http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=955Y3NJTRIE

We can see from this the quips vs. substance argument Biden will likely take.

via PopTech.

John took something from that day and, to abuse a pun, he ran with it. On September 7th at 6am, John will zip up his wetsuit and enter the water for his first ironman triathlon. He will swim 2.4 miles, cycle 112 miles and then run 26.2 miles, a marathon. For someone who, two years ago, couldn’t run to the end of his block just getting to this stage is an awesome achievement. He will feel very different when he crosses the finish line.

When John ran the marathon he broke the record for money raised for the Brain Research Trust, with ten days to go he has already raised £7,300 and is aiming for £10,000. John is going to go through 13 hours of pain to show his support for people going through brain tumours, the least we can do is click on a link; please sponsor him now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uephBmkupvQ

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5784740380335567758

Professor Randy Pausch  was three months and 12 days into his three-to-six months of good health left after Doctors diagnosed him with Pancreatic Cancer. This incredibly useful talk is made all the more poignant by the fact that this is a man who truly knows what it means to have limited time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXuzy0k9mZQ

Footage from the yacht race I was a part of in 2000 has made its way on to youtube. Marvel at our death-defying feats, and see if you can catch the blink-and-you’ll miss it footage of me cowering below decks under my duvet with my teddybear firmly in my grip.

The cold took no prisoners this year, and the toes of Rosie’s left foot were hit the worst as they froze, thawed, refroze, rethawed and frostbite took hold. As the temperature crawled up through the –40s and into the more temperate –30s, the sun became a fixture in the sky, no longer rising or setting but simply circling Rosie as she pressed north. However, the sun became a fleeting visitor as the rising temperatures brought burnished clouds each staking a claim to their piece of the horizon before enveloping the world completely in a deathly white.

As the clouds fell, Rosie’s senses became almost redundant. What use are ears when there is nothing to hear, what use eyes when all around you is white, what use touch when its only function is to remind you of the pain in your feet? There is no up, no down, no far away, no close up, no sky, no ground, just white and the dead weight of your sledge behind you as your only comfort against complete isolation.

At least as Rosie hauled, climbed, pushed, pulled, levered, smashed and at times dug her way north, the ice conditions began to improve. Then came the storms. Whipping across the Arctic, the snow was coerced into vortices around Rosie, burrowing into every crevice as the wind fashioned the encircling ridges into sails taking her east and south, away from her desired route and course.

The storms were not finished there. The flat pans of ice, already weakened by a mild winter, were pulverised into rubble. Some remained firm beneath and merely presented a challenge of agility and fitness, others hid the black water below and invited falls through and wet clothing that began to stiffen with ice. Rosie’s highways to the pole were gone.

Whilst the whiteout remained, the temperature began to rise yet further and suddenly Rosie was having to negotiate a spaghetti junction of open leads, sometimes swimming across in her stiff orange immersion suit, smashing the thin layer of ice on top with her elbows as she went, sometimes leaping from island to island as they drifted past, praying that she would be fast enough to bring her sledge along with her. Several times Rosie fell in and with the water leaching the life from her, had to clamber up the sheer walls of ice to relative safety with only minutes to act before any action became pointless.

Rosie fought her way north, never giving up, never losing heart or her sense of humour. On the 85th day, less than ninety miles from the Pole, the pilots due to resupply her for the final push took one look at the ice ahead and knew that this would be the last day it would be safe to land on the ice. If Rosie ever wanted to come home, she would have to do so now. Bundled into the back of the plane crushed between the fuel drums and her battered sledge, Rosie flew over the pole that had been her one dream for so many years and turned south for home.

Rosie didn’t reach the North Pole. She cannot claim the record of being the first woman to reach the North Pole solo, but she took away a greater prize. Those who embark on expeditions merely to collect baubles, to boast of records achieved and to stand at dinner parties with puffed out chests retelling their suitably embellished stories will never truly understand that the true prize is the journey itself not the destination and the record that counts is the record of your days, your decisions and your determination, not the record stamped into the appendices of little-read books.

Before Rosie, no solo woman had lasted more than five days and a handful of miles on the Arctic ocean, Rosie trekked more than 300 nautical miles and spent 85 days alone among the ice. She recorded a furthest north for a solo woman and no longer can it be intimated that this journey, this challenge is beyond the capabilities of women. Nansen and Shackleton were both proud to claim furthest north and south respectively, and like these two greatest of men Rosie has shown the way, she has shown that the prize can be reached. Rosie may not ever become the first woman to reach the North Pole solo, but one day one woman will and it will be in part because of Rosie.

It seems my birthday fell just a little too early to take advantage of this.

The last six years of my life have been so singlemindedly focused on the poles, so caught up with snow, cold and ice that I sometimes manage to forget that there is a polar opposite to this world. Recently I was lucky enough to head briefly down to Naples, Florida where i met some incredible and inspirational people. I experienced the boundless enthusiasm and vigour of true entrepreneurs and enjoyed my first taste of southern hospitality, both exceeded every expectation.

But sometimes it is the simplest of things that take your breath away and for me that came when I walked down to the beach, took off my shoes and felt the sand beneath my feet for the first time in almost six years. Seabirds were whirling and diving; a group of friends threw horseshoes and two men stood with the lines of their fishing rods stretching out into the dappled sea. I asked them what they were fishing for and they cheerfully replied ’shark!’.

In my normal travels, the sun setting and rising is a rare and ponderous occasion, but here the sun set so fast that I, engrossed in the conversation of my friend, almost missed its fall; as if it too could not resist the call of the water it illuminated. It made me long for the sea and old friends.

For now though, the Arctic has resumed its call upon me and as I do my best to help Rosie reach the North Pole I study weather forecasts and satellite images to track and forecast the Arctic’s mood and intentions. Today’s infra-red was a beauty and seemed an admirable counterpoint to the picture above. A high pressure zone is currently keeping the skies clear over the pole, though it is also pressing down upon the ice. One can see widening leads beginning to make their presence felt to the west as the season pushes towards summer, while in the south-east a particularly nasty storm boils furiously. I hope that neither come to affect Rosie before she reaches her goal.

It was incredibly lucky that they caught it (my cousin was not so lucky and died from a brain tumour a short while ago) but, unsurprisingly, the act of scooping out a chunk of John’s brain had a major effect upon him. Whole chunks of his memory were gone (except strangely for the lyrics of eighties music for which he has a now encyclopaedic memory), he had problems with his short-term memory and his short-circuited brain chemistry gave him severe depression.

I shared a flat with some close friends of John and he came to live with us in Kentish Town. Things seemed to be going well, though at times I would come down the stairs to hear John crying in his room. Shortly afterwards I went off on an expedition to Greenland, and when I returned John had gone. He had taken himself down to Beachy Head and prepared to jump off and kill himself. Luckily the police found him and John was strong enough to tell them that he needed help.

John was taken away and placed in a mental health institute, sharing his ward with people whose mental difficulties at time dwarfed his own. We would get the occasional phone call from John, and it was on one of these that he told us he would shortly be on day release and able to come and see us.

Sitting in our conservatory, John talked about his depression and in some ways it seemed very much linked to not being able to see a future. Acting did not seem to be a viable option anymore and John could not visualise anything else. What was the point in living if you had nothing to live for? Now, Ben and I talk a lot about the importance of goal-setting in life and attempting to do that which you are not sure you can do. I wondered if this might help John, so sitting there I said “John we have six months, next April you are going to run the London marathon”. John pointed out that I was the crazy one, he had never run before and got out of breath walking down the street. At which point I lent him some running trainers and told him we were heading out in ten minutes.

I beasted John on that run, I took him up the steepest longest hills in the area, at times running behind him and pushing him along. So many times John told me that he couldn’t carry on and I would ignore him, and somehow he found it in him to continue. He didn’t stop that day and by the time we reached home again he had run ten miles: ten more than he had ever run before. It wasn’t a traditional way to begin a training campaign and ran a real risk of turning John off running for life, but I wanted to show him that, even then, he was capable of far more than he thought. Just because he couldn’t see it did not mean he couldn’t do it. By the end of that day, he believed that with the right training there was a marathon in him.

The next time we went running, I strapped a heart rate monitor on John and didn’t let him break 160 beats per minute; he spent a fair amount of time walking but this time enjoyed the run. From then on John began to run more and more, mixing up sprints, long slow sessions and medium pace runs. Each day he would gain in confidence and I enjoyed the amazement in his voice when he would talk about the ease with which he took on hills that had nearly broken him on that first day. He moved out of the ward and found his own place, near enough to the park that he could continue his training.

Yesterday, John stood at the startline of the London marathon, wearing a pink polystyrene brain helmet and his runners number. Under the hottest conditions ever recorded for the London marathon, John made the 26.2 miles in four hours and 49 minutes, never stopping or walking once. I don’t think I’ve ever been so proud of someone as I was of John yesterday.

John raised £5,000 for the Brain Research Trust and is not stopping there. We’ve begun talking about how we might run across the continental US in the near future and I am also trying to persuade him that an Ironman might be a good training session to put in. After all if he can come from nowhere to run a marathon, what is there out there that he can’t achieve if he puts his mind to it.

Thanks John, yesterday you made my day.