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Dear Friend…

This is a blog to some of my friends and family, to tell you about my huge challenge, to be run April 2007, of the 350-mile foot-race to the North Pole, hauling a 150-pound sled with all my provisions. The website is www.PolarRace.com.

Firstly, if you wish to not receive the occasional email I will send to update you on this adventure, I completely understand that it may well be far more interesting to me than to you. So, please reply requesting that I no longer send to you. And, that is totally OK. Or else just hit DELETE.

But, if you are interested, I’ll keep my future messages brief and hopefully interesting. This email, though hopefully interesting, is longer than the intended norm, in order to give you a broad base of information about the whole experience.

MY PURPOSE…
The most important question is WHY? My sweet girlfriend Marilyn asked me to have this race make a difference in some important way, in addition to just being an athletic challenge for me. I am very grateful for her guidance and have definitely realized why I am doing it. Though I am not supporting a charity, I do have a somewhat altruistic motive and that is being a model for others. As the “mentor” of the Monthly Mentor program, with members around the world, I feel the requirement to lead the way, to show that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary results with the right frame of mind, the right education, the right training, the right support. Hopefully the example of my doing what I love may inspire others to solve their issues and change the ills of their lives. Hopefully. That is a big aim of this adventure for me. On a more personal note, I am doing it because I love outrageous challenges, and to stay fit, and to have as much fun this lifetime as I can squeeze in.

MY TRAINING…
About five days a week, I either work out in the gym with my trainer focusing on upper body strength, flexibility and core, or else I am alone in the stairway of my condo or a hotel going up and down and up and down. My minimum stairclimbing exercise now is walking a total of 200 storeys up and then running all the way back down, which takes 70 minutes on a really good day, more usually closer to 75 minutes. My longest is 300 flights in 135 minutes. I just got the official race-approved harness so I am going to use it and get used to it by walking with my poles, hauling tires for a few hours as often each week as I can.

THE TEAMS…
The race organizer, Sir Jock Wishart, has teamed me with with a wonderful Brit, Roddy Caxton-Spencer. I met him for the first time this weekend in England. He proposed a team name: The Bear Necessities. I vetoed it because I do not want to tempt the gods by making light of polar bears. So, we accepted his second choice: The Pole Dancers. There are 15 competitors, in 6 teams. Three teams have 3 participants each and 3 teams have 2 participants each. Each team is a motley crew. One team has a giant totally-fit gorgeous muscle-bound beer-guzzling life-of-the-party young firefighter teamed with a quite-frail older man. Our team is two entrepreneurially successful type A characters. Another team is comprised of friends of mine who did another one of Sir Jock’s crazy adventures, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean. And, there is an all-female team of two young women. Though we are separate people and though we are separate teams, the race rules are strict that we must operate in the best interests of the safety of every individual. So we are really friendly competitors. Each person wants to win. Each team wants to win. Superimposed over that is our total dedication to the health and safety of every one of the crazies who have chosen to follow this strange path.

THE DANGERS …
Foremost danger is the cold which translates into hypothermia or frostbite. To prevent this, we have special clothing and we stand in front of our teammates very often each day to check for telltale signs and also hunt for exposed skin.

Another danger is human stupidity. For example, our leader, in a previous Arctic trip, in a momentary breach of concentration, in a rush to get something done urgently, put a small carabiner in his mouth to hold for a second. It froze to his lips that second.

A third danger, counterintuitively, is the sun. It is so severe in the High Arctic that we must NEVER be outside our tent without protective wrap-around dark glasses … not even for seconds. We must use sunblock everywhere, especially up our noses because reflection of the sun off the snow causes sunburn inside nostrils. Who knew?

The High Arctic is a desert in terms of almost-zero humidity. So dehydration is an issue. We must drink 16 glasses of water a day. We are prohibited from leaving our tent in the morning without having boiled sufficient water for the day. And, we are prohibited from going to sleep at night unless all our water is consumed.

Polar bears are another danger. The bad news is that they do not warn; they just attack. The good news is that they rarely attack. And, we are getting lots of polar bear attack prevention training. And, we carry a shotgun. Last race, a polar bear attacked a tent at night, which is rare, and the team was forced to shoot the bear through the tent.

As we are traversing uneven ice, there is the danger of injury in the form of broken bones or injured muscles. The best prevention is lots of training and lots of awareness and traveling only when we are alert. Also, one member of each team must take a First Aid course and I have volunteered.

On a more ordinary note, another danger is just getting ill, like could happen at any time to anyone. Prevention comes in the form of a well-equipped first aid kit, a satellite phone and the requirement to have a full medical and a full dental check-up shortly before departure.

THE THRILL …
I am totally moved by the love with which the leaders refer to their experiences in the High Arctic. They speak in such glowing terms of the beauty, the totally unusual sights, the exquisite isolation and quiet, the grace of polar bears romping along in the distance, the thrill of preparing for and then thriving in such an extreme environment, the exhilaration of achieving an athletic challenge that so few have ever experienced. I am keen to experience these thrills.

THE STATISTICS …
Though I will be going to the North Pole, there is a wonderful stat that relates to the other side of the world … More people have actually stood on the moon than have even attempted to traverse Antarctica. 1,600 people have stood atop Mt. Everest. Thousands of people have broken the 4-minute mile. Amazingly, over 100 people have rowed an Ocean. But, fewer than 100 have ever reached a Pole, either Pole, under their own steam. I intend to be one.

THE END …
In the end, I intend to stand on the top of the world, with my teammate and all fellow competitors beside me, every one of us in full health and safety. I intend to use this adventure to inspire others, mostly fellow Monthly Mentor members, but also others in ways as yet unknown. I intend this adventure to heighten the intensity of my relationship with my dear Marilyn, my wonderful daughters, my dear friends, my dedicated staff, and my loyal clients. I intend to learn about myself, to push myself to places that I had not imagined I could go. I intend to come back with a deeper sense of the godliness of our planet. But, all this high talk is just talk until I actually have that experience.

Love,

Raymond

“Bite off more than you can chew, then chew like crazy !”

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