved a lot of work at home as well as abroad, including long periods spent in industrial freezers.

“Obviously, we did the day-to-day training,” he said. “For a whole year, we did a couple of hours physical training every day in the gym and pulling tyres along the beach.

“But we also used a couple of big industrial freezers, used usually for scientific research, including 24 hours in a big freezer near Oxfordshire, where they test cars.”

There was a glitch in the preparation for the event when the third member of the team pulled out. A nationwide search for his replacement ended in ex-decathlete Dr Ed Coats getting the job.

Ben explained that much of the camera work was their own.

He said: “There was actually a BBC crew down on the ice but they were only able to catch up with us a handful of times.

“We had our own cameras, batteries and tapes that we had to look after. You can imagine in those conditions, out in the cold, batteries get sapped of all their power.”

ON THIN ICE, BBC2, Today, 9pm