My 100th post - New scenery, old jokes, Eddie the Eagle & the auction begins

With a little over 5 weeks to go, I now know what my last 4 blog entries will be before I head to the Pole.

a) There will probably be one after this coming Friday which could prove to be quite an eventful and emotional day given it's the service for Peter Huntley. I then need to drive from Preston to Middlesborough, via Salford, to get to a soiree organised for me by my friend Jane, to talk about my challenge to some potentially interested individuals.I think the key word is 'potentially'.

b) There will be an entry after my training week in Norway (and Jonny Brown has said there'll be the chance of another article updating readers of the Yorkshire Evening Post too). Speaking of which The Victoria Quarter sneaked in a little article about their support back in February that I didn't know about.

Article in VQ News (also featured in Yorkshire Evening Post)

c) One after the Yorkshire Mafia Conference in late March and ...

d) The fourth one should be a few thoughts from me just before I leave for Heathrow. I expect it to detail JUST how nervous I'm feeling as the reality of imminently heading to one of the most inhospitable places on earth sends me running to the loo (but you didn't really need to know THAT much detail did you).

No doubt there will be a couple once I'm back too, but this blog entry, my 100th, is about the weekend just gone.

It began as all normal weekends do, on a Friday evening. I had chosen not to train on Friday as I had a searing pain down my left knee cap on Thursday morning, whenever I walked down stairs. I arrived home from work to find a large sled-shaped parcel and a large boot box dumped in the middle of my lounge. My polar gear had arrived.


On a stylish rug in my lounge; no the whole floor isn't that colour (see photo of my foot further down)

After saying hello to the girls and having some food, I sat down and watched a DVD ('Real Steel' if you must know) determined to deal with the packages over Saturday and Sunday but, at midnight, I decided rather than go to bed I just HAD to try on the boots (given it was the easist of the packages to open and easiest item to try on). They seemed HUGE ... simply HUGE and yet lightweight too thankfully.

Not sure this really demonstrates their size against my foot (nice wooden flooring though, not a red rug/carpet)

Not sure it looks that big against Lauren's either (she's sat on my Mum's carpet; what can I say, she's almost 80 and quite traditional in her tastes ... my Mum, not Lauren. Hmm bit of a 'flooring' theme going on here I think)

And so I went to bed in the quiet satisfaction that the footwear fitted beautifully and I looked forward to checking the rest of the kit. I also knew I had to try the camping stove Andrew from work let me borrow, to practise with before I look a complete chump in Norway. Oh dear (#fail).

Saturday afternoon I set up the equipment on my 'picnic table' with the umbrella acting as the tent roof (Andrew had confirmed what Geoff Somers (the Trek lead) had told us; you could burn the tent down if you're not VERY careful). The good news is I didn't burn a hole in the umbrella and I 'made fire' four times!

The bad news is, the four fires were actually on the picnic table after the safety valve on the fluid bottle kept letting some out and not ONCE did I get the camping stove to work. After that I gave up and as I'd been to the gym for a PT session that morning, that was it for all things 'polar' that day.

It's strange but after such a massive prep and build-up, my mind is the most fatigued thing of all. It's as if once I'd concluded the #ontheflag opportunity, my mind just said "Enough for now. Think of something else", but that's easier said than done though and so, with a tyre drag to come in the afternoon on Sunday, I got up and decided to unpack all my gear to check it against the shipping list.

Within minutes it was obvious that I was a pair of gloves and a hat short (as they'd only packed four, yes FOUR different types of gloves and four different hats/balaclava's) . The 'tent socks' were there though and felt like baggy Ugg boots!.

Just the hats, gloves and 'tent boots' here with two sleeping 'mattresses' stood behind

Of course the gloves will be handy to stop my fingers going bad with frost-bite. Actually that brings me onto this weeks random photo; a shot of Tesco's Finest sausages. Is it just me or does the photo make it look like the butcher has deformed fingers in some wrapping?

I can see the newspaper headline now; "Tesco pay rates appalling; workers sell their own fingers to make ends 'meat'".

Now where was I; oh yes, the polar clothing. So after 6 pairs of leggings, 6 tops of varying 'weights', 4 jackets, two windproof sallopettes, 5 pairs of normal polar socks, 4 pairs of boot liners, 3 waterproof storage bags, 2 one-litre flasks and a partridge in a pear tree, I finally got to the BIG jacket; the quilt with sleeves and a TOG factor of 97!!

The hugeness of the coat was unbelievable and it felt so warm that after just 3 minutes with it on (unfastened) I was feeling light-headed and a little queasy. Either I have NO idea how cold it will be at the Pole or this is a very worst-case scenario jacket where it's death by freezing or toastie warm survival.

Once all the clothing was checked to ensure it would fit, it was time to head off for a few hours tyre-dragging with the 17kg tyre. Instead of Rothwell Park I decided that Temple Newsam Park had a lot of slopes and some rough tracks through the woodland areas. A new 'gate of hell' awaited.

It looks so flat and welcoming at first.

I did intend to take a few photos on my journey but I found the first 30 minutes increasingly difficult I forgot until I got to the top of this gentle nagging slope .......

I've made this photo extra-large so you can almost make out the people at the bottom of the hill

It was whilst I was slogging up this hill I made a startling discovery. I'd noticed before that when I was in-the-zone huffing and puffing up a long slope I've find myself humming the theme tune to The Addams Family in my head, or even quietly shh-whistling it. It was then that I recalled my Dad would do such things and I've only just realised it wasn't him being jolly or annoying or finding things fun, but it was his way of dealing with physical demands placed on him.

I smiled as I remembered the day before, when we went to visit my Mum, I took a photograph of a photograph she has stood on the upright piano in her lounge (still tempted to write "... in their lounge").

After resting at the top of the slope I happily and easily continued with the 5-mile drag, no longer shh-whistling the theme tune as I suddenly felt self-conscious, but finding the slopes and tracks not only easier but also enjoyable.

I think I've mentioned before that it's as if the first 30 minutes is the hardest as the pipes and cobwebs need to clear away. After that it's just general fatigue that starts to emerge after about 6 miles usually.

It was a wee bit warm Sunday afternoon and I would have done a third and maybe even a fourth circuit had I not run out of time, but it was time to set off to take Becky and her boyfriend to the airport (he's returning to Canada to live and she flies out in 4 weeks to join him).

What I did notice about 'dragging' around Temple Newsam is that there are so many more people there than when I drag around Rothwell Park and quite a few of them asked me what I was training for. I even had 4 people take a copy of the business card that Rushfirth Creative designed for me.

So many lovely people although the downside was it was the first time they had had the opportunity to shout out the usual jokes: -

"Hey mate you've got a tyre attached to you" - wow, creative

"Can I sit in it? I'll add a bit of weight" - err join the queue & I have videos in earlier entries to prove it

"Lost your car mate?"/"Have you got a flat?"/"Is the tread on that legal?" - hang on, that last bit actually MIGHT be original .... err ... oh no sorry, my mistake; it's the 97th time I've heard that joke.

I must say though that apart from the 9-year old girl who kept saying "Ty.... urrrr" every 25 yards (so tempted to jam her inside it and roll in down a hill towards the lake), everyone else who spoke to me, even if only to say a bemused 'hello', were really really nice. I'll definitely be back there several times before I leave for the Pole.

NOTE TO READER: -

The above was written yesterday evening, before I went to bed and subsequently woke up with a splitting headache at 4am. I'm now completing this entry before I go listen to an absolute British folk-hero ... but more of that at the end. Next up? A brief intro to my fundraising auction.

Between now and 23rd March I'll be running an auction, primarily via Twitter but also via my 'northpoletrek' email address (ask me if you want the details sending; I just don't want to publish it on here for fear of SPAMBOTS grabbing it and abusing it).

From this week onwards I'll be publishing details of the items that are in the auction, so keep your eyes peeled on here and via my Twitter account (@northpoletrek). How it works is you bid a price, the highest price (but not the bidder's name) is posted every weekend until midnight on the 23rd March. At that point the bids will close and the winners will receive their items.

Items so far include: -

1. A limited edition YCCC signed top, created for a special Roses cricket match to support MacMillan Cancer Support (donated by YCCC on behalf of MacMillan Cancer Support). Bidding starts at £50
2. One of the 2 signed Gray Nicholls cricket bats (donated by YCCC with funds going to MacMillan Cancer Support). Bidding starts at £25 for each bat

A 1.75 litre bottle of Belvedere vodka. The internet has this item at £100 but we'll start the bidding from £50
(Item donated by Charity Angels; funds received to go to MacMillan Cancer Support)

There are also 4 excellent prizes coming from the Candlelighters Trust, a VIP 'celebrity package' from Run For All events (part of the Jane Tomlinson Appeal series of activities), Karen Asemper has offered an hour of her excellent coaching amongst a whole host of prizes. Watch this space and, if you're interested, you can start bidding on the items above right now via my Twitter account (@northpoletrek if you've forgotten it already) or ask me for my email address if you don't do Twitter.

I LOVE doing this stuff and it makes me feel liberated (even though this final addition to the blog has taken me over 2 hours today). What has added to the excitement today is that in exactly 9 minutes, a true hero of the British public will be on Liz Green's One to One (BBC Radio Leeds) - someone who if you were around and interested in the 1988 Winter Olympics, stood equal in legend to the Jamacian bobsled team. It is ..... Eddie 'the eagle' Edwards.

See below for an extract of the Wikipedia background to a self-funded Olympian who made the world sit up and take notice. Oh how amazing that is looking back. See you next weekend folks.

Edwards was born in Cheltenham, England. A good downhill skier, he narrowly missed out on the GB team for that event for the 1984 Games. To improve his chances to qualify for 1988, he moved to Lake Placid in the US to train and enter races of a higher standard; however, he soon found himself short on funds. To realize his Olympic dream he decided to switch to ski jumping for reasons of cost and easier qualification

with no other competing British ski jumpers.^[4]

Eddie began jumping under the watchful eye of Chuck Berghorn in Lake Placid, NY, using his equipment though he had to wear six layers of socks to make the boots fit. Edwards was handicapped by his weight—at about 82 kg (181 lb), more than 9 kg (20 lb) heavier than the next heaviest competitor—and by his lack of financial support for training—he was totally self-funded.

Another problem was that he was very farsighted, requiring him to wear his glasses at all times, even though when skiing they fogged to such an extent that he could not see. Eddie was informed of his qualification for the Games whilst working as a plasterer and residing temporarily in a Finnish mental hospital due to lack of funds for alternative accommodation (rather than as a patient).^[5]

Edwards first represented Great Britain at the 1987 World Championships, and was ranked 55th in the world and this performance qualified him, as the sole British applicant, for the 1988 Winter Olympics ski jumping competition. Edwards was the best ski jumper in the United Kingdom, setting a British record of 73.5 m in one of his Calgary jumps in 1988.^[6]

1988 Olympics

Edwards finished last in both the 70m and 90m events. However, his lack of success endeared him to people all across the globe. The worse he did, the more popular he became.

He subsequently became a media celebrity and appeared on talk shows around the world, appearing on The Tonight Show during the Games. The press nicknamed him "Mr. Magoo", and one Italian journalist called him a "ski dropper".^[8]

The widespread attention that Edwards received in Calgary turned into a large embarrassment for the ski jumping establishment. Many athletes and officials felt that he was "making a mockery" of the sport^{[citation needed]}. Shortly after the Olympics finished, the entry requirements were greatly toughened, making it next to impossible for anyone to follow his example^{[citation needed]}.

[However] At the closing ceremony, the president of the Organizing Committee, Frank King, seemed to single out Edwards for his contribution: "At this Games, some competitors have won gold, some have broken records, and some of you have even soared like an eagle." ^[9]

Planned biopic

A film chronicling the life story of Edwards has been planned by Irish director Declan Lowney since 2007. Comedian Steve Coogan was originally slated for the title role.^[15] Edwards was said to be pleased with the choice but also joked that Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise would be better suited for the role.^[7] In 2009, Lowney announced that Rupert Grint would instead play the role. The film is scheduled to begin production once Grint has completed work on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 and Part 2.^[16]