Englands winter wonderland

Well thanks to the fantastically festive weather we've had this week training has been much more fun. Firstly just trying to stay on your feet on the icy pavements is probably good training!!

Sunday morning having convinced Charlie to come out tyre pulling with me to take some pictuires we went out in the glorious sunshine and blue sky and i truly felt i was in a ski resort! We headed up to Reigate heath and whilst carefully dodging snowmen (tyre pulling can be destructive!!!) i went for a walk with my 2 tyres and charlie kindly took some pictures for me and even some video footage in return for me later buying him a bacon buttie and coffeee.

Here's a video clip of me training...

If you have problems viewing the video you can also view it here: http://www.arcticali.com/Videos.htm

Here are some photos...

Can't believe it's now only 3 weeks till we leave - i was really nervous but somehow the snow we've had has rekindled my excitement in the adventure ahead!!!!!!

Lucozade, moving and eating

Fantastic news is that I am now sponsored by Lucozade. I'm really excited to be a part of such a great brand and it fits so perfectly with what i'm doing. More details need to be ironed out but great to have them backing me.

This week has been a busy one, we have now moved house so 3 days were spent lifting boxes and heavy furniture so the arnms and shoulders have certainly been getting a work out and i'll be back to the gym this morning to wake the legs up again.

Also this weekend I had my medical supplies delivered so it's now a case of stocking up and arranging the kit although i still need to get an appointment with my doctor for the prescription only stuff like extra strong painkillers!

We now also have the itinerary for our training in January and it looks very comprehensive although it's going to be a very busy month.....not sure if there is any time scheduled in for sleep!

I'm really starting to get quite nervous - (i guess that is perefctly normal)....my biggest concern is the cold (which considering where i'm going probably seems daft) and especially at night when you're not on the move and cant warm yourself up. Am hoping that after the training I will feel more reassured that I can cope with the discomfort but i'm starting to feel that the training may scare me more than the expedition itself as it will be in January in the dark and in extremely low temperatures....this is to ensure that by the time the expedition comes round Jim is confident that we know what we are letting ourselves in for.....the benefit i guess is that at least for most of the expedition it will be daylight as i think the dark will massively effect my morale.

It's funny to chat to people about how the training is going - you assume that when training this hard you should be losing weight and becoming a shadow of your former self however, we've all been asked to try and put on weight before we go so the concept of training and getting fatter is an odd one! We will be burning approximately 8000 calories a day and although you will be eating high energy foods (approx 5000-6000 caloreis a day) the deficit means that weight loss is fairly dramatic on expedition.

Right time for a trip to the gym........