MY FUNDRAISING PAGE IS ONLINE NOW!!

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AndyInTheArctic

MY 1ST ARCTIC CROSSING for MARIE CURIE CANCER CARE, MIND & AGE UK

The 3 charities I will be raising money for are now finalised - Thank you to everyone who had input and voted on the 3rd charity to be included.  The charities are Marie Curie Cancer Care, Mind & Age UK, who will receive 50%, 30% and 20% respectively.

I have set myself an ambitious fundraising target of £3500.  It took some thought, but I am happy that this amount is proportionate to the challenge ahead of me and I hope that you will share that view.  Anything you may be able to contribute to help make this trip a success and for me to reach this target would be so gratefully received.  As daunted as I am by the ice cap crossing I am even more daunted by reaching this fundraising target, but in the spirit of this whole event I figured I should aim high and see where it takes me.

My fundraising page is here - http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/AndyInTheArctic

Virgin Money Giving allows most common methods of payment including Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, American Express, Solo and PayPal.  To make a donation through their page takes just minutes and affords you all the secure protection you would expect from such a reputable company.  Donations from overseas are welcome.  Anyone who prefers to sponsor me 'offline' can contact me directly and I can make arrangements for that and just update my site to reflect the offline donations.  Any potential donors looking for further information can find it here.

Now the charities are set I have no more excuses and can get underway on reaching the target.  In my head, it also allows me to move on to the small matter of training.  That is, really getting the hours and weight of tyre pulling up (look out Swinley Forest!).  Then there is the cross country skiing to pick up (never been on skis before), familiarising myself with the weapons we'll need to carry (to guard against polar bears), getting navigational stuff down, getting ALL of the kit I need, reading everything I can about similar expeditions (so I have a slight insight to what is ahead) and many other things.  A few of these things I have started where I've been able to, and my expeditionary partner is putting all appropriate plans in place for everything else.  I will be blogging all significant progress in terms of kit arrival, training and also my mental state as this challenge builds.

Thanks all for reading and, again, for all and any support you provide.  It's gonna be a hell of a journey and it would be nice to have you along for the ride! :)

Andy Norman.

2nd tyre pulling session - Heavy and hard

So previously I blogged that I wondered why more people didn't do tyre pulling as a general training exercise.  Well, I can tell you why they wouldn't do heavy tyre pulling:  IT'S HARD!

Despite thinking I would maintain the small weight for my second session and increase the time to 2 hours I opted to up the weight and attempt 2 hours anyway!  So this time I went out with 3 tyres dragging behind me, providing a weight of 50kg.  I started on a stretch of firetrack which had about 5 slopes (well you could barely call them hills, but they felt like mountains!).  Some of them steeper than others, all of them increasing the intensity to an incredibly high level.  I did one out and in lap with the 50kg and had to drop two tyres for the second leg, I was operating at the very peak of my capacity.  However, 10 metres in and my friend (who had joined me for some fitness and was pulling 15kg with two tyres herself) decided that she should have dropped one too.  So I had to take one off her and I was back up to two tyres, though only with a weight of 20kg this time.  This reduced load made all the difference and I whizzed up and back again the second time.

Unfortunately, we only lasted an hour this time and both decided we should call it a night as we'd gone too heavy to early.  The nights are getting colder and it would have been a typical time to pull a muscle or similar had I pushed it through to another hour.  Time for some rest, rehydration and some recovery provided my Maximuscle!

Next time: 2 hours, 30kg!!  I shall report back.

TYRE PULLING in Swinley Forest

HAVING JUST RETURNED FROM MY FIRST TYRE PULLING SESSION I AM WONDERING WHY MORE PEOPLE DON'T JUST DO THIS FOR FUN!  What a fantastic way to get a full body workout.  At least it would be if I had some ski poles to aid me in order to bring the arms and shoulders into play (something to scour ebay for shortly).

For those who may not know tyre pulling seems to be the staple training for Arctic expeditioners.  It apparently mimics closely the motion of pulling your pulk (which is the Scandinavian sled I will be pulling with my equipment on).  The recommendation is that you can pull up to 1.5x your bodyweight.  I am currently 95KG and my body weight is rising so I could potentially pull over 150KG, though I think we are aiming to pull no more 120KG each.

I picked a selection of old tyres up from Bracknell Tyre & Battery.  Most tyre places will be greatful for you taking their rubbish away, though you may want to just check with them first prior to helping yourself!

I don't have a harness at the moment but fortunately I had an old metal cable lying around which served as an easy way to secure the tyres to me.  Firstly I just tied the tyres together at one end, then the other end to me.  In order to spread the load a bit I wore an old rucksack and tied the cable to that.  This worked perfectly well for me and I was please to have a free rig ready for use now so I can start getting some time pulling under my belt and begin to progress the weight.

Onto weight, I began with two tyres weighing just under 30KG.  I was thinking that would probably be very light but as much as I dare test my makeshift harness with.  As it turns out I think the harness is capable of carrying plenty more - at least until I can get a proper harness - and the weight was plenty for my first time!  I ended up walking the firetrack in my local forest.  By the time I got out it was 8pm and pitch black (ah the great British summer months!).  My good friend offered to walk with me this first time out and the company was appreciated though I will soon have to get used to being alone in the forest in the dark, cold winter months as the training hours required increase.  It is fairly strange (dare I say scary) being in the forest, not only alone when it is dark but also when you are pulling a weight behind you which makes loads of noise and alerts everyone to your presence - who knows what's lurking in the trees, especially as the forest I train in contains the notorious high security broadmoor psychiatric hospital! :)

We ended up walking for 45 minutes taking in a long slope up to begin and a short sharp climb midway through.  The steeper pitch certainly got my heart rate up and I the sweat was pouring off me - which could potentially be a problem in the Arctic - but it was a very enjoyable bit of training and I look forward to getting out again very soon.

The next time out will be for a length of time - probably 2 hours, just to allow the body to start familiarising itself with it, probably with the same weight.  I would like to think that very shortly after that I will begin targeting specific distances and with double the weight, all the time keeping in mind a rough target of pulling 120kg for 40km a day when in the Arctic.

I am now going to rehydrate, refuel and rest all the time whilst musing a world where more people really do tyre pull as a means of training.  I imagine a Dickensian style Christmas scene where instead of lots of people ice skating they are all tyre pulling.  What a great way to train!